Breathe Under Water - Shadows of the Night 1

Chapter 31

Hi!

Chapter 31. Finally. Anna's still in big trouble.... I hope you like this one. If you do, please let me know! As always many thanks to all my readers!!

Lara

_______________________________________________________

Chapter 31

I stared out the window, trying to determine where exactly we were. No matter how hard I looked, there was no sense of recognition, not a single street sign I recognized. And then I saw them, somewhere in the distance familiar city lights and buildings rose into the sky. It looked like we-

Alexander's icy voice cut right through my thoughts, tore down the impenetrable walls of silence that, at least for a while, had made me feel safe.

"Close your eyes, little witch."

I opened my mouth, about to say something that would have probably worked against me. My breath got stuck on the fleshy roads of my windpipe, my mouth big, oh-shaped. My eyes closed with the snap of window shutters crashing on concrete.

I tried to open them again and found that I couldn't.

"What?" The word tumbled out of my mouth, not more than a whisper.

"And don't you dare to speak," Alexander whispered.

The presence of an ancient mind grated against my own, the sound of static, white noise rolling into my mind like thunder until I couldn't hear my own thoughts. I tried to claw myself out of it with the sentience of approaching death.

Alexander was messing with my mind. For a moment the thought was there, before it flattened out and died in a wasteland of static.

The mute blindness struck and scraped at nerve endings I wasn't aware of instants before. My vision had left me, but I was aware of everything else, wasn't lost in the blue sing-song of his siren call like a blood junkie might be.

It could have been minutes. It could have been half an hour. I couldn't tell, having lost two of my connecting devices to the outer world. All I knew was that it was as if I was locked inside a black box. I couldn't see. I couldn't speak. That, however, wasn't the worst thing. What rattled me the most was the knowledge that Alexander could do it to begin with.

My ears perked up as I detected the sound of a gate or garage door opening. It was then that I regained control of my body. My eyes fluttered open, immediately flushed with tears that I blinked away with hot anger. Again. I broke my promise yet again.

Never give them the satisfaction of evoking fear. Her voice was so clear, so real, she could have been standing right behind me. For a moment I even believed that she wasn't a by-product of imagination. I closed my eyes out of my own will and balled my hands into fists, counting to ten in my head. I hadn't shown fear, but its twin brother: weakness. I wouldn't fail her again. No more.

We were in a garage, big and showy, and with all the extras a car freak would have wet dreams about. There were at least a dozen cars in the poorly lit room, all of them ridiculously expensive-looking. And all of them probably belonged to the head vampire of New York himself.

Was that a Lamborghini? And where the hell were we?

In Alexander's current lair, summer residence, cathouse?

Did it even matter?

"Get out." Alexander's voice was low and silent, barely more than a whisper.

At first I thought the vampire was addressing primarily me, but I learned that he actually meant his two minion vampires, who hurried out of the car wordlessly. Just a little short of falling over themselves to get away, they vanished in a blur.