-14-

Truth Will Out

Elena was quiet as she drove she and Vergil through the thick forest. They had been driving most of the night and the sun was finally starting to show itself again. It was true that Saratov wasn't far from their cabin, but they wanted to get to it without drawing any attention. Also, driving through a dark forest at night wasn't exactly easy. Vergil was asleep in the passenger's seat, while Elena felt her mind drift off. Back to happier days that she and Nate had. And she couldn't help but wonder if she and him would have any more. Would Nate ever get his memory back? She tried to keep positive and think that he would, but that one awful question kept floating back to the surface.

What if he never did?

Elena rested one hand on her head while she used the other one to drive. "Damn it." she said softly to herself. She hated thinking negatively in a situation like this.

"What?" Vergil asked, awakening and sitting up in his seat with a yawn.

Elena looked over at him, just realizing that she had been thinking out loud. "Oh. It's nothing. Sorry I waked you." she said to him.

Vergil shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I needed to get up anyways." He said with an uneasy look on his face.

"Bad dreams?" she asked, focusing back on the road ahead.

Vergil scoffed. "Bad dreams, bad reality. It's all a goddamn mess." he said pushing his blond hair out of his eyes.

Elena could agree to that. Everything had turned to shit with what seemed like a snap of a finger and it wasn't showing any signs of improvement yet. She just let out a saddened sigh. "Yeah." she barely replied.

After a moment of silence, she spoke again. "Thank you."

Vergil raised a brow at her for her words. "Really? For what?"

"Coming with me." She answered. "Especially when you have Chloe and your unborn child back there. I know it wasn't easy. Even more so because you and Nate didn't get off to the best start." she said, thinking back to the day that Vergil broke it to Nate that he was his brother.

Nate didn't take the news all too well. In fact he was in a fit of rage. He thought it was some sort of cruel joke that Vergil had decided to play on him. In the first place, Nate and Vergil were enemies. Vergil was working for one of the terrorists that Nate managed to take down. But along the journey Vergil decided he didn't want that life anymore and decided to start anew.

"Yeah, he was pretty pissed at me." Vergil said with a weak laugh.

"Well, he could have handled the situation better." Elena told him. "But now..." she caught herself. "I mean, before the accident, you two seemed to be getting into kind of a better place. You gave your blood to him and that helped save his life. I'll always be grateful for that."

"He's my brother. The only real family I have." Vergil replied. "I'd die for him."

Elena glanced over at him for a moment and placed a hand on his shoulder. "He would for you too, Vergil. I know it." And then she smiled at him and he back at her.

Suddenly, something landed hard on the hood of their jeep. It was none other than Noctern. "Hope I'm not interrupting." he said with an evil laugh.

"Shit!" Elena cursed and she then felt herself lose control of the car. She turned the wheel and hit the brake to try and throw him off of the car but the car flipped over and crashed into a tree. Just before the impact Vergil grabbed onto her and Noctern hopped off the hood.

Vergil and Elena were thrown a small distance from the car into another tree. Elena opened her eyes and saw that Vergil had thrown himself over her to protect her. Other than a small gash on her forehead and being shaken up, she was okay.

She broke herself from Vergil's grip and looked over him. He wasn't awake and his lip was bleeding. Leaves and branches covered most of his body. Elena ripped a few of them away so she could see his face.

"Hey, hey!" She called out to him, gently smacking his cheeks to wake him. "Vergil. C'mon, wake up." she said. Much to her delight his eyes opened. "Are you okay?"

Vergil groaned and coughed a few times. "Yeah...I think so." he answered. As he went forward to stand he loud out a sharp, pained cry.

"What is it?" She asked hastily.

Vergil shook his head. "I-I don't know." he said with a wince.

Elena looked to the right side of his body where most of the branches were and she saw now that they were stained with blood. She felt a gulp in her throat as she cleared away the brush. Once she did, she saw that a thick branch had run through Vergil's right shoulder.

"Oh shit." She said with a shuttered voice. She placed a hand over her mouth and shifted her gazed downward. "What should I do?" she asked him.

"Just..." Vergil began with a pained voice. "Pull it...out."

Elena couldn't find words to respond with so she just nodded her head. She took a firm grip on the branch. "I pull on three, okay?" She asked as she braced herself.

"Yeah." Vergil replied, closing his eyes.

Elena took a deep breath as she felt the branch in her hands. "One...two...three." On three she was able to yank the branch from his shoulder in one swift motion. Vergil screamed in anguish once the object was out of his body.

"I'm sorry." Elena apologized, taking her jacket off and ripping a piece of it off to wrap around the would. "You're okay. It's not even bleeding that bad." she said to try and calm him. She was so relieved that he would live to see his wife and child another day.

"Thank you, Elena." Vergil said. "Fucking trees." he cursed taking the bloody branch in his hand and throwing it away from them.

Elena continued to wrap Vergil's wound. "What the hell was that thing?"

Vergil winced when Elena tightly tied off the cloth around his shoulder. "That's the guy that attacked Nate."

Elena's head snapped up when she heard this. "What, that thing?" she asked in disbelief. She knew that they had talked about some sort of bat man in the past, but she didn't want to think it was actually true. Although she had seen enough freaky shit in her life that a half man half bat didn't seem all that crazy.

"I have a name." Noctern said as he hung from the tree branch high above them upside down. With what almost seemed like grace, he glided from his branch, down to the ground landing on his feet. "It's Noctern by the way." he added.

Elena quickly stood up and aimed her gun at him. "So you're the one that hurt my husband." she said in a seething voice.

Noctern nodded. "That would be me." he answered with almost pride.

This made Elena feel all the more enraged. "You son of a bitch!" she screamed, firing twice. She was taken aback when she saw that he danced around both bullets with ease.

Vergil still lay propped against the tree. He wanted to assist her with the shooting but at the moment his shooting arm was useless. "Don't bother, Elena. Bullets can't hit him." he warned her before she wasted any further ammo.

Noctern smiled and nodded his head and pointed at Vergil. "I like him, he's smart."

Elena heard his words but still kept her gun steadily aimed at the weird man. She tried to quell the rage inside her. She managed to get her next words out without screaming them. "Let me just ask you one question." She said. "Why?"

Noctern folded his arms and began to walk in a pacing motion back and forth. "I suppose, 'Because I felt like it' wouldn't suffice in this situation, would it?" he asked her.

"I'm afraid not." She growled, staring daggers at him.

Noctern shrugged and stopped pacing. "Fair enough—but if you're asking me to be truthful, you must be truthful as well."

Elena looked confused at him and then to Vergil. The look on her face was as lost as hers was. "Okay...you got it." she answered cautiously.

Vergil shifted uneasily against the tree stump. He didn't know where he was going with that statement, but he suddenly felt nervous.

"Hey, Vergil?" Noctern asked facing in his direction. He may not of been able to see where Vergil was but the smell of his blood gave him away. "How old were you when you and Nathan were separated?"

Vergil shook his head slowly side to side. Elena turned to him, curious to hear the answer. "I...I don't remember." he said.

Noctern sighed and wagged his finger at him. "Shame, shame, Vergil. I thought the deal for this little game was we all be honest. Not be a lying bastard."

Vergil glared at him with hateful eyes. "I was five. Nate was seven." he finally admitted.

Elena had no idea where Noctern was going with this. She just remained silent and listened.

"That's better." Noctern told him. "And did you happen to tell all of your friends, brother included, why it was that you two were separated?"

Vergil paused before he answered but Elena answered first, she could see this was making him uneasy. "It's because your mother killed herself and your father gave you guys up after all that, right?" she asked, looking to Vergil for confirmation.

"That may be what he told you, little Elena, but it's far from the truth. Isn't it?" Noctern asked him. Vergil just remained silent and looked with an angry gaze at Noctern. The gaze was so harsh it was almost like Noctern was going to burst into flame.

Noctern cupped his hand around his ear. "What'd you say? I couldn't quite hear that."

Vergil sighed and then let out a shuttered breath before he answered. "Yes."

Noctern nodded his head happily. "Finally! Some truth!" He cheered. "Now, you two lost your parents at what age, Verg?"

Vergil swallowed hard. "When I was three."

Elena looked at his with narrowed eyes. "But...if you lost your parents when you were three, how were you not separated until you were five?"

"Because he and Nathan were in an orphanage for two years." Noctern interjected.

Elena looked to Vergil and then to Noctern. "An orphanage...but Nate never-"

"Told you?" Noctern chimed in once more. "Probably because he didn't remember. Hmmm, that's odd, isn't it? That Nathan didn't remember a vital chunk of is childhood. But, let me ask you, Vergil, you did didn't you?"

Vergil let out a sound that was almost like a whimper. "Shut up."

"That's answer enough, now isn't it?" Noctern taunted him.

Elena knelt down next to Vergil. She had so many things she wanted to ask him. "You don't remember. He's lying, right? Because if you knew all this you would have told Nate, you would have let him know." she said, as if she was trying to convince herself all this was true even though she knew it wasn't.

Vergil looked at her with teary eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to lie to you all...but-"

"But you did." Noctern finished for him. "Tell her why."

Vergil sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were red and a tear fell down his cheek. "Because I didn't want Nate to know..."

Elena was feeling herself panic. She didn't know what words were going to come out of Vergil's mouth and that terrified her. "Didn't want Nate to know...what?" she asked.

Vergil tried to compose himself before he answered.

"That he's the reason our mother is dead."