Give Me Hope ~ Stefanie Salvatore

~chapter 12~

"Jo please, wake up" I start to cry silently. The black magic must have fully taken over Josie, because the fog is gone. All I can do now is pray that Josie wakes up.

Soon enough, Josie's eyes open. I stare at them in relief but it quickly changes to fear when I see that her eyes are all black. I back away from her and stand far. I close my eyes in fear, not knowing what will happen next.

"You can open your eyes, silly. I'm not going to hurt you" I hear Josie say.

But it's not in her sweet, and innocent tone I'm used to hearing. This one sounds overly calm and taunting at the same time.

I slowly and reluctantly open my eyes to see Josie standing in front of me. Her eyes are back to normal, but her whole appearance becomes...darker. Her hair is black and she has makeup on that is dark.

"Josie?" I say. "What happened to you" I say quietly

"Great question..." she smiles and walks around me "do you have any idea why I broke the sand clock?" She asks

"You were-" I start to explain but suddenly my mind goes blank. I can't remember why she broke the sand clock in the first place, or what she or I was doing that whole day. It felt like someone was missing.

"That's what I thought..." Josie sighs and seems to not be surprised with my memory loss. "Come on, we have to go find my father in order to fix this mess" Josie says and starts to walk away.

"Mess? What mess" I ask

"You'll find out soon enough, Stef. We all will" She says and continues walking. I instinctively follow her and we end up back at the Salvatore Mansion.

When we walk in, Jade is in front of Ric, ready to attack him. She doesn't hear us come in, her back is facing us.

"Let's not fight, Ric. Wouldn't wanna waste any of that blood" Jade says quietly.

I start to run towards her to stop her but Josie puts a hand in front of me to stop me. I look at her in confusion but she keeps her gaze on Jade. Jo closes her eyes and all of a sudden Jade stops in her tracks.

"I'm so sorry" Jade says. I can hear in her voice that she is crying. Before she can say or do anything else, she falls to the ground. Revealing Jo and I to Ric.

Ric has the same face of shock I did when I first saw 'dark Josie'.

"Josie? What did you do?" Ric says both concerned and shocked.

"I fixed her" Jo says simply and her eyes go black again and slowly fade back to normal. "Come on, time to find Lizzie" She says and continues walking.

"I've found it best to just follow and listen" I say to Ric quietly. He stares at me for a moment then we both follow Josie's lead.

After a while of walking, she starts to walk us down a road.

"What exactly did you do to Jade?" Ric asks anxiously. Josie seems determined on a mission to find Lizzie, and ignores him.

"Josie talk to us!" I say anxiously as well.

"Lizzie's this way. I can feel her" Jo disregards our comments and continues walking.

"Why did you break the sand clock?" Ric asks. This causes Josie to stop in her tracks and look at us.

"I can't remember" she says simply, then continues her path.

"Well, are you okay? I mean, are you in pain?" Ric asks

"No. For the first time in my life everything feels...clear" Jo says. Her eyes go black again and she point in a direction off the road. "There" Josie says.