The Last of the Twenty: Broken Pawns

Chapter 14

"Wake up, Nadia."

His voice broke through the fog of her hypnosis like a crack of thunder, instantly Nadia's head snapped upright as awakened by a bolt of electricity. She scanned the room quickly, wide eyed and in shock, she took in every detail of her surroundings and the people in the room. Both Delilah and Ethan watched her closely, looking for any signs of mental breakdown that occasionally happened with prolonged exposure to Ethan's form of hypnotism. Wes and Dillon had yet to return, leaving just the three of them alone in the room, something Ethan was grateful for as it gave him the opportunity to calm any possibly hysterics before they returned with Daniel.

"It's alright," Ethan said quietly, "We're not going to hurt you, we just want to talk."

"Where am I? How did I even get here?" she asked, still looking around. "The last thing I remember was standing in the parking lot at the school. You had those two huge dogs behind you and..."

She cut herself off and put her head in her hands, taking obvious efforts to calm herself. Ethan waited patiently as she took a few deep breaths, momentarily blocking out the world before sitting back up, looking determined to keep it together. She glanced back and forth between Delilah and Ethan, finally nodding at Ethan and urging him to talk. "OK," she said, "talk. I want to know what's really going on, and I want to know why you brought me here. Also, how did you bring me here? I don't remember anything since we were at the school."

"I know, and I'm sorry about that." Ethan said. "I had to kind of... hypnotize you for a while. You were starting to get hysterical and we didn't have time to argue. Things are getting dangerous, more dangerous than you could possibly guess at, and I'm afraid that you may be at the center of it, even the target of it. Delilah and I, we're not human."

Nadia surprised them both by simply nodding, excepting the last sentence as easily as if they were telling her the sun was out, although her breathing made it obvious she was doing everything she could to hold herself together. "I know, I kind of got that when she picked my car up with one hand." She said, looking at Delilah. "So what exactly are you?"

Delilah began to respond when Ethan held up a hand and stopped her. "Nadia, I'm going to tell you everything, I promise. I don't want to, but I don't have a choice. What I need you to understand is that everything I'm about to tell you puts your life at very real risk. You're going to hear secrets that have been kept from almost all humans since the beginning of time, and most of those that did know these secrets are long dead."

Ethan let his words sink in for a moment, he could tell Nadia was somewhere between fear and complete disbelief.

"OK, ignoring the fact that you sound like some either completely insane or like some conspiracy nut, you still didn't answer my question. You're not human you say? Then what are you?"

Ethan clenched his jaw, it was now or never. "We're vampires Nadia."

Ethan expected a gasp, a scream maybe, instead Nadia burst into laughter. He couldn't believe it, after everything she saw in the parking lot, after seeing how fast they could move, how strong Delilah was, she actually burst into laughter. Delilah looked almost as amused as she had when Ethan had been slapped across the face. On the bed Nadia fell back laughing harder than ever, tears were starting to roll down her cheeks.

"You actually thing you're vampires!?" Nadia choked out between laughs. "How on earth do you expect me to believe that?"

"You saw how fast I moved, you saw Delilah pick up your car. What else do you need?" Ethan asked clearly frustrated. Delilah snickered beside him and Ethan shot her a sideways glance, she was not helping at all.