It was only about ten seconds after Zander had left – and already my mental stability was beginning to crumble. The urge to quickly stand up and run after Zander was astronomically high and --

"Well?" Aidan leaned back in his seat interrupting my train of thought.

I froze and felt sick as my hands started to tremble. Luckily, they were still resting on my lap where Aidan couldn't see my momentary weakness. I was back to being the weak, pathetic person I was in his presence.

It was a different mood when Zander wasn't here...It was a complete shift when I was left alone with Aidan. It nearly felt as though I was back with him in that mansion in Japan where I couldn't escape him there, either.

I had been alone with him for months -- I had no desire to do it again.

"Y-Ye-?" I began to answer in my normal voice but then cleared my throat.

Aidan continued to stare at me, but he never changed his expression. Once again, I had a hard time understanding what the monster across from me was thinking. I purposefully made my voice fake again, desperate to continue the cover that I was using.

What if he already knows-?

What if he already knows it's me-?

"You..." I trailed, losing my confidence the longer that I stared at him. His gaze could pierce my soul, and it seemed as though he could see me for what I truly was – the scared Arianna Hopkins that he had kidnapped all those months ago. It didn't matter if I thought I grew stronger when I was away from him -- he could always revert me back to who I really was on the inside --

He was the type that could see through the shroud that I was putting up and was about to mercilessly destroy it into small, unfixable pieces.

I managed to pull myself together to ask my question: "You think he would know who, uh...Spiderman is?" I asked, looking cautiously over at the kitchen doors for any signs of Zander. I had wanted him to appear through those doors without any warning and save me from the uncomfortable atmosphere that had been built between Aidan and I. 

It was either Zander appeared or I was about to run into the deep depths of this place to escape him -- anywhere would have been better than underneath the pressing eyes of Aidan Mathis.

"Who?" Aidan took his time in raising an eyebrow out of the corner of my eyes.

I turned to look at him to find that he was slowly beginning to smirk --

I could feel that my throat was beginning to close up, and I held back the urge to clear it. I couldn't outwardly show that he was terrifying me because then I would have already given myself away --

He was simply staring into my face, making me highly uncomfortable.

I felt the jacket I was wearing start to slip, it must have loosened its hold around my shoulders since I was constantly beginning to fidget with my hands and, on top of that, I was sweating.

His eyes flickered to my arm, catching the sudden movement, to lock onto a scar from where his medical team had stitched me up. It was the first time that he had shot at me from when I was doing the first game back in Japan.

I tried to keep my face passive and clear, but my arm trembled as I pulled the jacket up quickly, hoping to erase what had been seen.

"Why..." I spoke lowly. "Why don't you choose one?" I offered, wanting to get his attention off of me as quickly as possible. I couldn't help it when I diverted my eyes away from him, though still kept him within my line of sight. "I...I might know them."

"I'm fond of researching local people from different areas of influence around the United States," Aidan informed me.

His smirk had only grown and his eyes shined darkly as he spoke his words -- finding some sick enjoyment in what he was about to say next. I didn't comment, although it was getting harder to breathe.

A heavy feeling of dread was weighing down on me.

There's no way that he knows it's me...

He continued, not put off by my reaction that I couldn't force away, "What about a mayor Frederick Hopkins?" I felt my face immediately pale...at the mention of my father coming from his unworthy, tainted mouth. "He's from Florida, actually," Aidan commented, his posture never becoming tense. He always was in his element in hurting me with his words. "It's a shame with what happened to his daughters...isn't it?"

No way --

How did he know it was me-?

"I..." I choked out. I was sweating bullets at this point. It was getting harder to breathe as the seconds passed by. My words were airy as I couldn't fully get control on my breathing. "I-I don't know what you're talking about..."

It was my face -- I couldn't change my face. 

I couldn't change the scars that littered my body.

Aidan let out a chuckle.

It was clear to me that this wasn't the reserved, bored, and uninterested Aidan that had shown itself throughout the dinner duration – I knew this one. This one was the possessive and sociopathic Aidan; this one was the control freak.

This was the one that I couldn't fight against...no matter how hard I tried.

"I suppose you wouldn't..." Aidan trailed.

He was looking right at me – right into my eyes. I felt my soul slowly leave my body. I was holding onto the edge of my seat, terrified of what he was about to say next. I wasn't disappointed when he darkly spoke the name that he had bequeathed onto me forcibly without my permission or consent: "Vienna."

I stood up instantly as soon as that name left his lips and snapped my head to look over at the kitchen doors.

I need to go --

I need to go now-!

"Zander!!" I screeched, not being able to keep the fear and panic from my tone. 

My fake voice had suddenly reverted back to my normal one – my cover slipping away. I didn't think that I had fooled Aidan to begin with by the way he was smiling at me throughout dinner – or the select choice comments he made about my vain escape attempt. It was all alluding to me -- from the very beginning I should have known that his snarky remarks should have been a clue. 

I had to remember that he liked to watch hope being built up inside of me before snatching it away -- especially me.

He had done this so many times that I had believed that, just this once, I had pulled the metaphorical wool over his eyes. I was chastising myself over and over again that I had thought it would have been this easy -- to hide my voice wouldn't have been nearly enough --

Aidan stood up as well, though at a slower, far more intimidating pace. His posture reeked of control and power whereas I was shaking like the last leaf on a tree before winter tore it away.

He would tear me away –

He would-!

"Zander!" I called again, keeping a close eye on the man in front of me.

He stared at me and was about to move but I gripped the fork off the table and held it up to him threateningly. Zander's knife had been too far away at the moment so I needed to take what I could get. I held it tightly in my hand, wanting to plunge it into his neck if he dared to step any closer towards me.

It didn't matter if a table was in-between us -- he would find a way to apprehend me and force me to submit. Distance is what was currently providing me an opportunity to fight against him. I needed to be very careful with where I stepped and where I went at this point --

One wrong step and it's all over.

"D-Don't you come near me...!" I warned weakly.

His eyes zoned in on the fork and then looked over at me with a smile on his face.

"Vienna..." he called that name in a lecturing way, making my heart drop into my stomach. "Did you really think that I wouldn't be able to recognize you?" He shook his head as he smirked. "A botched dye job and higher pitched voice wouldn't have been enough to fool me," he strummed his hand along the table, and I couldn't help but feel as though that action was mocking me.

My hand was shaking as the fork appeared less and less threatening as the seconds ticked by. I couldn't attack him with a fork -- he would subdue me in a matter of seconds, even with the extensive and rigorous training that I had endured for the past couple of months...

Aidan wasn't someone to take lightly --

"I can applaud your attempt – you sure have Zander fooled..." Aidan spoke sarcastically. "Five months is a long time to be separated, but it's not long enough for me to forget what you look like," he informed me of how long I had been away and continued to mock me at the same time. "I know that you really wanted that to be the case..." Aidan taunted.

I stilled, listening to his words, but still was eager to run towards the kitchen doors where Zander had disappeared to.

I wondered if he counted it down to the exact second, too, rather than just the months. He must have been in agony and I had been living my life carefree and was happy for the first time in a long time without having a tortured past weighing me down.

"I'm glad that you came back to me," he spoke, his eyes darkening.

I clenched my teeth, not about to argue with him.

He fully knew that I had never willingly came to him -- I would have been more than happy to never see him again, although fate had a  much different idea --

And a sick sense of humor.

"It saved me the trouble of wasting any more resources in having you be returned..." I narrowed my eyes as he continued to rant – he was still looking for me, then.

It seemed like the FBI did a great job in covering my tracks.

"Although, I should put a tracker in you in case you're ever away from me again," his next words were gentler, although the hardened and tense look on his face portrayed the opposite message than what he was trying to convey. "You have me worried when I don't know your exact whereabouts, Vienna..."

I stared at him.

He stared back at me.

I then threw the fork towards him with as much strength as I had, aiming for his head, as I sprinted towards the kitchen doors. Zander walked out with three plates of cake when I was a couple of feet away from him. My eyes widened as I skidded to a stop just before I ran into him.

"Whoa..." Zander replied, looking at me and then over at Aidan who had just made it to the other side of him. "I heard my name being called and I decided to get us all dessert on my way out..." He looked at me and then at Aidan. 

He must have noticed the severe change in atmosphere, and I wasn't sure if my eyes expressed my pure, unfiltered panic inside of them. 

"Okay," Zander spoke slowly, once again looking between the the two of us. "What's going on here?"

My chest pumped up and down as I was out of breath. 

I never had to run like that before – I was out of practice and shape with my endurance and stamina. Not to mention, my lungs had been contaminated with smoke from weed and cigarettes...which didn't help me in the long run.

Pun not intended in the least...

"You're standing in the way of something that belongs to me, brother," Aidan's voice became dark and murderous.

I backed away, feeling the unwelcomed shivers run down my back. I gave the older Mathis a quick look, hoping that he would save me. Zander seemed to be like the one in control of this place since it was his house, and I only hoped that he wouldn't bow down to Aidan.

I wasn't able to do much else aside from stand there and collect my breath --

Scared Arianna made her unwanted appearance again – I was too afraid of Aidan to do anything-!

"Cake?" Zander questioned, unware of the interaction that Aidan and I had just a few minutes ago. The older brother didn't know how to read the situation. "Take it, then...Alpha male mumbo jumbo..." He pushed a plate into Aidan's empty hands. "Did you guys decide on a character for me?" He beamed looking between the two of us.

I tensed and then looked over at Zander.

"...Yes," I forced myself to say, putting back on my fake voice in front of Zander. I might have lost my cover with Aidan, but there still might be a possibility of swaying Zander to my side if he didn't know I was Vienna. "I -- We were both coming to get you," I stated as I slowly made my way back to my seat.

Zander looked at Aidan and waved for him to take his own seat. Aidan was looking at me the entire time and then slowly took his seat on the opposite side of the table where he had been at the beginning of dinner. Aidan plopped the cake on the table with disinterest before he leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms.

His eyes never left mine, and I looked up to see Zander sitting down by me.

"Alright..." Zander spoke as he placed a fork into his cake. "The floor is now open for questions."

I did my best to not look at Aidan, instead eyeing the cake that was in front of me. I didn't have any appetite to eat anything, especially now that Aidan knew exactly who I was. I wasn't sure how I was going to get Zander to help me now if it meant going against Aidan at a faster rate than I had originally expected --

"Did it hurt when you tumbled into that river?" Aidan asked, not even looking at Zander. 

I slowly raised my eyes and froze when I found that his eyes were locked onto me.

I swallowed and tensed at the direct question.

Zander pursed his lips together, not understanding that this wasn't a game about him. "I definitely didn't enjoy it but it happened," he responded and then looked over at me. I didn't even know what was going on anymore. I continued to stare petrified at Aidan, wondering if he would make a brash move to capture me fully in Zander's presence.

Aidan smirked at seeing the effect that he had on me – the inability to move as the predator towered over its prey -- waiting for the chance to strike.

"Brittany," Zander spoke.

I flinched and then looked over at him with wide eyes. He looked me up and down, his eyes were filling with concern. "It's..." He tone was gentle and cautious. Zander could see that something had greatly disturbed me since he had been in the room last. "It's your turn for a question."

"Uh..." I muttered out.

Aidan was taunting me – I needed to gather my wits and do the same to him.

I would make him suffer the same way that he was doing to me. I didn't know if my words would affect him on the same magnitude that his affected me...but I had to play the game that two of us were playing.

"What was it like...?" I paused, knowing where to hurt him. He was too obsessive with me to the point where it seemed like he didn't care about anything else in the world. I wanted to permanently sever that tie that he had built between us, though I know that it wouldn't be as easy as using words to hurt him. "Losing the one thing that held value to you for five months?"

Aidan clenched his hands tightly and his jaw tensed.

He didn't like that one at all --

Zander blinked his eyes, still being left completely in the dark. "You guys are making this difficult. Hmm..." Zander paused in eating his cake. "Yeah. It hurt. But," he drawled out. "As long as I got it back then it was fine."

He looked over at Aidan expectantly.

Zander still thought this was a game.

It might have been – though it was a sick, sadistic one that didn't involve him.

Aidan's eyes narrowed over at me.

"Did you ever feel safe when I couldn't find you?" I clenched my own hands tightly at what Aidan was saying to me. I glared down at the table, hoping that it would be the end of his demented words. Much to my displeasure, they had continued: "Or were you always watching your back in case I showed up to take you back?" Aidan was getting more abrasive and less vague. "Back to where you belon-?"

I stood up from the chair with wide eyes, interrupting his question.

I didn't care about the ruse anymore --

"I don't belong to you!" I yelled, slamming my hands on the table with complete and utter frustration. My fake voice I had been using once again slipped and I was using my real one. My hands were still trembling, even up to this point.

Zander looked shocked and confused all at once.

Aidan stood up as well with a smirk, the triumph radiating off of him.

"You fucker!" I screamed. "I swear I'm going to kill you-!"

"Oh?" Aidan taunted, tilting his head to the side. "Not all about justice anymore, are you, Vienna?" He continued to belittle and mock me. "You said how you were going to make sure I was going to be behind bars -- that you were going to regret making me take you," he chuckled in dark amusement.

I blinked at him as I struggled to breathe --

His words were hard to digest – they were true. I wasn't the same morally-just person as I was when he first took me. He broke me into pieces and now he was stepping on the shards, grinding them down into dust without remorse.

It had seemed like a different life when I had said those words to him --

"Here we are again!" Aidan exclaimed. I could hear the beginning to unhinged madness in his tone. It was beginning to make me even more uncomfortable since he didn't raise his voice often during the time I was with him. "Different situation, same outcome," he spoke slowly. 

I was beginning to breathe quicker than before.

I didn't want to stay here and listen to the brutal truth anymore --

"You're never getting away from me," Aidan finished coldly.

"What the heck is going on, guys!" Zander yelled as tears flooded in my eyes. I couldn't handle the sudden burst of hopelessness that formed quickly inside of me. "Brittany, are you-?" He questioned. "Are you okay?" The older brother asked at seeing my distress. "Did he say something to you when I was gone?"

Aidan chuckled again, this time it was without any humor.

"Brittany, huh?" Aidan repeated his brother's words, causing me to lower my head at getting caught in my own lie. It was only a matter of time before Aidan ratted me out to his brother. "Vienna," he said with such absolution – with such ownership that I faltered in my stance. I was losing any control that I had ever thought I had in this situation at a rapid pace. "That's Vienna and she's playing you for a fool."

Zander went deathly quiet.

I stared down at the table in front of me, not knowing what to say.

I knew that Aidan would get his way and there wasn't anything that I could do about it. This entire mission of mine had all been for naught. I should have pushed the medallion when my school had been invaded and called the FBI then and there instead of thinking that I could handle this –

I had become too brave and prideful.

I thought that I would be the one to finally take Aidan down.

I was so foolish.

"Come here, Vienna."

I looked up at being addressed.

It hadn't even been that long and already I was beginning to respond to that faux name that he had given me. I was too scared