Dangerous Illusions

Chapter 24

My eyes were still closed when I felt my back hitting something soft. For a while it was silent and my eyes automatically open when I heard a door open,

"Would you please stay?" I ask as I see Daniel standing in the doorway on his way back downstairs,

"You want me to stay?" He asked slightly taken aback by my request,

"Y-Yes please," He nodded and closed the door once again as he leaned against the wall crossing his arms and leaning his head back against the wall. He stood there for about a minute with his eyes closed and me just staring at him weirdly.

"What are you doing?" I asked with curiosity and amusement.

"Well, you asked me to stay, so I'm staying," He looked at me with a 'duh' look before I started to laugh,

"I didn't say stand there. I meant on the bed doofus," He cracked a smile and made his way over to the bed taking off his jacket along with his shirt, putting it on one of the chairs by the dresser.

It's the first time I've seen him shirtless and he was definitely a sight to behold. When he caught me staring he started to smirk causing me to blush and attempt to hide my face by turning my back towards him. I heard a chuckle from behind me and muttered a few words under my breath before I felt the bed dip.

I tried closing my eyes again to go to sleep, but my brain wasn't having any of it, I stayed awake and rolled onto my other side looking at Daniel with his arm behind his head and his eyes closed while he lightly snored. I kept on looking at him as he slept while thoughts ran through my head,

Did he really mean what he said? Or did he only say it to comfort me? If he was just faking, it would really be disappointing...

"See something you like?" I jump when his sudden voice filled the room,

"I thought you were asleep!" I yelled in shock,

"So you watched me sleep? Is that it?" He turned to look at me with a cocky smirk plastered on his face,

"No, I didn't," I huff out and attempted to turn back onto my right but Daniel grabbed my arm preventing me in doing so,

"Sorry...can't you fall asleep?"

I sighed and turned onto my back while staring at the ceiling, "No,"

We stayed silent for a few moments before he spoke up, "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," I replied and turned to look at him while he copied my actions,

"What...happened to you and your sister when you were younger?" He asked me looking like he was choosing his words carefully,

"We..." I started but stopped and contemplated if I should. I guess I can trust him so I took a deep breath and tried again, "The people that claimed to be my parents...they would go out at night and come back drunk. They would force us to do tasks and chores that were dangerous for us at our age, but if we refused they would hit us, they even through us with beer bottles, they were obviously not right in the head." I continued to explain with no emotion on my face and in a monotone voice,

"As we got older they got more aggressive, they would come home and leave drugs in all sorts of forms in the kitchen. My sister and I walked in on them while they used it and while they were getting high. They enjoyed using it on us, they would get us addicted to it. My brother tried protecting us, he took both me and Liz to the hospital and the police station when he got his license. He helped us get into a rehab center to help with our addiction problem, which wasn't our fault. We explained that to the lady that worked at the hospital and she seemed to understand, she was more than willing to help. That is why I don't go near needles, I don't go near pills and I only drink medicine when it's my last resort,"

Daniel was quiet for a while and when I looked up at him his face was blank, "Daniel? You okay?"

"Of course I am, but you're not!" He said and his sudden outburst took me by surprise,

"How can they do that to you and your sister! You were only kids!"

"Daniel it's in the past, and we both made it didn't we?"

"At what cost! There is a special place in hell for people that do that to children, and to anyone for that matter," He said bitterly

I looked down and bit my lip as I thought about it, I heard him sigh and lift my chin to look at him,

"I didn't know you had a brother, remind me I want to thank him, we need more people like him. How old is he?" My heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach as when he brought him up, but even though after everything that has happened, I can't help the small smile that formed on my lips when I thought about how he and Daniel would have gotten along,

"Yeah, me too. He would have been twenty-two this year,"

"Would have?"

"If you want to thank him, you will have to come with me to his grave if you want, you two would have gotten along great,"

"I'm sorry, I didn't know,"

"It's fine, no one really did, they wanted to keep him away from the public for some reason,"

"Do you mind me asking how he...you know-"

"Died?" I completed his sentence with a soft smile, but it dropped when I started to recall the memory,

"I-It was my fault...I snuck out to go to a party. I just wanted to fit in like everyone else did, I was so impressed with everyone calling me names that I just wanted to prove them wrong. He found out but, unfortunately, so did the people that were abusing me. They were going to go after me, but he drove out to come and get me. He pulled my out of the party and put me in the car, he explained the situation that I was in, but he promised to try and keep me safe. We where on our way back, a car ran a red light...my brother got a fright and swung out to avoid me getting hit, but he got hit instead. I-If I hadn't gone out, it w-wouldn't have h-happened," My voice cracked in the end. Daniel wrapped his arm around me and pulled me to his chest,

"It's not your fault Elna, it's the car's that ran the red light, don't take the blame, okay?" He said comforting me,

"What was his name?" He asked after I calmed down,

"Nathan, Nathan White,"

There was silence for a few seconds before he spoke up again,

"He didn't happen to have a middle name, did he?"

"Yeah, Anderson. Why?"

"Elna, I don't think your brother is dead," He replied after a few seconds of silence,

"W-What? How is that possible?" I stuttered and moved into a sitting position,

"Elna, there's someone in my gang, his name is Nate Anderson, and if I'm right..."

"N-No it can't be, I saw his body, I was at his funeral. It can't possibly be him,"

"How do you know that he was in the coffin when you buried him then?"

"I-What... Daniel, it just can't, I saw his body, there was no way that he can be alive,"

"I know that this is a lot to proses, but how about I ask him to meet up with me and you can see wither or not it's him? If it's not, I'll drop it,"

"Fine,"

"You need your sleep, come on," He told me holding out his arm gesturing me to come closer to him, I hesitated at first but after feeling how tired I really was, I want going to put up with an argument, so I moved closer, putting my head on his chest as he wrapped his arm around me.

I felt myself drift off to sleep when I still had two thoughts on my mind; One, my brother may still be alive, and two, Daniel Hunter's is holding me while I'm falling asleep...