No Way Out | Teen Wolf & The Vampire Diaries

Chapter 30

"This is it?" Elijah asks me as we stand outside my apartment door.

"This is it," I confirm with a sigh. Hesitantly, I knock.

Almost instantly, the door opens to reveal a very worried-looking Chris Argent. "Nylah." He clasps me tightly before he notices Elijah. He frowns.

"Hello, I'm Elijah," Elijah greets, shaking dad's hand.

"Hi, I'm Chris..." His green-blue eyes drift to me inquiringly. "Nylah? What's going on?"

"Dad, we all need to talk," I declare, looking past him pointedly.

"Alright, come in..." He invites us inside and shuts the door. There's a definite, palpable somber atmosphere in the room. "Drinks, anyone?"

"Not for me, thank you," Elijah responds. Elijah and I sit down on a couch, facing dad.

"Me neither." I smile weakly at dad. "Um, dad..." I trail off, not knowing how to word this, "This is going to sound very... peculiar."

I'm acutely aware that my knee is bouncing frantically, but I don't stop it.

I don't know how dad is going to take this news. I don't even know if he's even aware I'm not his biological daughter. I'm afraid of his reaction — I don't want to hurt him. Heck, it's been a whirlwind, lately. I'm still processing all of this, myself.

He glances between the two of us, frowning. "Go on...?"

"Nylah is my daughter," Elijah utters.

Dad gapes at Elijah, incredulous. He's just staring, not saying a word. The seconds are ticking by excruciatingly slowly.

"Dad...?" I inquire worriedly. When there's no response, I shift in my seat, uncomfortable. "Dad? Are you okay?"

"I'm sorry, I thought this man just said you're his daughter?" dad says, unnervingly calm.

***

Once dad gets past the shock of what he's heard — that I'm not his daughter, that Elijah and I took a paternity test, and that Elijah is a vampire — he reluctantly agrees for Elijah to compel him to remember everything about the night of my birth, because Elijah suspects that Katerina used compulsion to convince mum and dad that I'm their child.

Elijah has informed us that compulsion from an Original will override any other vampire's compulsion.

"Recall everything related to the night of Nylah's birth," Elijah commands dad, looking into his eyes.

Dad's face is suddenly devoid of all expression and emotion.

"I recall that my wife, Victoria, had one baby girl. The nurses took her away and left her in a cot while the doctors performed checkups on Victoria. When we were ready to leave, a dark-haired woman put a baby girl in the same cot as our daughter. She seemed to be in a panic. We asked her what she was doing. All she told us was that we were to name the girl Nylah, and that she's our own. She told us that we were to forget about our conversation, and that she already took care of the doctors and the birth certificates. No one was to know, she said. And then she left."

My mouth is hanging open by the end of his explanation. Elijah looks grim, but not surprised.

"Woah..." dad says, holding his head, "How am I only remembering all this now? And what...?" He looks dazed, concerned, and frustrated.

"Compulsion," Elijah explains, "She did all this because she was on the run from someone."

"Oh, heck. This is too much to take in..." dad utters under his breath, his attention averting to his phone when it starts ringing. He answers the call. "Hey, sweetie."