Chapter 5
Larissa
Alan Wake
Petri Alanko
Larissa DeLoughrey, no... Something had gone very wrong somehow, and now I was here, drugged. In truth, it wasn’t the Copelands, but the DeLoughreys who had their nose deep in the drug business. Suddenly, everything made sense. Adrian’s behavior, all the money, the fact that their house wasn’t on the map…
Shit, what had I gotten myself into again? Hadn’t I wanted to put this shit behind me?
I looked at the door through which Bastien had disappeared. I realized he was standing in front of it. I felt it somehow… heard his heart beating? How was that possible?
I looked at the other door and then over to one of the windows. Several chances to escape. Maybe my only ones. But I was obviously drugged, and maybe it wasn’t a good idea to run. Properties like this were usually well-guarded by bodyguards, and if they were all as inhumanly skilled as Bastien, my chances of escaping were extremely small.
I had no choice but to take part in this dinner. Maybe they would help me. But who was on the estate who would help me escape?
I turned to the huge closet and opened the elegantly decorated doors, which were the same color as all the other furniture here. Black. The clothes inside were the complete opposite.
“Holy shit...” I exclaimed when I discovered the countless dresses. From royal blue to blue-green to burgundy. My hands glided over the fabrics. Velvet, silk, and lace.
How rich was this family that I could just take a dress from this wardrobe and wear it? Were they playing with me? Did rich families do things like that?
Once again, I let my eyes wander through the collection and finally decided on a burgundy velvet dress that fitted tightly around my waist but fell loosely to the floor.
Well, then I would play along with their little game, whatever it was.
As I slipped off the nightdress, my gaze automatically fell on the crosses and the burn marks that ran along the curves of my chest. I hadn’t looked at my breasts for a month, nor at my hips, which didn’t look any better.
My body was a battlefield of my past, and slipping into this sumptuous evening dress was just another facade hiding the truth.
Hastily, I pulled the dress on, trying not to put my hands on my stomach, trying to keep them away from my body and focus on the dress, my vision glazing over.
Turning around, I looked in the mirror again, where my eyes were still glowing, matching the color of the dress, even if this one wasn’t bright. It looked somehow... beautiful on me, even though I was far from being the dress girl.
You can do it, Larissa. The next chance you get, you’ll get out of here and stay away from those crazy people.
With that encouraging thought, I opened the door to find Bastien standing by a large window. He turned to me and adjusted the watch on his right hand.
“A very good choice, even if I would have saved it for dinner with Nicolaj if I were you.”
How could anyone be as formal as this man? The way he spoke flattered his personality, even if he was one of my captors.
“How old is this Nicolaj, if I may ask?” I tried to cover up my unusual uncertainty.
Bastien had to smile. “Ask him that, and you’ll get the keys to Adrian’s car.”
I raised an eyebrow, puzzled, because I didn’t quite understand what was so funny about it. I just wanted to make sure that their drug boss wasn’t a pedophile pervert. But the offer of the car gave me new hope of escaping, even though I knew he could never be serious. Adrian’s car. A Ferrari. Never. It must have been as expensive as...
I realized that I had no knowledge of expensive things, except for motorbikes. How could I, when I’d lived on the streets for half my life?
Bastien held his arm out to me in invitation, and I hesitantly took it. I wasn’t afraid of him, but of what awaited me down there, which was why I tried to cover up all these negative feelings with questions.
“How much do you actually earn as a bodyguard for the... DeLoughreys?”
He smirked again.
“What?”
“I’m part of the family as well as of the brother- and sisterhood. We are part of an underground organization and all equal members. But I can’t tell you any more than that until you sign the agreement.”
I was speechless. It almost sounded like I’d ended up in the mafia and was about to be forced into something I didn’t want. Something you couldn’t get out of once it was too late.
But what could they possibly want from me? I had nothing to offer.
Memories of the past came up, but I pushed them aside. Not here.
Bastien seemed friendly, though cool and reserved. Maybe he was my only chance to get out of here, so I paused.
“Bastien, I don’t mean to be rude, but I think there’s been a huge misunderstanding. I just want to go home, and I feel very uncomfortable here. I’m sure my friend misses me, and the university…”
“There’s no need to worry. Believe me, you’re in good hands here. As far as I know, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to continue your studies at Vanderwood soon.”
We walked on through a corridor with a black carpet rolled out in the middle, magnificent chandeliers above us, golden decorations on the walls, fine candlesticks, and old paintings from Europe, but I was too distracted to look at everything more closely.
My mind was literally racing. More and more questions kept popping up. Questions that I couldn’t answer.
Why was I here if they planned to release me? Weren’t they afraid that I would go to the police?
“Why me?” I whispered before we entered the middle floor of a huge foyer, lit by a giant crystal chandelier hanging from the painted ceiling. A painting from antiquity with naked golden angels turned in a circle around the holder in the ceiling. A mixture of ceiling fresco and ornamentation. The walls were adorned with Gothic statues, the window frames decorated with carved patterns, benches covered in velvet in front of them, all in shades of black and gold, just like the curtains. Two staircases led down to another level and finally merged into one large staircase that led even further down.
I felt like a princess in a fairytale castle, and the fact that Bastien led me further down in this dress didn’t make it any better.
“We can’t choose our fate,” was all I got in reply.
Great. Thank you, Bastien .
That really helped me now. The last thing I needed at the moment was a hot bodyguard who was actually part of the mafia and spoke to me in riddles.
When we arrived downstairs in the foyer, I realized that we were in a huge ballroom.
I would have loved to take photos of this mansion, which I had wanted to find on my own just a few days ago. Now I was here, and I wanted nothing more than to leave.
Bastien led me through wide corridors, and it felt more and more like I was in a baroque palace. Large windows, gold candlesticks, detailed statues and paintings that must have been worth millions. The only thing missing was the servants, who didn’t seem to exist. Until I spotted a butler scurrying past us, his gaze completely paralyzed, as if he was on drugs, too.
We walked through an open double door and entered a room with dark red wallpaper and very large windows. It overlooked the lake I had seen earlier. The moon shone into the room, which was also dimmed by a dozen candlesticks.
And then I spotted the table, or rather the banquet table, around which a few people were sitting, all dressed in fancy clothes and... looking at me.
Shit, I was the center of attention and now there was no turning back. You should have jumped out of the window. Damn it, Larissa. There weren’t even any bodyguards here to stop me from escaping, and I had been stupid enough to go with Bastien.
I was surprised to see Adrian sitting right at the front, looking at me intently. Adrian DeLoughrey was here. Of course he was. He was probably the reason I was here, too. I had been playing with fire, and now he had shown me what it meant to be a thorn in the DeLoughreys’ side.
Bastien led me to a chair directly across from Adrian and made me take a seat, which didn’t change the fact that the others were staring at me. I recognized Adrian’s platinum blond friend sitting next to me, an empty chair between us.
Diagonally opposite me, next to Adrian, sat a woman with black hair and turquoise-green eyes, probably in her late twenties. She looked as if she could hardly save herself from admirers. With her dark red lips, she smiled kindly at me, and I returned her smile hesitantly. What else could I do? I didn’t know her.
Bastien sat down in the seat to the right of the blond, the only one who didn’t seem to be staring at me – I would thank him later, maybe he would help me get out of here.
Opposite him, to the right of the woman... I froze.
The man with the coat, the companion of the homeless psycho who had attacked Bayla and me. And now he was sitting here, at the DeLoughreys’ table.
What came next? What if it was just a dream?
The man who looked only slightly younger than Bastien was staring at me most intently, and I couldn’t help but stare back in fear. His eyes were brown now, no longer black, which made him appear more human. I had to admit that he didn’t look bad, even if the staring scared me. He smiled at me too, but I refused to return it.
I just wanted to get out of here.
“How are you, dear?” asked the woman, who I assumed must be Camille. She was the first woman I’d seen here. The thought that she had seen me naked worried me slightly. I wondered what she had thought when she had seen my hips or the sides of my breasts.
When I didn’t answer her, she looked searchingly at Bastien. “Bastien, how much does she know?”
“She thinks she’s intoxicated,” he replied and began to eat. The blond guy did the same, and then they all started.
There was chicken, and lots of it, plus a lot of cooked vegetables and other meat, which had to be the cooked version of all endangered animals.
I felt absolutely no hunger, but would it be considered acceptable if I didn’t eat? Could they force me to? What if they wanted to poison me?
I looked at the empty glass in front of me.
“Oh, Jesus, what do you think of us?” Camille laughed with amusement, as if she had read my thoughts. “Do we look like the Copelands?” Now everyone had to smirk. Everyone except me, of course, because the joke completely passed me by. Adrian and the weird guy at the end of the table weren’t laughing either, but I just tried to focus on the woman.
“Nicolaj is coming back next week. What do you think he’ll say about this girl? Untrained, practically a newcomer,” someone remarked critically.
Camille’s face straightened, and she looked across the table.
It was only now that I spotted the second bodyguard next to the scary guy in the coat. He had also been on campus. His brown hair was now a little shorter than last time.
“I’ll take care of her,” Camille said with a serious tone, giving me a delighted wink.
She wouldn’t do anything...
“We’ve already worked out who’s going to train her,” Bastien said firmly.
What on earth did he mean by that? Training?
Camille just rolled her eyes and put a bloody piece of meat on her plate. I lost my appetite for good.
I caught Adrian staring. He looked away immediately, and I wondered what was going on in his head. I wondered if he could help me. He had had so many chances to kidnap me. When we had been alone on campus at night, in the hallway of Vanderwood, in the messy art room of the university… But he had always let me go... or rather, taken me away. What if he had zero to do with any of this?
I realized I was back to square one. Nothing made sense. Absolutely nothing, and I wasn’t dreaming either. That was a fact by now.
“What an evening, my beloved family.” It came energetically from the door, through which Adrian’s other friend strolled in. The grin on his lips widened when he spotted me. He came up to me with his arms open, patted me on the shoulder as if we were old friends and circled me, only to take the empty seat next to me.
“Nice to welcome you here.” Even though his grin was charming, I quickly realized how much irony it contained. Then he leaned sideways toward me and whispered for all to hear, “Or should I say: my condolences.”
I looked at him worriedly and his grin widened.
“Miles, can you be serious for once?” Adrian asked, visibly tense.
“You’ll be waiting a long time for that, Adrian,” Camille added dryly and finally looked at Miles, who seemed to be enjoying the attention. “You’ll scare her.”
It sounded like a warning, and Camille was right. I was scared, even if Miles wasn’t the main reason.
Miles looked around, sighing. “Let me guess, she doesn’t know anything?”
The table fell silent. Bastien gave him a warning look. And Miles turned back to me.
“Let me cut it short.”
“Miles!” Bastien tried to interrupt him sharply.
“You were bitten by a Ruisangor and, because you carry a certain gene, you’re now one too, but you think you’re dreaming or something like that, and they want to teach you in a harmless way that from now on, you have to feed on blood and be trained as a fighting machine to serve the brother- and sisterhood.”
My jaw dropped.
Had he gone completely mad?
But when I looked at the others, they didn’t look amused. Quite the opposite, they seemed to be staring at me, waiting to see how I would react.
“First of all, you’re immortal now, and even though we would be able to, we won’t kill you unless you break the rules. And yes, you have time to accept these facts. Because no one here will let you go before that happens.”
Miles raised his hands and clapped twice. A young man then appeared with a tray in his hand, on which stood a huge silver goblet. Immediately, the sweet smell from earlier caught my nose. Whatever kind of lemonade it was, my body was craving it.
Miles took the drink from the plate and bent it over his wine glass, which instantly filled with a red, thick...
I jumped up.
No! That couldn’t be... no.
I backed away. And everything that Miles had just told me was falling into place in my head.
“It’s blood…” I gasped and was about to catch my breath when I realized that I hadn’t breathed at all since entering the room.
I sucked air into my lungs, but it felt completely unnecessary. As if I didn’t need it at all.
I stared at the glass again and when Miles grinned again, I backed away further.
What were they? What had they done to me?
“Miles, we could have avoided all that…” the blond began, but Miles interrupted him, only to turn back to me.
“They wouldn’t have. You would have freaked out either way.”
Miles just smiled, lifting the glass and holding it out to me, making me flinch even further, even though my body was screaming for the liquid.
“Come on, I know you’re thirsty. It smells sweet, doesn’t it?”
Stunned, I stared first at him, then at the others, only now noticing how their eyes had turned red... the one in the back had them black, like the other day. They were all staring at the glass. Hungry, greedy.
But the bizarre thing was that I felt just such a hunger. The fact caused me confusion, shame, but no disgust.
“We all feel the same thirst as you do,” Miles sighed and stood up with glowing eyes to move closer with the glass. I didn’t move an inch when he put it to my lips and tipped it slightly. “Just one sip. If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to call us crazy.”
I squinted, completely distraught.
Suddenly, I felt the liquid pass through my lips and a sweet flavor awakened my taste buds. That was the point at which everything went too fast. I hastily reached for the glass, opened my lips and drank the entire liquid, feeling each sweet sip run down my throat as if it were a release.
Then I threw it into Miles’ arms and backed away, hitting the wall and seeing the smiles on the faces in front of me.
They had all watched me drink blood.
Blood.
I grabbed my mouth and felt a slight tug in my teeth. I put my hands to my lips, opened them slightly and felt how sharp my canines were. Even though I had only brushed them lightly, I felt a slight pain in my fingertip and quickly pulled it away from my mouth, only to discover a drop of blood at the tip.
“No…” I sighed, remembering all the horror movies Bayla and I had secretly watched when we had only been twelve.
Creatures that drank blood, used humans as their food source... vampires.
“No...”
That couldn’t be true.
“Welcome to the blood society of the Ruisangors,” Miles said, filling his own glass like the others. He lifted it up and downed the blood. His bright red eyes darkened with every sip.
A world just collapsed inside me. The one I’d been living in until now, the one from which the DeLoughreys had torn me out of from one moment to the next. Whatever they had done to me, I had become a monster. A blood-drinking monster. And something disturbing told me that I wasn’t on drugs.