Nadya’s Nights: Road to Vengeance
Night Four: Revelations
Chapter Thirty-Nine: New Surroundings
by Indy McDaniel
Copyright © 2009 Indy McDaniel
Waking up, Nadya didn’t feel anywhere near as safe as she had when she’d fallen asleep.
Memories in the form of dreams.
Unlike the last trip she’d taken into her past, the thought of her initial meeting with Vladimir didn’t leave her with dread or unrest. The safe slumber she’d fallen into in the back of the SUV wasn’t true… or at least it wasn’t chronologically accurate.
Her last conscious memories weren’t anywhere near as reassuring.
Bridget’s murder, the tranq dart she’d been shot with, the freakishly familiar looking woman who’d been responsible for both.
Opening her eyes, Nadya tried to sit up but found it impossible. Tight straps kept her lying prone against a hospital bed. Her clothes had been removed – a thought that made her cringe – and been replaced with a patient gown.
The room she occupied was definitely not part of any hospital, though. It looked more like an examination room in a laboratory. Wires ran from her body off to one side of the bed into a machine monitoring her life signs while an IV tube ran from her arm on the other side. Looking up at the bag of liquid that was being fed into her; she wasn’t too sure what it was.
The sound of the door opening drew Nadya’s attention away from the IV bag. The sight of the blonde woman wasn’t all that surprising. Still, it made Nadya pull at the straps holding her down with renewed vigor. Her captor watched with a slight look of amusement on her face that made Nadya’s blood boil.
If she’d been able to transform her anger into brute strength, she’d have had no trouble tearing through her bindings, flying across the room and ripping the woman’s head off with her bare hands. As it was, her muscles flexed and her teeth gritted, but she only managed a few strained sounds from the straps.
“Who the fuck are you?” Nadya spat at the woman angrily, using her native Russian tongue.
Still the woman looked amused, and she remained silent for a few moments before responding, also in Russian. “All things, in time.” The language flowed naturally from her lips. She approached Nadya slowly, although it didn’t seem as though she were afraid. “I would think you’d show a bit more graciousness.”
“For what?”
The woman moved up beside the bed. “That was a nasty gunshot you had,” she said, motioning to the shoulder Nadya had taken a bullet in. “Would’ve made quite a scar.”
Confusion mixed with the anger that was coursing through Nadya. Before she could ask any further questions, the woman reached towards her. Trying to pull away was useless. The woman grabbed hold of the shoulder of Nadya’s gown and pulled it downwards to reveal her bare shoulder.
Nadya looked, and her eyes widened with shock.
No sign of the gunshot wound remained.
Not even a scar.
The skin was smooth and flawless.
“How..?”
The woman tugged Nadya’s gown back up, recovering her shoulder. “Like I said… All things, in time.” She turned away, walking over to a table. “Suffice to say, you’ll find that all of the wounds you’ve sustained over the last few nights are quite healed.” She turned back, holding a large ring device.
Nadya tried to understand what was going on, but nothing logical was springing to mind. By the time she noticed the ring, it was being snapped around her neck.
“What the fuck is that?” she blurted out as the device clicked closed. There was a soft electronic tone sound and then silence.
The woman smiled down at her. “Just something to make sure you don’t do anything… ill advised.” She went about unhooking the wires and IV then reached for the straps, starting to unfasten them.
Still unsure as to what was going on, where she was and who the fuck this woman who looked so much like herself was didn’t much matter to Nadya. As soon as she felt the straps loosen enough, she sprang into action.
Leaping from the bed, launching herself at the woman and grabbing for her throat, she was determined to either snap the woman’s neck or, better yet, strangle her to death. No sooner had her fingers begun to tighten then a blinding pain shot through her, starting from her neck and fluctuating outwards.
By the time she regained her senses, Nadya found herself sprawled on the floor. The woman stood over her. The arrogant smile on her face encouraged Nadya to attack again and to hell with the pain, but she found herself weakened.
“Told you,” the woman said before reaching down to help Nadya to her feet.
Shoving the helping hand aside, she stood on her own but managed to refrain from trying to kill the bitch again. Instead, she fixed her with an icy glare which didn’t seem to deter the woman’s smile much.
“Now, why don’t we go for a walk,” she said, turning towards the door. “I find it a lot easier to do show and tell than go into some long, boring explanation without any visual aids.”
As soon as the woman’s back was turned, Nadya reached for the collar. She gripped it and tried to pull it apart but it didn’t budge. Sighing, she released it. She’d have to find some way to get it off. And when she did, she planned on hurting a whole lot of people, starting with the blonde bitch who’d put it on her.
The woman had stopped at the door and was looking back at her, that same annoying smile on her face. “Coming?”
Lowering her hands to her sides, Nadya followed. If the woman wanted to give her explanations, she’d take them. Any information she could get might help her get the hell out of this place.
“My name’s Xenia, by the way,” the woman told her. “Xenia Valentina.”
Nadya stopped dead in her tracks and stared at the woman. The likenesses they shared were too many to be just a coincidence. Still, she’d never really thought much about her family relations, mainly because – as far as she knew – she had none. Vladimir had been the only family she’d ever known.
Despite their likenesses, though, Nadya pushed away the thought that they might be related. It was far more likely that whoever she was and whoever she worked for, they were just trying to fuck with her. She intended to show the bitch just how little it was working by replying with a witty retort.
Instead, when she opened her mouth, all that came out was, “What?”
“I’m your sister, Nadezhda,” the woman said, her smile growing. “This way…” She turned and opened the door, leading the way out of the room.
Nadya remained standing still for several moments, her mind trying to process the information, trying to convince herself that it really was all just a mind fuck game. She wasn’t having a very good time believing that, though.
If it was a mind fuck, it was definitely working. It felt as though her head were going to burst any minute. She shook it, trying to clear out the insanity, but it didn’t do much good.
“What..?” she said again, softly, her eyes distant, then focusing on the receding backside of her ‘sister’. “What?!” she said once more, louder, her face constricted into a look of bewilderment and disbelief.
Then she was moving, out the door and after Xenia at a fast pace, trying to catch up. Maybe she wouldn’t kill the bitch immediately after getting free, after all.
First, she’d have to see how many answers she could beat out of her.
