Nadya’s Nights: Road to Vengeance
Night Four: Revelations
Chapter Forty-Two: Splitting Headache
by Indy McDaniel
Copyright © 2009 Indy McDaniel
Nadya’s head felt like it was about to burst open and spew forth some kind of deformed alien offspring, hungry for flesh and eager to procreate. Even as consciousness flooded back into her, she kept her eyes shut, although they squeezed closed tighter and a grimace formed on her face. She let out a low groan as slowly the pieces put themselves back together.
Interestingly enough, the first image that popped into her mind was of Pavel. She hadn’t thought of the boy in years. Strange that he’d come back to her after all this time. She wondered what he was up to and how many other caring individuals he’d smashed in the back of the head over the years.
Fucking asshole.
She shoved the thought of him aside, not wanting to waste anymore brain power on him. Especially considering her brain wasn’t really in the best of shape.
More recent memories started to come back. Her sister. The stupidly named organization she worked for. Her fucking gun.
Nadya’s eyes snapped open as she remembered the flash of the gun in her face. Her vision was blurred and she blinked, trying to focus. As it did, she let out another groan as the image of her sister’s grinning face appeared over her.
“I was right!” she said, and Nadya’s head throbbed even worse as the loud voice rang in her ears.
“Shut the fuck up…” Nadya replied. She reached a hand up to her forehead, expecting to find a bullet graze across her temple. Instead, she felt a relatively deep pit in the center of her forehead. She fingered it slightly, wincing at the pain.
“Hey!” Xenia said. “Don’t stick your finger in it! It’s not finished healing!”
Nadya winced again; this time from her sister’s raised voice. “I said, shut the fuck up!” she responded, her own voice growing louder. “You fucking shot me!”
“I know!”
Despite the two times Nadya had requested her to be quiet Xenia’s voice wasn’t dropping in volume. If anything, it was getting louder.
“That was so fucking cool! I’ve never gotten to test it out like that before.”
Nadya realized her face was sticky with what she assumed was her blood. She tried to sit up, but her head wasn’t along for the ride and she only made it a couple inches before having to drop back down and close her eyes, fighting off a wave of nausea.
“Check it out!” Xenia said and Nadya forced her eyes back open. Xenia had pulled out a pocket mirror and was holding it up so Nadya could see her own reflection.
A dime-sized hole was drilled into the middle of her forehead. Nadya was still having a hard time focusing her eyes, but she could’ve sworn she saw the glistening of brain.
Another wave of nausea hit her.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen much gorier things before. There was just something about seeing a hole in her own head revealing her brain that just didn’t sit well with her. Still, she found it hard to look away, especially since even as she watched, the hole was growing smaller. The nausea faded into amazement as in about a minute, the hole sealed itself back up and left no trace that it ever existed.
“How in the fuck?” she muttered.
“Isn’t that fucking badass?” Xenia replied to Nadya’s question with another question, and her’s was at a distinctly greater decibel level, causing the younger Valentina to wince again.
“What did you do to me?” Nadya tried again, letting her eyes drift closed. The wound might’ve healed, but the pain was still there. Apparently, her brain wasn’t quite done unscrambling itself yet. Maybe that was why Pavel had popped up after all these years.
“I just resurrected you, little sister,” Xenia said. The grin on her face was evident from the sound of her voice.
If her head wasn’t hurting so badly, Nadya would have punched her. “After you blew my fucking brains out, you mean…”
“Well, hey, can’t have a resurrection without a death, can you?”
Nadya felt Xenia’s hand grab hold of her’s and start to help her to her feet. She tried to keep her eyes closed but the movement was making the room spin. She forced her eyes back open to confirm that the room was remaining stationary. It helped the nausea, but the pain spiked up again.
“C’mon… You need a shower and some new clothes. You’re a bit… ripe…”
As Xenia helped her to her feet, Nadya realized exactly what her sister meant. Her face contorted into a look of disgust. Apparently, whatever shit she’d been injected with, regardless of its ability to bring her back to life, wasn’t capable of doing it in a way that allowed her to keep her dignity. She hadn’t pissed herself since she’d stopped wetting the bed her first year at the orphanage. And she’d never shit herself.
Until now.
Nadya hadn’t thought there could be a way for her to hate her newfound sister even more, but she’d just discovered another reason to add to the long list.
The journey to the showers wasn’t technically a long one, but it felt that way to Nadya. She was disappointed to find that it was a communal shower. Thankfully, it was empty at the moment. She started stripping out of her soiled garments as quickly as possible, heading for one of the shower stalls. She started to pull the patient gown up over her head but stopped about halfway there and looked back to where Xenia was standing at the doorway.
“Little privacy?”
Xenia lifted an eyebrow. “Yea… right? So you can find a way out of your collar and take a stroll around the block without your chaperone?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Besides, we’re sisters. Family. Don’t worry about it.”
Nadya still didn’t feel comfortable about being watched while taking a shower, regardless of whatever genetic links they shared. However, she was even less comfortable remaining wearing the clothing she was in. Either way, it’d be nice to get into something that wasn’t a patient gown.
“Anyway, it’s not like I’ve never seen you naked before…” Xenia added.
Nadya turned to glare at her for a moment. “And what about the collar? Am I gonna get some big ass zap when the water hits it?”
“Nah, that thing’s totally water-proof. I could dump your ass in the ocean and it wouldn’t give you one little spark.”
“Good to know…” Nadya mumbled before pulling her clothes the rest of the way off and starting up the shower.
The feeling of the water made her jump back out of the stream at first, the temperature far colder than she’d expected. She made some adjustments to the knobs and waited for the water temperature to change before stepping back into the spray.
A small ledge that ran along the walls of the room held bars of soap. Nadya snagged the closest one and proceeded to use it thoroughly, wanting to get herself as clean as possible. Thankfully, her head was starting to hurt less. She wasn’t sure if that was due to the healing process or the shower, but she didn’t really care.
As she was finishing up, Nadya glanced back to where Xenia was. Her sister was staring intently at her and it didn’t seem like her eyes were remaining in one place. It was unnerving, to say the least. She quickly finished rinsing herself off, shut off the shower and grabbed a nearby towel, wrapping it tightly around herself. She turned back to Xenia.
“Clothes.”
Xenia smirked and nodded, motioning to a locker room off to the side of the showers. “Right this way, miss.” She led the way into the locker room and Nadya followed, trying to figure out what her sister had been eyeing her up for.
To determine how big of a threat she was?
Obviously, since watching someone shower was a clear indicator of how dangerous they were.
Nadya knew she didn’t like it, regardless of what it meant.
A set of clothes had been placed on one of the benches in the locker room. Nadya approached the pile and glanced back to Xenia. “Let me guess… all my sizes?”
Xenia shrugged. “Well, they might be a tad bit tight-fitting. So difficult to keep track of proper clothing sizes these days…”
The clothes were actually similar to the style Nadya normally wore, with the possible exception of being tighter fitting. Black long-sleeved shirt and jeans, combat boots – although they were brand-new, as opposed to her usual well-worn ones. It was a change she wasn’t very sure she enjoyed.
She went through the rest of the pile, finding a pair of socks and black panties.
“No bra?”
“Fresh out.”
Nadya doubted it, but let it go. It was all part of the weird game Xenia was playing with her. She wasn’t exactly sure what the main goal was, but it couldn’t be anything good. She didn’t bother asking her sister to leave the room for her to get dressed, instead dropping the towel and pulling on the clothes as quickly as possible.
The clothes were a bit too small for her. She looked down to see the shirt clinging tightly to the curves of her breasts and her nipples were quite visible protruding against the fabric.
What the hell was Xenia planning? Get her all slutted out and then shove her into a room full of guys?
Was Xenia, just like every other pathetically mistaken person she’d run into, convinced that her scowling face just needed a good fucking? If so, Xenia, and whatever group of people she pushed Nadya into, were in for a big surprise.
Once she finished dressing, she turned back to face Xenia. “There. Think maybe you could tell me how in the fuck it is you shot me in the head and I’m not so much dead meat right now?”
Xenia smiled at Nadya, although it seemed as if her eyes were leveled at her sister’s chest. “Very nice. Y’know, you really should show off your feminine side more often.”
Bitch is a bitch, Nadya’s annoyingly familiar traveler responded. But bitch still has a point.
Nadya told the voice to shut the fuck up and stay out of it.
“Explanation, motherfucker. Do you have it?”
“The Lazarus Serum,” Xenia replied.
“The fuck is the Lazarus Serum?”
Xenia shrugged. “Oh, it’s a whole lot of technical mumbo jumbo that I don’t really understand that basically translates down into…” She locked eyes with Nadya finally.
“Resurrection juice.”
“Bullshit.”
“Says the girl who just had a bullet shoot through her cerebral cortex and doesn’t have a mark on her.” Xenia smiled, amused with her own comment.
Nadya didn’t look amused at all.
Xenia sighed. “Look, let me show you. Way easier to show you than to sit in this smelly locker room and talk about it. Can I show you?”
“Are you gonna shoot me again?” Nadya asked.
“Do you want me to?” Xenia replied then continued before Nadya had a chance to answer. “No, I’m not gonna shoot you again. There’s another customer here. One I think you know. C’mon. Let’s go see how she’s coming along.” Xenia turned and left the room.
Nadya’s head was beginning to hurt again, and this time she was pretty sure it wasn’t due to having been shot. The more time she spent around her sister, the more confused she became. Still, she followed along behind her, curious to see who this mystery customer was.
And if she got some explanations along the way, maybe it’d help her head to stop hurting.
