Series 13/Chapter 10: TREACHERY

Justin and Evangeline and the Spell Book

As the evening shade began to descend over the Old House, Evangeline began to wonder just what would become of her. She had now been held captive, powerless, in the basement of the Old House with Justin for what seemed like forever. Time felt like it had stalled, she felt frozen in a place that she couldn't escape.

Her connection to Justin, or Leopold as he was calling himself to protect his identity, was strong. She did feel as if there was something inside of him that she could latch on to and be with forever. But she was confused. She wanted, and NEEDED, to get herself back on track and get back to Collinwood where her destiny awaited. It was essential for Evangeline to fulfill this task. She needed to await her father Barnabas. She knew he would return. She knew he would come back to the place he loved so much and when he arrived, she'd be there. Not as the baby tossed away to an orphanage but as a grown woman who needed answers, needed solace, and needed revenge.

Bust Justin, so in love and so tossed around by fate himself like a tiny boat in a wild sea, would not, and could not let her go.

Evangeline sat on a chair under a gas lantern that burned a blue and yellow flame just above her head that made her look as if she had a halo encircling her golden brown hair just as Leopold (Justin's alias) descended the stone staircase and returned into his dark layer under The Old House.

She stood up and took a deep breath, she was ready to tell him to release her. 

"I know what you're going to say, I know that you think you want to leave and get back to this silly mission of yours about your father but it cannot happen. We cannot be without each other." Justin said turning away from her and adjusting his shirt nervously. 

"Leopold. Look at me." Evangeline said using Justin’s fake name. 

He turned to her. "I know that in such a short time you and I have found a bond; a connection. I don't want you to think that I don't feel it too, but I can't just stay down here with you forever. It's not feasible. There are things I need to do out in the world. You can come with me!" 

"No! NO! We can't leave this place. It's not safe. I've been out there I've seen what happens to the likes of us. I want to keep you safe and down here, you're safe. With me you're safe." Justin replied never one giving up his real name.

Evangeline could see that there was no changing his mind. She turned and walked over to another chamber of the basement, the chamber that held Barnabas old Coffin that Justin had been sleeping in. Although the two were so connected and falling in love Evangeline could see that it would not last if they could not break free from each other even for a moment. She stared down at the coffin as Justin walked in behind her.

"You won't let him go will you?" He said.

"I have to be there when he comes back. I have so much unfinished business and emotions about what he did to my mother, and to me. That's why you have to let me go." Evangeline said as she ran her hand over the coffin's lid.

Justin thought for a second and with a stern face said only one word "No. I won’t. The Collins family thinks you’ve gone back to wherever you came from. They’re not even looking for you. You’re mission there...is over.” Justin replied in a cole voice. 

Evangeline was now getting frustrated. She felt cornered. Trapped. Love could not blossom in this environment. She knew that although there was a passionate connection between them... they were toxic together.

 If he continued to keep here locked away below in the Old House, hiding her like this, they would only self-destruct. They would be over before they could have had even a twinge of a chance to bloom.

"I don’t need them to know where I am or who I really am, Leopold, in truth they don’t matter. Only my father does.” She said.,

Justin scoffed. He didn’t believe her. He felt like she did. Something was taken from him too. All those years ago. Not a single day has gone by since his transformation that he didn’t want revenge on all who forgot him. He knew Evangeline wanted all of The Collins family to pay too...not just Barnabas. They were all connected. Her attempt to escape by downplaying her hate for her birth family was transparent at best. 

“They don’t care about you like I do. They never will. They never will.” Justin simmered.

She could she he was unrelenting. But then something dawned her on her. Something that was so obviously missing 

“Tell me, how did you take my powers away? How did you make it so that I couldn't fight you back?" Evangeline asked.

Justin turned away almost embarrass.

"I found a book." he replied softly. 

"A book? What kind of book?" She asked.

"Why are you questioning me? Why are you acting this way? We have found each other Evangeline? We have both gone through hell on earth over decades of time and somehow we have found each other. It seems like you're attempting to sabotage us before we have even had a chance to really flourish. I don't think I like that." Justin said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion of Evangeline's constant questions. 

"Was it a spell book? Was it my mother's spell book??? You used magic against me?" Evangeline asked starting to connect the dots.

Justin did not reply.

"You're already binding me. You're already doing what my father tried to do to my mother. You're just like him! I....I want to leave. I need to leave NOW!" Evangeline shouted as she lunged out of the coffin chamber and towards the stone staircase that lead to the upper level of the Old House. 

"YOU CAN'T!" Justin yelped as he grabbed Evangeline pulled her back around by her wrists locked in his hands. 

"This is not the way for us to start our journey together. If we even have a journey in the firer place. I can't live this way." Evangeline replied out of breath.

"You can't leave. You can never leave. We WILL have a journey, can you see? We were meant to be!” He replied, his gaze fixed in hers. 

"Help me then. Help me bring back my father with my mother's book. I need to see him and I need to end all the terror and pain that has been in my heart all my life. Please. Show me the book and help me conjure my father's spirit so that I can release him and then destroy him. It's the only way I can be free ...it's the only way WE can be free." Evangeline said to the now unsettling and unsteady Justin. 

 

Justin released one of her wrists. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what she really wanted or how he should proceed. He felt like his mind was going out of control and that everything he had dreamed of, a love, and life, a partner was slowly slipping out of his hands. He dragged Evangeline over to the large bed with a golden bedspread and giant Empire pillows with tiny tassels on the end that looked like they were from the palace of Versailles. 

He knelt down directly in front of her. She wasn't sure what he was going to do. Then he dipped his head just below her knees and pulled out Angelique Bouchard's black book of spells from under the bed.

Evangeline gasped. She had never seen it before. She could not believe he had found it. She ran her hands over the cover of the book and felt every nook and cranny of the black leather and the black dyed rope that bound it's pages. 

He allowed her to take hold of the book and she stood up and went over to the floor. She grabbed a black piece of cold from the dead fire in the fireplace and walked over to an open space on the floor. She drew a large circle and five cornered star in the center that touched the rim of the circle. 

She sat in the center of the star and  opened the book. She flicked through the pages and found the page she wanted first.

She read allowed the spell in Latin:

"Earch converti viribus ignis.....earch converti viriburs ignis..."

Justin, sat on the bed listening then realized what she was saying. She was betraying him. She was not attempting to bring in her father, she was attempting to return her powers to herself that he had taken from her weeks ago when he kidnapped her.

Justin leaped from the bed and knocked the book out of her hands. The book flew across the room and hit the wall and fell to the ground closing shut.

"WITCH!" Justin screamed, the word coming out his mouth like an obscenity. 

Evangeline sat still on the floor. Her eyes glowing. She smiled a cold and crooked smiled, like that cat that ate the canary. As she began to stand, a wind began to blow around her and lifting her from the ground. She was now floating, levitating, upright with her toes 2 inches from the 5 cornered star she drew on the floor in soot and opened her eyes to reveal they had turned totally white. 

She lifted her hands and Justin, seeing his love, the woman he had so quickly felt a connection to was attempting to remove herself from him. 

His own eyes shifted to black and his teeth grew into sharp spears ready to bite her, take her life. 

It was clear now that they could not trust each other. They didn't even know their own real names. The trust between a vampire and witch could never be true, love between a witch and a vampire could never ever flourish like those of two mortals. 

Justin, calling himself Leopold lunged at the witch Evangeline, calling herself Claudia. Both beings obsessed with one another, both beings thirsty for love and a connection. But both beings lost in a world of lies and self-destruction and sabotage because they could not see beyond their own misery. 

If Justin was successful in his attempt to bite her, One drop of her blood would kill them both. A witches blood was poison to a vampire, and a vampire's bite was like acid to the skin of a witch.

Evangeline could not allow herself to die. As the two struggled on the floor, fighting for life and death she came to terms with what she was faced with. A loose cannon. She turned back into her normal self and looked him in the eye.

"STOP! Please, Leopold, please stop!" She said trying to quell his anger so that neither of them died. 

Justin, panting, hissing with a crazed look in his eye came to his senses. 

"Claudia." He said, calling her by the adopted named she told him. 

"I'm sorry." she said, pretending.

He helped her up, feeling successful in taming her. But she, smarter than he thought was only biding her time.

"You will not do this again. Will you?" He asked.

To keep herself safe and alive, she shook her head no. Then with her foot dusted away the 5 pointed start. 

A small amount of her powers were returned to her in the short moment she held her mother's book. She knew that she still needed to escape him. But for now, she would rest the issue. Her life was much more important and her reunion with Barnabas, whenever it would be was too, much more important. 

Justin smiled at Evangeline. She did love him, she really did. But she knew that their relationship was like two sticks of dynamite burning in a room full of gun powder. It could not last. It would not last. No matter how connected they felt inside. 

She hugged him. He squeezed her body close.

But tomorrow she would escape him. Come hell or high-water. She would escape him, and never turned back. Her destiny underway and there was no place for Justin Patterson—or Leopold. 

****

David going insane 

At the mansion, David paced back and forth in his room. Back and forth. Back and forth. He was sweating. He was panting like a dog ravaging the desert for water. He couldn't make sense at what he had done to Noelle. He couldn't make sense of what was going on in his mind. It was like he had flashes of reality then suddenly they'd disappear and a madness filled his mind. His anger, deep and dark waves of it, would fill him up and it would become an outburst. 

All side-effects of the injections Kimberly was secretly filling him with. 

David felt manic. He couldn't contain himself and stood in the mirror of his room a sweaty and panicked mess.

"What am I doing? What is happening to me?" he said to himself.

Then his reflection looked back at him and spoke: "You're losing it kid. You're starting to see just how much of a monster you really are. Just like your dad always said,. Just like your dad always reminded you of." 

David didn't understand what he was seeing. Did he just say that to himself? Was he talking to himself or was his reflection another person in the room.

David looked around. He was soaking wet. Sweat. Stink. He felt horrible. The medicine Kimberly was using to drive him crazy was pulling at every fiber of his psyche and flipping it on him. It was his own mind attacking itself and bring up every fear and self-conscious thought he had ever had and showing it to him, driving him to a deep unyielding psychosis. 

"Don't you think its time you end this David? Don't you think that your father was right all along and that you're just a worthless piece of garbage? You know....I still think that pistol you used to kill Beau all those years ago is still in the drawer over there in the study. Why don't you go and find it, huh? Why don't you use it and blow...."

As David's mind continued to spiral out of control, little Caleb walked into the room. His bright blue eyes seemed to shine brighter at the site of his father whom he hadn't seen much of in the last few days.

"Daddy?" Caleb said, interrupting the malevolent mirror reflection and standing at the bedroom door.

David slowly turned to the door and looked at his boy. He rushed over to him and knelt down and grabbed the child by the shoulders.

"Oh Caleb....Caleb, Caleb! I need you to promise me something Ok? Can you promise me something??" David said as tears came flushing down his face.

"Daddy? Are you sick?" The boy asked. 

"I think so, son, I think so. Can you promise me that whatever happens to me that you will do whatever it takes to take care of yourself and never ever believe that you werent loved by me? Can you do that?" David asked.

"Daddy?" Caleb said not understanding the gravity of what was happening to his father.

"ANSWER ME!" David screamed.

Caleb screamed too. David looked a mess. The medication Kim had given him was eating away at his mind. Eating faster and faster as each dose was slowly taking hold of every cognitive part of his mind. He began to scream at Caleb. He began to scream and shake the boy who was confused and unsure of what his father was doing to him or why. 

The screaming, from both father and son, startled Carolyn who was in her room going over more paperwork with Web Garner, specifically paperwork that got her family off legally for any kind of wrongful death of Noelle. 

Both Web and Carolyn came rushing down the hall and burst into the room. 

"DAVID! What are you doing!??!" Carolyn screamed and pulled Caleb out of David's grip.

"Calm down, David, calm down!" Web said. 

David struggled in Web's grasp. The two men pushed and pulled at each other, David attempting to flee and Web attempting to hold him back from hurting anyone including himself.

"Let go of me! LET GO OF ME!" David shouted throwing a punch in Web's direction. 

Web pulled his head back missing David's fist by an inch; instinctively Web threw a punch back and landed it clear across David's chin causing him to bite his tongue. 

Bloody mouthed and losing his mind David fell to the floor.

Caleb screamed at the site of his father's bloody dripping mouth.

"GO!! GO!!" David said his mouth full of red liquid. 

"Jesus! I'm sorry. I just... I reacted." Web said reaching down to help David up.

"What happened?" Kimberly asked rushing as fast as her pregnant feet could bring her.

"David, he was shaking Caleb when we came in. They were screaming. I don't know what's going on with him. Come Caleb, come in the hall with me." Carolyn said trying to free the little boy of the horror of his father's deepening spiral into madness.

Web followed Carolyn into the hall as Kimberly went in and closed the door behind her.

"Give me a minute." She said just as the bedroom door closed.

"What the devil is happening with him? I've never seen David this way, I've never seen anyone this way." Web said.

"It's been a challenge Web, you can see now why he couldn't come to the Will reading. I don't know what's happening in this house. It's nothing new to be honest but...I don't know if I've ever seen it this bad. First the nanny runs off—spooked by Something only Caleb saw, then my mother, then Noelle. This house is ....” Carolyn stopped before the word cursed came out of her mouth.

“The nanny?” Web asked. 

“Caleb’s nanny. She ran off weeks ago. She just left. She saw something awful, frightening, and just left. We never heard from her again.” Carolyn assumed, not knowing she had been kidnapped and locked away in the basement of the old house all this time Carolyn’s own high school ex-boyfriend turner vampire. 

“And what about David...has this happened before? This kind of psychotic break I mean.” Web wondered. 

Carolyn was holding Caleb close to her. Hugging him tightly as David’s name came up. He looked away. 

Madness. Murder. Insanity. All of it. It had happened before. The family had always kept it secret from the lawyers. It was always just too much for anyone to admit. But now Webber had seen it for himself. 

"Carolyn? Say something? Has David always been this way?" Web pressed.

"No. No...but he's not the only one to go through something like this within the family, Web. Please...just don't jump to any conclusions ok? Don't jump to anything." Carolyn asked as the light from the crack in the closed bedroom door cast a long bright diagonal yellow light, like a golden divider down Carolyn's whole body.

Inside the bedroom managed to get David back into his bed. She patted a dry cloth over his forehead to soak up the sweat. She smiled, seeing that it was all working in her favor. David would soon be nothing more than a man consumed by the ghosts of his own insane mind and she would be free of him. Just like Victor and the Chancellor of the OTH wanted. 

Certainly, she thought, she would be rewarded by them. 

Kim then pulled out a needle from her pocket and injected David again. More drugs. Although with this injection she felt perhaps, she would lower the dosage. It was too powerful. And she was beginning to feel afraid of what it was doing to him. 

Then Kim exited the room and met Carolyn and Web in the hallway.

Caleb rushed to her side. She comforted him like a mother who was truly concerned, not like a mother who had been causing these issues.

"Kimberly, how is he?" Web asked.

"I've sedated him. He'll sleep now." She replied feigning the sad wife. 

"I'm so sorry this is happening. For all of you. Web replied, as he scratched his thick beard in a nervous tick. 

"Where did you get a sedative?" Carolyn asked in her usual suspicious tone.

"Carolyn, I may not be a doctor just yet but I do have some pull when it comes to getting help in medicines that will help my husband." Kim said with a grimace. "Now do you see what I'm talking about? He's losing his mind. Noelle is dead and he almost...well I don't want to think about what he was going to do to Caleb." She added. 

"Noelle's death is taken care of. The poor woman's family will get a sum of money. I've made sure that this..."  He paused to pull out the medicine examiner report. "was taken care of." He finished showing the medical examiner had ruled Noelle's death an accident. 

"Two deaths in the last week and a half. It's no wonder people run away from us when we walk into town." Carolyn scoffed. "Not to mention a missing Governess no one ever reported." She added.

"You know the rules." Web reminded her. "You set them up yourself. Loose lips sink ships." 

Carolyn rolled her eyes at Web throwing her own family's mantra back in her face about talking in public about the strange occurrences that happened in and around the people that lived on the land on Widow's Hill. Her family's bizarre attraction to the stranger, the beguiling and most often the deadly. 

"Thank you very much, Webber." Carolyn snarled. 

"What about David? What have you found is the issue?" Web asked brushing away Carolyn's annoyance and changing the subject. 

"We don't know for sure." Carolyn replied. 

"I think that we should rethink the idea of getting David help. I think that he doesn't seem to getting better here and I can't keep him sedated forever." 

"No." Carolyn replied sternly.

"Carolyn, if Kim has a way to get David help and its in his best interest why would you disagree?" Web asked. 

Carolyn turned to Kim who lifted an eyebrow waiting for her response. Carolyn, no matter what she did, was always the person who pulled the breaks when it came to sending anyone in the family to Windcliff. She knew how horrible it was when her mother was there. She new the things Julia Hoffman had done to several others who had gone there. Windcliff was Kim's end all. She wanted it. She wanted it bad for David. 

Carolyn turned and looked at little Caleb, terrified of what his father did to him. She thought of Noelle falling to her death. She thought of possible future dangers that could occur and most of all she thought of Caleb. Screaming. Terrified. Hurting.

"It has to be this way." Kim said in a hushed tone.

Carolyn closed her crystal blue eyes one more time. David was her closest relative. They were like brother and sister. They were the only two around that could really fully understand what was really happening in their lives and in their family. They were soul mates. Best friends. It killed her to allow this, but the truth was Kim was his wife. She could decide this for him no matter what.

"No, I just can't support this I just can't." Carolyn said as she reached for Caleb's hand took off down the hall back into her room where she needed to continue to look over the legal papers surrounding Noelle's death on the grounds of the mansion.  

Web looked over at Kim she smirked that sent a shiver up Web's spine. 

"Umm...I'll make sure we send funds to Windcliff for his care." the lawyer replied as he quickly made his way down the hall after Carolyn. 

Kimberly, still smirking evilly, peeked back into David's room where he was fast asleep. The smaller dosage of the drug make him tired. Her fears were quieted for the moment and she felt safer. 

The plan was working. 

****

In her small office on the second floor across from Caleb's bedroom, Kimberly sat alone. She wondered what was happening to David and why Victor wouldn't tell her what was in the vials he had given her. 

She looked at one of the empty glass cases and noticed the words "JENNINGS 1970" written on a small piece of tape.

Kim picked up the phone on her side table and dialed Victor's number. She had concerns on the drug she was administering to David. It was becoming too much for his own system. She wanted to know what it was--for her own sake.

"What is it?" Victor asked answering his phone. He knew who it would be. 

"Your drug is working. You should be very happy about it." Kim said looking at a framed wedding picture of her and David on her desk.

"Good. This is good, the chancellor will be happy to hear this." Victor replied.

"What is Jennings?" Kim asked straight out to Victor's surprise.

"There's really nothing you need to know about that. That's just a name." Victor said.

"But it means something. I'm looking at this vial right now, its one of the vials I've used to inject into David. So It means something. Is it the name of the manufacturer of this medication?" She asked. "What exactly is it doing to David?"

"Manufacturer? I guess you can see it that way, sure. It's not just a drug Kim. And as I told you before you have to keep administering it to David for it to work properly. Once it's all done, once you've used all the vials I have given you, you'll see exactly what the JENNINGS serum will do. It'll be glorious." Victor said.

"But what is it?" Kim demanded to know.

"Kimberly if you were meant to know the entire plan you would know. Now stop asking questions and keep doing your part." Victor said in frustration as he slammed the phone down on his lover.

Kim, worried, unsure of what she was doing, put her phone down. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. To her, she was doing what was best for her baby. She had to be. It was her only option.

She was in too deep. 

****

Windcliff Ambulance arrives for David

Later on that evening, over in Carolyn's room, she was sitting at her desk and read through papers as Caleb played on the floor with his teddy bear. She looked over at him and felt an immense sense of sadness for him. His father was crumbling under some new devastating mental issue. His mother, in Carolyn's opinion, was cunning and secretive. She watched him as he played clearly attempting to push his feelings away. 

She thought about how much she wanted to take care of him. How he would fit in perfectly with her in London. If she couldn't save David, she could save Caleb. In London, the fog there was safer. The darkness only came when the sun went down, but there were no monsters. She wanted to keep the little boy safe. But how could she? How could she do this with Kim's agreement?

Web walked back into the room and stood in front of her. His face was kind and friendly. He knew how hurt she was over seeing David the way he was. But the truth was, perhaps, Kim was right. David needed more help.

"You can't just let him alone like that Carolyn. He needs help. What if Kim is right? What if Windcliff is the best place for him?" Web asked as Carolyn scoffed and walked over to a chair facing Caleb was he played on her pristine white carpet. 

"I don't want to hear any more about it." Carolyn said sternly.

"Carolyn, you're going to have to face it. It's really not your decision anyway. I've been here all night working with you on all this stuff....and I can tell how bothered you are by all this. I can imagine, it's not pleasant. I mean Death...and people dying. It's ....its uncomfortable. But David can be saved. And if you're on board things would probably be much more easy to digest." Webber explained.

"You want me to just be happy that that woman is going to take my cousin to some mental hospital? Do you know what they do there? Have you seen the type of unscrupulous...." Carolyn began before being interrupted.

"Carolyn...." Webber began.

"WHAT? WHAT Web!" Carolyn was finally showing signs that she understood that she was about to lose David.  She had to. He needed to go. Kim was going to do it anyway. 

"Carolyn. Kim has already called them, they're here. David is leaving." Web said finally landing the blow that Windcliff had arrived to retrieve David. "I just thought you'd like to say goodbye to him, for now." Web explained.

"I can't. I just can't." Carolyn said as Caleb saw her breaking down and crawled up on her lap to cuddle her.

"Ok. I'll let them take him now. Try to keep calm ok?" He replied as he left the room.

Carolyn nodded. Caleb kept cuddling her.

Carolyn picked up his little body and paced her room. He kissed her on the cheek to try and calm her. She smirked and squeezed him tight. 

She walked over, Caleb in her arms, and looked out her window that looked down on the front lawn of the mansion. There, a white van parked outside opened up it's back door and a gurney with a sleepy David tied to it wrapped in a white sheet, was pushed into the back of the van.

Kim was out there. She watched the whole thing seeming to have no emotion what so ever.

"We'll take care of him. We'll make sure that he's protect, wont we, Caleb? Wont we?" Carolyn said as little Caleb nodded his head  yes not really knowing what she was talking about. "I won't forget about you David. I wont." Carolyn added.

The white van, swallowed up by thick black fog of the night and with it, David Collins. Gone from his home to the awaiting dark corners of the mental institution known as Windcliff Sanitarium. 

Series 13/Chapter 9: SECRETS IN THE WALLS

Collinwood at night 

Every star seemed to be lit up in the sky above Collinwood the night Lucas was finally going to do what he had only dreamed of doing. He walked along side a slender concrete walkway lined with large triangle shaped topiaries bushes that stood like soldiers guarding the servants entrance door. 

Lucas had longed to be in the world of the supernatural. He had literal dreams of cascading through the halls of Collinwood attempting to contact the other side, attempting to find and feel and understand the world of the dead that the Collins family had been rumored to be connected with. All this life, folklore and rumor that surrounded this stoic family had been like a ghost itself that haunted Lucas' mind.

To put it plainly, he was student scientist with an obsession. But not his boyfriend's link to the family via his birth mother Carolyn Stoddard-Thorne was pay-dirt.

At the servants' entrance now, Lucas pulled out the key Noelle had given him. It was a long a golden key the felt light in his hand. He held it up to the moon light and it reflected a shine on a large letter C engraved on it.

He slid the key into the locked and slowly turned it opening the door without a single problem. It was, again, feeling too good to be true.

Lucas then followed Noelle's instructions and walked through the various corridors and halls that led to room after room used by the hundreds of servants in Collinwood's history. Eventually these rooms lead to a side door that opened into the foyer, just as Noelle described.

In almost complete darkness, Lucas slowly walked up the dimly lit staircase that lead him past a large stainless window of a large seascape. The different colored blue and white glass that made up the ocean sparkled in Lucas' equally blue eyes. He smiled at the beauty of the art then followed his own advice and continued on his way into the main hallway that gave access to to the rest of the mansion.

The mansion was finally quiet. Everyone was asleep. There was an odd feeling that came over Lucas with the sense that even though he could tell that there was no movement, he was still not alone. A chill crossed the back of his neck, he turned around to see what would have done that, and nothing was there. 

Just an empty hallway. Even the paintings on the walls seemed to look down on him like they were pitting him for what he was about to get himself into---now and for the rest of his life. 

Lucas kept hearing Noelle's instructions of how to get to Roger Collin's old study. That is where she believed he would find the most important information and possible the answers they were both looking for. Roger was the bookkeeper of the house. Everything he had ever written down for the Cannery, for the lawyers, for the accountants that looked over his books, for Elizabeth, all of that was documented and saved in hundreds of books and binders kept on bookshelves in his old Study. The study that David taken possession of when his father died 10 years earlier.

Noelle's directions in the labyrinth of Collinwood were spot on. He found the darkened study and turned the knob. He entered and flashed his flashlight over to the desk and began his search. 

He went through drawers in the desk and in a large apothecary table that sat near the two huge windows that let in the gloomy blue moon light from outside. He then shifted his attention to the bookcase with all of Roger Collins' work from over the years. It seemed like a never ending task. There was so much to look through. So much paperwork. So many records.

As Lucas went though the books, a few papers that he had left on the desk suddenly lifted and fell to the ground. He looked over at the vacant spot on the desk where the papers were and furrowed his brow. Lucas flashed his flash light around the room. Just just an old study. He got up from the desk and went over to retrieve the papers from the floor and as he reached down the papers moved forward. 

Lucas reached for them again.

Again the two sheets of paper moved, all on their own, a bit forward. 

It was as if a strange and mysterious breeze was pulling the papers along. Lucas looked up and flashed his light over at the windows. They were closed. No breeze was pushing these papers across the floor.

Lucas reached down to pick them up again, and once again the papers fluttered across the floor in the opposite direction from which they came. 

Suddenly, they began to flutter even further, faster and all alone without Lucas reaching for then. The shuttered like leaves blowing in the wind and Lucas, nervously, followed. He ran up to them and slammed his foot on them so that they could no longer move. He picked them up and read what they were.

Just two old tax forms from 1967. 

But then, Lucas realized he was standing in front of a large painting of Roger Collins sitting in a chair with a glass of painted sherry gazing down in his typical Collins snobbish and New England sneer. The papers had fluttered all on their own pointing the way for Lucas to follow and find himself directly under the image of Roger, and Roger's painting was hung above a small table with a large potted plant and one little drawer with a four-leafed clover handle. 

Lucas looked at the drawer. Then up at the painting. Then back at the drawer.

"Well...that was subtle old man. Do you want me to open it?" Lucas asked Roger's painting believe that Roger somehow moved the papers.

Lucas, a believer in the supernatural and the world of the undead reached for the drawer to pull it open when suddenly it opened all by itself. 

Lucas's gasped and stood back. He couldn't believe what he had just seen. The papers were one thing but the whole drawer opening before his eyes seemed overtly haunted. He looked up at Roger and Roger's face had changed. He was now not just staring out in to the room he was looking down in the painting. Down at the open drawer. 

Lucas flashed his light into the drawer and there was a black leather bound book inside. He picked up the book and unwrapped the leather strap that kept it closed. He began to flip through the pagers and saw that it was Roger's private journal. 

Years and years of his most intimate thoughts and dreams. His most private expressions about his family, his life and everything in between. 

Lucas skipped over years and years of Roger's own words to find the dated entry around the time Beau disappeared. 

And there it was, almost too easy to be true, but it was. 

Roger's confession:

 "....the boy...theres something wrong with him. Sometimes I think it has something to do with his mother and how she left us. Laura wasn't a good mother. Laura...Laura had something wrong with her too. I love David but at the same time I feel like I hate him but I don't know if I hate him because of his mother's influence and sickness or because I just don't know how to love him the right way. It reminders me of how my father treated me and god---how I loathed him for it. Maybe David feels the same way about me. Last night my worst nightmare happened. I found David just standing in my study with Liz's gun over a dead man. A DEAD MAN. Its the most extreme and strange of all my horrific thoughts on what David could be capable of. But he's my son. And I couldn't let anything happen to him. 

I hid the body. These walls hold a lot of secrets. So they'll hold just one more. David is my son, like it or not. I won't allow him to be taken from me for killing that Ceilvert man. I won't."

At first Lucas wasn't sure what to make of the journal entry. It was sad. It was unfortunate. But was it true? Could it have been some sort of exaggeration....but it wasn't. It was all written in black and white in Roger's own handwriting. 

Then Lucas read the line "These walls hold a lot of secrets. So they'll hold just one more" once more and realized it could mean something quite literal about the mansion, specifically the study. Secrets in the walls.

Lucas placed the book down on the sofa in the center of the room and began searching for false walls in the room. His bare hands searched and searched every inch of all four walls of the study and just as the clock struck 3 in the morning he found it. A false wall the slid open as if it was doing it on it's own. Lucas stared at the opening, the blackness inside the wall seemed gaping and never ending. His stomach turned and he was unsure what to do ....he wanted to look in but it felt almost as if he were going to look into someone's grave.

Lucas took a deep breath then stepped into the opening of the false wall. 

He slowly made his way through the walk space between the two walls. It was perfectly formed for a man of his size, or Roger's, to slink through with their body turned to the side with just enough room to breath. Lucas kept his right arm stretched out with the flashlight brightly pointing in the direction he was going. 

His stomach was doing flips in his body. His face was covered in sweat. His mind was racing and the heat inside the walls was beginning to choke him. Was this just a wild goose chase? What was he really going to find. 

As he continued on his way, about 25 feet from the entrance the false Wall suddenly slammed shut. 

Lucas gasped and turned the light back towards where he came.

"NO! NO!!!" he yelled.

He then began to walk back, side-stepping in a quick pace trying to get back to the exit. 

He suddenly started to feel as if the walls were getting tighter around his body. His breathing was now labored. He felt hotter and stickier and he couldn't find his way back in the pitch black with in the walls.

Then suddenly his light flashed in the the glow of the flashlight the green and and white transparent body of Roger Collins' ghost stood before Lucas. 

Lucas' eyed were as large as two giant eggs. His screamed at the stoic and emotionless face of Roger who only pointed back in the opposite direction.  "Go back." The ghost of Roger said in a monotone voice.

Lucas was shaking. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He was frozen in place. 

"GO BACK!" Roger said, forcing Lucas to continue back down the thin walkway in the hidden passage. 

Lucas nervous again turned back. He was shaking. The light in his hand was unsteady and flashing up and down and forward, in all directions. He could feel the sweat drip down his back like tears coming from a pair of terrified eyes. 

Then, in almost perfect timing he felt a crunch under his shoe. 

He paused. He was scared to look. He was scared to even think of what could have made that sound. 

He slowly turned his flashlight downward and there, still dressed in the clothes he was in when he came to Collinwood the night David shot him were the bones of Beau Cielvert. Noelle's brother. Cameron's father. Dead of a gunshot wound in 1966. 

Lucas screamed and the skeleton suddenly lifted up on its legs. The mouth was slightly opened. Lucas didn't know what to do he wanted to go back down the path again, back towards the exit but the skeleton only stared at him, and ripped a necklace off of its bony neck and extended its bony arm and passed it to Lucas. 

Lucas grabbed the necklace, and the bones fell to the ground in a jumbled heap.

Then the door at the far end of the passed between the walls opened and Lucas quickly made his way out of the secret passaged, out of the study and quietly out of the mansion.

Beau's skeleton in the walls of the mansion

Roger and Beau had worked together to finally reveal the truth. Beau could finally Rest In Peace. 

****

Elizabeth's Will 

The next morning, as Lucas slept in a deep sleep after his night of secret searching within the walls of Collinwood, the family members met with Webber Garner, Elizabeth's family lawyer. Web's family had been managing the Collins family's legal issues for decades his father Frank and Grandfather Richard before him had always been at Elizabeth and Roger's beck and call. 

Web was no different. He was trust worthy. Loyal. A friend and he was in town to ready Elizabeth's Will.

In the drawing room, Kimberly sipped on a piping hot cup of tea as Noelle entered with Carolyn. The two old friends were rather uncomfortable with each other after their long history of friendship and secrets. Noelle knew of Carolyn's relationship with her brother Beau and of course their mutual connection by blood: Cameron. 

As Noelle and Kimberly made small talk and Carolyn looked through old forms and her mother's photos, Webber entered with instructions from one of the housekeepers on where to go.

"WEB!! Oh it's so good to see you!" Carolyn said, leaping from her seat after seeing a friendly face. 

"Carolyn, it's been so long. I'm very, deeply, sorry to hear about your mother. My father sends his regards as well." Webber said of his elderly father Frank.

"How is Frank doing?" Kim said from the sofa.

Webber and Carolyn looked over to her, Webber knew Carolyn's distaste for her cousin-in-law from various bits of notes she'd send from London making sure Kimberly stayed out of the family business and that David retained much of the control while she lived abroad. 

"He is well, thank you Mrs. Collins." Web replied.

"Tea?" Noelle asked him as she poured herself a cup. 

"No thank you. I'd like to get Mrs. Stoddard's Will read as soon as possible so that you all can mourn her in peace. Its never a good feeling being the lawyer in the room after the Will is read, believe me." Webber answered.

"Have you already looked it over?" Carolyn asked.

"I have. I needed to make sure everything in it is legal above board before I read it out loud. She had it updated about a year ago. It was actually notarized by my father then too, so I know that it's all set to a legal standard that even I couldn't poke hole in." Web said, referring to his well rounded knowledge of estate law. 

"That's good to hear." Noelle said, thinking that perhaps after being Elizabeth's caretake for the last 20 years she'd perhaps get a big chunk of the woman's money.

Web looked around the room and noticed someone was missing. "Where's David?" 

"He's unwell. He's been very sick for the last week or so. He's asleep upstairs." Kim answered as little Caleb rushed in from the foyer and into his mother's arms.

"Well I'd prefer to read this in front of him too. Is he too ill to come down even for a short time?" Webber asked not knowing the rumor in the house was that David pushed Liz and that it wasn't an accident. 

"I think it's better that we let him rest." Carolyn interjected knowing her word would be the end of the conversation. 

"Very well." Web said as he reached into his briefcase and pulled out the file with Liz's Will. "Are we ready?" He asked as the women looked at each other and nodded that they were. 

Web flipped through the papers and took a deep breath. He knew that most of the information in Elizabeth's Will would be common knowledge and obvious but after he looked into the legality of it all he knew there were a couple of surprises that would take the room by surprise.

"I, Elizabeth Alexandra Collins Stoddard, being of sound mind and body on this day, the eleventh of January 1989, in the presence of estate and personal attorney, Frank Garner, here by bequeath the following as my final Will and Testament: To my daughter Carolyn and/or her descendants, I leave all of my shares and responsibilities of The Collins Fishing Co which she/they will divide amongst their cousin David Collins and/or his descendants. Carolyn and/or her descendants will also inherit half of the the Collinwood estate which includes the main inhabited mansion and the old house, and the rose Cottage. Carolyn and/or her descendants will also inherit all of my liquid and assents including bank accounts, jewelry, clothes and furniture purchased in my name and passed down to me. A list of the following jewelry and items herein will be passed to Carolyn and/or her descendants. To David and/or his descendants I leave the sum of $150,000 a month for the next full year after my death. To my caretaker Noelle Cielvert, thank you for all the kindness, sharing, brilliance and work. I leave you $300,000. This amount will be divided to her and/or her descendants in payments made in over the next 12 months. To Kimberly Grayson-Collins, I leave a diamond brooch given to me by grandmother. This brooch shall not be sold, and if sold I have given Garner & Garner full rights to sue for the sum of money that was sold by. I am entrusting Kimberly to keep this piece in honor of our family and for her children with David."

Kimberly smiled. She she was now in-line to receive $1.8 million over the next year now that her plan with Victor and The OTH to make David insane. Things seemed to be coming up rosy and perfect.

"Very straight forward." Noelle said thinking about her inheritance too.

"But thats not all." Web said pulling out a second envelope. 

"What's that?" Carolyn asked. 

"This is where things get interesting and unfortunately I had to look into this before I could repeat it here. Its about Seaview House." Web said handing Carolyn the envelope. 

Carolyn looked down and saw that the envelope was marked V.W. 

"What about Seaview house?" Kim asked. 

"Mrs. Stoddard left it to Victoria Winters." Web said.

Kim's face froze almost as if she didn't know which expression to show. Was she shocked? Or terrified. It was like someone had splashed cold water over her whole body. No one in the room knew how to react. 

"I don't understand. No one has seen or heard from Vicky in ....I don't know. Decades. How can she have legally inherited Seaview?" Carolyn asked.

"Well, that's what I had to find out. It just so happens that Vicky's social security number is still active meaning she hasn't been declared dead or missing in any state. So someone is receiving her benefits. Someone, Vicky herself or not, is initialed to what your mother left her. That envelope is for her...or whom ever is receiving her social security." 

Carolyn moved to open the envelope and Web reached over and grabbed her.

"I can't let you do that." Web said as he took back the envelope. "This can only be opened by Victoria or..." he paused "her descendants." 

"Web no one knows where she is. I mean if my mother left our old Governess part of our estate I think we should be told where she is so that she can either claim it or sign it back over to us." Carolyn said forcefully. 

Webber smiled, he always knew Carolyn was a firecracker. She never took any guff from anyone and this whole business with the mysterious surrounding about Vicky and Elizabeth rubbed her the wrong way and he could see it all over her face. But the truth was, he was bound by law to only allow the family to know what part of the estate was now in someone's else hands but not read things that were directed for only that person's eyes.

"I completely understand that this is frustrating and that the feeling of not knowing what to do with this info is weird. A lot of things are weird." he smirked to Carolyn's stone face. "I can only tell you that I'm going to do my best in finding where she is or who's the person she left her own money to. And as soon as I do, I'll be sure to get them to sign over Seaview to you." Web said.

That, for now, satisfied Carolyn who gave Web a hug. He said goodbye to the women and patted Caleb on the head. Caleb, now an heir to his father's millions from grandpa Roger and great-aunt Elizabeth, played with this stuffed bear on the old rug just below his mother's feet.

Kimberly rubbed her pregnant tummy and excused herself to the other room. She picked up the phone, and as per usual, dialed Victor Reed, the man she was having an affair with and who had been brain-washing her to destroy the Collins family from the inside out. 

"Its me." She said as Victor skimmed a book written by Chancellor Devlin and distributed within The OTH. "Liz's will was just read. I'm Rich!" She gleamed. 

"Good, now maybe we can finish the job." He said as he flipped through the pages of the book describing how to kill a vampire and how to conjure a ghost and then vanquish it to hell.

Kim paused before answering. "David is almost gone, ok, I just need more time with Carolyn." 

"And the kid?" Victor asked of Caleb.

"Vic, I... he's just a boy. My boy." She answered. 

"David's boy too. I told you, we told you, this was going to happen. Chancellor Devlin warned you in your  sessions with The OTH that this would come eventually. You were fine with it. You'll have a new child soon and this child will be born the proper way with all the teaching of the OTH. Trust me. This is the way it should be." Victor said, coldly and cruelly. 

Kim didn't answer him. She could feel that her inner hatred of herself bubbling up and when that happened she did stupid things and angered Victor and the OTH. "I have to go." She said quickly before her mind went to that place where she'd have to get reevaluated by the OTH. 

Victor could feel her tension. But it was all apart of the job. He hung up the phone and dialed the Chancellor to give an update on the situation in Collinsport.

"It's Reed." He said as the Chancellor answered with many questions.  "I understand Chancellor Devlin, she's doing everything she can at the pace that she can do it without being detected. If we killed them all at once we'd have a mass murder on our hands that would certainly arouse suspicion. I'm trying to push her to quicken her pace but I can't too much...you know how skittish she gets when things become more and more real." Victor explained. 

Victor listened to the Chancellor's instructions. To save the world of the evil this family brought every last one of them had to be killed. Time was of the essence. Time was ticking. Time, the Chancellor said, was running out for all of them. 

"I agree. And I understand. I'll keep on it." Victor said as he hung up the phone.

The Chancellor got up from their desk and walked over to a window over looking New York City. The streets were covered in strangers passing each other. Just people walking around going places. Strangers passing. Strangers not knowing who the others were. But they were all there. One blank face after another. 

The Chancellor's office was covered in pictures of their past. Pictures of Maine. And New York City. 

One small photo of Burke Devlin sat on a corner side table next to a name plate on the desk that read

CHANCELLOR V.W.   DEVLIN

The Chancellor turned and the reflection in the window facing New York City was one of a woman haunted by every ghost and monster Collinsport had to offer. A woman who disappeared, vanished without a trace and renamed herself. Remade herself. Regained herself as VW Devlin. Soon, her Organization of the True Hearted would rid the world of the family that caused her so much pain and suffering.

Soon. And forever. 

****

Later that afternoon and the ships in the French Bay that surrounded Collinsport began to fill the harbors and marinas to bring in their morning catch, Noelle paced back and fourth in the living room of the old house. She Stared up at the painting of Barnabas Collins. He looked down at her with eyes that seemed to be almost resentful of her living in his home, the home he had loved more than anything he had ever loved before. 

It was his place. It was the place he had given up so much to come back to so man y times over the generations that he had lived. She snickered at his painting. She had hated it all the time she had lived there. The resentment was mutual.

"I need you to leave soon. I need you to leave and never come back." Justin said from the dark and shadowy hallway just outside the basement.

Noelle turned and snarled at him. She hated him too. Everything he had done and how he had been behaving lately didn't even matter. She felt a freedom now that Cameron would receive some hind of inheritance now that Elizabeth was dead. The money that Carolyn would receive would now trickle down to Cameron. Noelle had finally figured out how stick it to the family she still believed killed her brother.

Justin--and all his strengths and powers--was now obsolete. 

"Why? So you can take over this house with that....that...woman you have hidden down there? Not on your life." Noelle said with a wicked tone.

"You're very brave with that tongue Noelle. Something must have happened. Something in your favor" Justin noted. "But I know something you may not.... India is never coming back. Your promise to me to work together so that India and I could be together and so that I could help with the subject of Beau is now null-in-void. We're free of each other." He added.

"You never sent her back did you. You never sent that woman down there back. The nanny." Noelle devised. 

"Her name is Evangeline and we're in love. We're going to be together." Justin said of his new found passion with Evangeline. 

"Oh my god! YOU'RE DELUSIONAL! What do you think is going to happen? That the two of you are just going to ride off into the sunset and be together Justin? It's never going to happen. Neither of you will ever find happiness because you're build of hate and evil and darkness. That's it. You'll never ever find any kind of happiness! Mark my words." Noelle exclaimed.

Justin stepped one step closer out of the hallway shadows but the sunlight from the drawing room scared him off and he stepped back. He stared at the now brave woman in front of him who's world so suddenly and at the same time shockingly changed. Justin wasn't needed. 

As Justin began his reply, Cameron and Lucas burst through the font door. Noelle turned back to see that in that split second entrance Justin had vanished angrily down back in to the basement to be with Evangeline.

"What the hell Noelle!!!!" Cameron screamed.

Noelle was shocked at his voice and tone. "Cam?!" 

"What did you have Lucas do last night? Huh? Tell me?" Cameron asked angrily even though he already knew the answer. 

"I had to tell him." Lucas said.

"Honey I can explain everything...." Noelle replied as they all went into the Drawing room.

"No, I don't want to hear any of this. We were supposed to do this together I said I would help you figure out what happened to may dad but I wanted to do it the right way. Not like this. Not in secret. How could you do this? How could you go behind my back and ....and..... I mean for God's sake the Collins family have treated you with such kindness over the years and you have some break into their home and snoop? What have we become?" Cameron asked knowing that the truth he was so afraid to hear was coming. He didnt want to believe any of it but it was coming. 

"I know it seems off but you've haven't been yourself since you found out that Carolyn is your mother and that I raised you here..." Noelle paused still stinging at the sound of her original sin. "....what happened to your father might be too much for you to handle." She finished. 

"I think that Noelle too had a reason to worry, Cam. I'm sorry. I really am. But I'm glad it was me that found these things and not you." Lucas said handing over Roger's journal and the necklace that was found in the walls of Collinwood.

Noelle gasped at the site of the necklace she hadn't seen since 1966.

"It's his." Noelle said in a hushed voice.

"You can't be serious. This can't be real." Cameron said reading the passage of the journal that mentions Beau's murder.

"It is. I'm sorry honey." Lucas said grabbing at his boyfriend's hand. 

Cameron pulled away. 

Noelle, who had pulled the journal from Cameron's hands had been reading the passage. Her eyes narrowed when she discovered from the entry that 10 year old David shot and killed Beau and that Roger hid the body in the walls. She began to tear up. The horror. The monstrous horror. 

"I knew it. I knew they were hiding this all these years. I knew it!!" Noelle said. 

"Really? What are you going to do? March in there and tell Carolyn that you've been raising her bastard son next door to her now dead mother for 25 years and that you just decided to have his boyfriend break in and start going through their things?" Cameron shot back ripping the necklace from Noelle's hands.

"You don't understand how hard it was for me to do this for you all these years. To Protect you To keep you safe. I'm going over there. Im going to tell David I know what he did. I know that he's responsible for all the pain and suffering of our family." Noelle said her face awash in tears.

"He’s not the only one! They will arrest you!! Don't you understand? You can't solve a broken law by breaking the law! That's not how these things work. This isn't your ordinary family and now you've made things one hundred times worse." Cameron shouted. 

"Cameron, it's time you take your place in that family. It's time, because Elizabeth's inheritance said so. I heard it with my own ears. David will go to jail and you can make up for his absence in the company and live off of what Elizabeth's trust fund that you're now entitled to." Noelle said in a calculated way.

Cameron stared at her with eyes that could burn holes in the sun. He couldn't believe what she was saying and how she was speaking. It was like Noelle had turned another face. She wasn't the same. She had been blinded by so much anger and pain and suffering and lies and betrayal that now she could only see revenge as the last option and nothing in her mind could change that. Not even the pain she was now causing in Cameron's own life. 

"Cam say something. We have to know how you feel." Lucas said as Cameron pulled away from his hands.

"Blood money. It's all blood money and that's all its ever been about. No. I don't want anything to do with it and if you even try to bring me in to it I swear I will leave town and never come back." Cameron threatened. 

“This is your right!” Noelle replied her true colors of greed showing. 

“STOP!” Cameron screeched, heated and disgusted with his aunt.

"Cameron, come on!" Lucas said reaching for his boyfriend again.

"Leave me alone!" Cameron replied as he stormed out of the Old House with his father's necklace in his pocket. 

Lucas and Noelle were left in ashes of Cameron's fury. Lucas wanted to know more about the Collins family and even though the man he loved was right now curing his name he felt that it was for now, the best decision he could have made. 

"Now what?" Lucas asked Noelle.

Noelle grabbed her coat and Roger's secret diary and looked at Lucas as she walked through the door. 

"Im going to make David pay." She said with a sizzle in her voice as she made her way over to the main mansion. 

****

A fall from the balcony 

At the house David would be waiting. But he wouldn't be alone. As he lay on his bed with his eyes open, his mind felt like jelly. Kim stood over him and shook her head. She could see that he was no longer the David he had been just a week ago. The serum was working. He was truly going mad. 

"I wish you had been down stairs today to hear all the nice things Elizabeth's Will had to say. She really did love you, you know." Kimberly said as she flicked the syringe in her slim, perfect fingers. 

David turned his head slowly to his treacherous wife and saw her pushing the syringe's plunger to test the medicine she was about to inject into him.

David mumbled as Kimberly made a pouty face to David teasing him.

"Don't be such a baby. It won't hurt a bit."

As the needle went into David's arm, he could feel the medicine go through his veins like lava. There was a heat that went up his arm and into his brain and he started to see sparks. It was as if all the lamps in the room were flickering on and off.... on and off....on and off....on and off.

Suddenly, Noelle burst thorough the door. 

"YOU BASTARD!" She screamed as she through Roger's journal on to the bed.

"Jesus! Noelle! What are you doing?!" Kim said hiding the needle in her handbag. 

"He killed my brother. He killed beau!!!" She shouted.

"What? What are you talking about?" Kim asked.

"Noelle? Kim? What's going on?" Carolyn asked as she walked in from the hallway after hearing the scream from Noelle's entrance.

"Its right there. Its all right there from his father's own hand. Read it. Here, Carolyn, read it yourself. David Killed my brother Beau!" Noelle repeated as she handed Carolyn the book open to the page explaining Beau's murder.

"Beau...killed Beau?" Carolyn asked confused as she skimmed the journal.

"In cold blood. With a gun. Shot him. Dead." Noelle replied through a gritted jaw.

"I....I don't understand. None of this is making sense. My head is spinning." Carolyn replied her mind in total disarray. 

"Just read it Carolyn! Just read it, its right there!"

"Alright I need everyone to leave this room. Right away. David is not feeling well and..." Kim began as she looked over to see that David was now standing over his bead staring at Noelle. "David, honey? Are you ok?"

He stared at her. His eyes locked on her. There was a vacant and cold look on his face like something in side him was missing and that he had nothing left to give. His skin was pale. His lips chapped and cracked. A single thing line of drool fell from his mouth in a long 6 Inch strand that finally released itself from his lip and fell to puddle on his bare foot.

He was growling. His heart was pumping. He was sweating profusely and he was staring at Noelle.

"What is he doing? What's wrong with him?" Noelle asked.

"Noelle... I think you should leave." Carolyn said slowly seeing that David had his sites on her for some reason.

Noelle reached for her coat that she had taken off down stairs and walked upstairs with it in her hand and when she entered the room and thrown it on a side chair.

As she did, David yelled a bloodcurdling sound so loud that it cracked the glass in the mirror that hung on his bedroom wall. Carolyn screamed at his monstrous state of mind and fell back into the hallway and Kim, protecting her pregnant belly fell back on to the bed as David lunged for Noelle's body.

She screamed as their two bodies collided in a thunderous pounding sound. He was attacking her. The Drugs Kim had been injecting him rendered him animalistic. Almost like a wolf. He was tearing at Noelle's clothes. She kept blocking his hands as she backed up towards an open balcony. The fear in her eyes almost seemed to light the room up, it was so pronounced. 

Carolyn was frozen in fear. She had never seen David like this before.

"David...DAVID!" Kim screamed, unsure of what would happen next as she watched the man she was injecting with the drugs Victor gave her go at Noelle like a wild dog hungry for blood. 

He kept at her and lunged one more time. This time he fell to the floor but not before pushing Noelle off the balcony.

Her scream echoed over the orange grass Collinwood land. 

Kim, too shocked to scream got up from the bed and Carolyn rushed back into the room. The two women looked over the balcony and saw Noelle at the bottom. Dead. Her body contorted in painful shapes. 

David, exhausted and hurting fell to the floor in a giant heap of muscles and brawn and passed out, his veins still throbbing with the hallucinogens Kim had been injecting into him. 

Kim and Carolyn looked at each other and slowly began to settle with the fact David had lost his mind.

To Carolyn, David's sudden and quick onset into a deep psychosis was a horrible mystery. Perhaps a mental break from the decades attached to a home and a family littered with the corpses of old secrets and lies. Perhaps David had reached a breaking point. Perhaps he had just had too much.

But Kim knew better. He wasn't naturally losing his mind. He wasn't randomly killing people because of this decay of consciousness. Kim knew she was the one pushing him to this madness. She was the one with a powerful drug that she injected into him every chance she got hoping he would kill his family one by one. In way way, it was working....and to Kim hers was a job well done.