Madeline shoots up in bed; panting, sudorific, trembling. The nightmare she had wasn't filled with gore or grim reapers, though. It was filled with something different.

She sits up against the headboard, silk sheets pooling around her waist as she rubs the sleep (and panic) from her eyes. She glances sidelong at the undisturbed sleeping figure of a man beside her. Her husband, life partner so the Church and her wedding band proclaims — but nothing more than a business partner to her. She knows how he views her anyway, as nothing more than his wife.

Madeline gingerly swings her legs over the side of the bed and slips out into the ajoining bathroom, feeling as though she's gliding like ghost as she pads into the room and shuts the door behind her.

With her head in her hands she walks over to the sink and runs the faucet, perfectly manicured hands coming down to cup the water and splash it on her sleep ridden face. When she looks up at her reflection in the mirror again, something taunting stares back.

I told you so.

Something you had said years ago before she first ever married her husband. Something she avoided thinking about like the plague. She's lived the past three years of her life in fear that you were right, and here she is now — standing face to face with that same 'I told you so'.

Madeline's jaw works. She has to do something. Something, anything, no matter how stupid — or she may go mad here, drowning in her own self pity.

She slips out into the dark cooridor of her home and walks downstairs, squinting in the dark for her phone. Once she finds the wretched device, she closes the door to the study as she sinks into one of the luxurious armchairs, dialing your number with a defeated expression and bringing the phone to her ear.

"Madeline Ashton speaking. You probably already know it's me though, don't you?" She mutters when the line picks up.