Chapter 5.
It's one of those moments where everyone freezes and tries not to make eye contact with one another, then you wait for someone else to break the silence. Though I can't seem to take my eyes off Max, I find myself searching for some sort of sign that he is bonded to me, some sign that he has access to my mind. Though I guess the signs were there before, I just didn't take any notice. Why would I?
"Did you know?" I'm still staring at max. "Do you know about this?" I stare at him incredulously.
"Well…y-yes and no, I guess, I mean, I didn't think anything of it, I-I just thought this was how s-strigoi worked, but I thought something was different, I j-just didn't think it was this." Max stammers out. He's clearly at a loss here too.
"But you could feel what I did! How was that not right to you! You knew things, like when my magic was wearing me out, you seen my hallucinations! How could you not know!" my voice is starting to rise and I can feel anger starting to boil.
"You have hallucinations?" my father interrupts but I don't have time to answer.
"Ve, you're getting angry, you need to calm down" Max starts backing away from me, like I'm a volcano about to explode.
"So you can feel it." I grit my teeth emphasizing the 'can'. I walk slowly towards him and find he's still backing up. I hardly take notice of my parents in the background, watching how this is unfolding. "You can feel what I do, and you never thought to tell me, not even mention it. How is that not odd to you huh? You knew what was going on, and you didn't say a thing." My hands are balled into fists and I can feel more of my temper flaring. Max is still backing up, his back about to hit the wall when my father steps in front of me.
"Vienna, stop. You're getting angry for no reason, Max is just as clueless as you are, and you can't blame him." He says calmly. He stares me down for a time and I finally step back, trying to diffuse my anger. "Tell me about the hallucinations" he says, still looking at me as if I'm a rabid dog about to pounce. He grabs my shoulders and slowly walks me over to the chair next to the TV.
"I don't know, I don't know what they are or why they are happening" I start, "It's only been once, but it felt real. Like I was there, or she was here, or something."
"Tell me what happened, who is she?" he says, kneeling in front of me. My Mum stands near the bed looking at me with concern, Max is still near the door but looks to me with slight knowledge. He gives me a little nod.
"A woman, Louella I think, I had visions of her a while ago." At that, my dad's jaw tightens, he knows what I'm talking about. "She just kept telling me I had to do it, that I had to get it back." I look back to my dad. "That's it, that's all that's happened."
Dad stands and goes to sit on the bed, his head in his hands.
"I should have been there. I should have helped you. Did you tell anyone else about the visions?"
I shake my head. I wonder how much my dad knows. I wonder if he went through any of this.
"How much do you know about this?"
"Enough. I know about the visions, Louella and the book. I know about it all Vienna, I've been through it all."
"And you never thought to tell me! I thought I was alone in this! I thought I was going mad! I had no one to help me!" I avoid telling them about Danahi. "I had to do this, by myself, when you, my own parents, could have helped me." Tears sting the back of my eyes. "You left me to be alone in this." My voice is barely a whisper.
My dad comes to kneel in front of me again.
"And I'm sorry for that Ve. I really am. I didn't think it would happen to you. I thought the more I distanced myself and the family, the less chance there was of you learning all this. I didn't want to risk yours, mine and your mother's life. I'm sorry you had to be alone." He says to me. I look back to my mother.
"So you knew, you knew too and you didn't tell me." A tear escapes and runs down my face. My mother comes to my side and brushes it away. Her hand rests on my cheek.
"I'm sorry. I wish I did. I wish I could have said something. But I wanted you to be safe, and you knowing wasn't going to keep you that way. I know I should have been there and I'm sorry. We both are"
Before I can say anything there's a knock at the door. I quickly dash away any stray tears and stand up, Max is at the door first. He looks through the peep hole and freezes. It must be Isaiah. Max turns back to me and nods, as if he can hear me guessing who it is. Of course he can.
Well, this should be interesting. I nod to Max and he opens the door and Isaiah strides in.
He stops a few steps in front of my parents, quickly covering his surprise at other people being in the room.
"What do we have here? More of your family Vienna? I can see the resemblance." He says with a smirk. My father walks to stand in front of my mother and I.
"And who are you, strigoi?"
"Oh, I see, the father I'm guessing. Yes, you have the tell-tale Nesahla face. The magic too, I'm guessing." Isaiah speaks slowly. Dads face only registers little surprise at the mention of Nesahla. I guess strigoi knowing isn't really a surprise. "I'm Isaiah."
"Isaiah? I've heard of you. You helped with my family centuries ago." Dad narrows his eyes, taking in the Strigoi opposite him.
"The one and only" Isaiah says with his trademark smirk. Honestly between Danahi first and now Isaiah, I'm really getting tired of people smirking.
"Where's Elena?" I ask, noting the absence of his slave, person, assistant, thing. Whatever you want to call it.
"Elena?" My dad asks.
"Who's Elena?" My mother voice speaks up.
"My, my, do we have the whole family? Viennas mother, I assume" Isaiah tilts his head to one side, looking my mother up and down. She steps out and comes to stand in front of me, next to dad.
"Elena's here." Max says. Isaiah turns just as Elena strolls in, a human in tow. Dads face turns from stern to incredulous.
"What the hell is this?" He says, pointing to the human.
Isaiah licks his lips. "Lunch" he says evenly. "Elena dear, please tell the human to wait outside, I need to talk to Vienna first." Elena nods and heads back out, Max's eyes follow the human as he leaves the room. I suppose I shouldn't be depriving Max of his food, but I want him here, I need some sort of Strigoi backup, no matter what Isaiah says his intentions are. Isaiah steps forward and my parents do too. I touch my father's shoulder.
"Its fine, he can't hurt me." I tell them. My parents just stare at me. "Trust me, I don't think he wants to test it." I stare down Isaiah who cocks his head to one side but doesn't say anything. My parents take step back and move to sit in the chair I was just in. "Well, talk."
Isaiah puts his hands behind his back. "There's going to be a party. Or ball, whatever you want to call it. The Drozdovs are throwing it. Lots of people, though a big space. We are going to need more strigoi to pull this one off." My parents go to speak up but I cut them off.
"Ok, when is this going to happen?" I ask. Isaiah falters a little.
"Thats the bad news, I don't know. My contacts got the location but not the time. Right now the time is underground, we don't know."
"Then how the hell are we going to prepare, or even be able to do this without a damn timeline!"
"My contacts are keeping ears to the ground. We will get that time one way or another. Trust me." I narrow my eyes at him.
"You have a week. If you don't have the time by then, well, you can guess what will happen."
"You have my word. I'll get that time."
It's now that my dad decides to speak up.
"Wait, what is going on?"
Isaiah looks at me and smirks. "Well, I'll be off, I have things to do." He turns and walks towards the door, looking at max on the way out. He leaves the door open when he leaves. Max looks back to me.
"Fine, go. Two minutes." Max nods to me and smiles a little. He rushes out the door, barely closing it when he does. My mother and father stare at me, questions hanging in the air. "Well I suppose I should explain." I sigh and sit on the bed. For the next 10 minutes I explain what happened at school, leaving out Danahi, I explain the book, the escape from school, meeting Isaiah, the Badica attack and everything in between. Max re-joins me while I'm explaining a little colour, as much as strigoi have, returning to his face.
"Ok, so as revenge on the guardians or whoever taking the book, your organising attacks on royals?" my mum asks. Dad kind of went silent when I got to the escape from school.
"I wouldn't call it revenge, more like, a message. If they are smart enough to figure it out, they will know its from me and I want that book back. But I'm not stopping until I do." I say evenly.
My mum puts her head in her hands and both she and dad stay silent, trying to process what I've just told them.
"Don't you think this is a bit overboard?" Dad asks. Max chokes on laughter. So, out of everything I've told him, about killing royals and everything in between, all he has to ask is if it's a bit overboard. I think I underestimated my parent's ability to process absurd information.
"Nope." Is all I have to say. They stare at me again and then look at one another but say nothing.
We are interrupted again when there is another knock at the door. Is it knock on Viennas door day? Max stands and opens the door. A few moments later he walks back to me with a piece of paper in hand. It's just an envelope with a 'V' neatly written on the front. Curiosity takes over and I rip open the letter. Inside is just a single piece of paper. Black ink and simple handwriting covers a minority of the page.
"Meet me at the tunnels"
That's all it says. My parents take it from me and read it over and over.
"Who's this from?" they ask.
"I have no idea, probably Isaiah, he's the only one that knows about the tunnels."
Half hour later Max and I, with my mum and dad in tow, all head towards the back of the big shopping centre, to where the tunnels are located. We head in through the janitors door and down a couple flights of stairs. The damp stairwells open up to a black expanse of nothing, essentially. Black pits either side of us, and writing on the wall that Isaiah had done. Letters trail down the wall, one with an x next to it.
Besides the writing the tunnels seem empty and we wait for Isaiah to appear. A few minutes later I hear footsteps coming from the left side of me. They get louder and louder and I can't help but remember how quiet Isaiah was walking down these tunnels. We hardly noticed he was there until he was right on top of us. This time is different. Heavy steps fill the space with noise and slowly a form comes into view. Thick black boots and tight black jeans. The guy is wearing a tight fitted blue shirt which makes the blackness of his hair and the ice blue of his eyes stand out. The clean cut jawline moves as the guy in front of me smirks. His hands are shoved into his pockets. It's only when I see the familiar eyes and the hair do I know who it is. And I stand frozen. It's almost like waking up. It's almost like having something back that belonged to me. To my family.
"Danahi?" my voice comes out as a whisper, and the man smirks again. He spreads his arms out wide. Without thinking of realising that I have another people with me, I rush over to Danahi and hug him.