The Underground

Chapter 13.1: Never Far Away

"Silvia," Vivian greeted, a tentative smile pulling her lips wide in a masquerade of casual poise.

The woman sucked in a breath then exhaled a shuddering sigh. Her face, still firmly hidden by clasped hands, tilted towards the closed and covered window beside the bed. "Hello, Miss Flores."

"Where have you brought me?" she asked, creeping around the bed without ever taking her eyes off the woman in front of her – an easy task given how difficult it was to see anything besides her.

Silvia cackled, sudden, harsh, and gone just as quickly as it happened. Her body shifted, angled such that Vivian never saw more than her back. "I don't think anyone truly knows. I've heard it called many things. The Middle. The In-Between. Purgatory. Hell. The Underground. The grave," she chuckled, low and hoarse. "All I know is people like you are to blame for my being here."

"People like me?"

Silvia's fingers parted, her head tilting up as she took in another long, savage inhale. Her shoulders shook, her face never quite visible. "I can smell it on you, even from here. You have something they have."

Vivian's subtle, side-ways walk slowed with each step she took. The room was functionally the same it had been when she and Dominic entered, yet the door seemed just out of reach no matter how many steps she took towards it. "They?"

"The twins," Silvia hissed, venom dripping from her words just as saliva dripped from her mouth. "Those wretched, conniving, monstrous fiends. They knew of things they shouldn't and trapped me here as torture for refusing them the grail. Snakes. Monsters. Beasts clad in human flesh filled with whispers from slumbering horrors. I pray only that it is him and I here, and no one else. My family deserves better."

A part of Vivian wanted to tell the unhinged vampire the truth of what happened to the Blackwoods. But besides the fact she wasn't certain of the events herself, her self-preservation kept her silent on the matter. Silvia didn't seem in the mindset to properly handle grief.

"And we," the vampire sighed, her body moving in a gentle sway that made it seem as if she would fall to the floor or bed any second. "We are caught in their grasp. Pray they do not realize you are here."

Vivian's brow shot upwards. "What? Why did you bring me here then?"

"I didn't mean to. The necklace – it's for you. Your kind," she said, stretching an arm back far behind her to point directly at Vivian's face. "For those eyes. But they must have known you would come here, and I would guide you to the necklace, and you would find their trap."

Silvia's arm sank back down, and she shook her head. "How do they always know?"

Vivian narrowed her eyes, a lean frown tightening her lips. "I don't understand. It was a fluke I even came here today, and if I hadn't slept here you never would have entered my dream. It was just a string of coincidences that happened to bring me here. Unless you're saying you somehow orchestrated everything that's happened the past few days to get me in this fucking house."

Silvia's shoulders shuddered and she twisted, craning her neck around to peer at Vivian with wide, sorrowful eyes. "I'm not saying that I did it."

Vivian struggled to swallow the growing lump in her throat. "Who then? Who was trying to buy the grail? Who was watching you?" she demanded, a confident tone giving way to desperation.

Silvia lifted her hand again and raised a single finger, pointing directly at the door that swung open from the command. "They're here. Go meet them."

"I –" Vivian started, stuttering and trying to catch her words before starting again. "We need to get out of here, you should come with me."

"There is no way out. Go. Find your answers before they find you."

With that, Silvia Blackwood turned back to face the window, shoulders slumping in on themselves as a shuddering exhale left her body.

Vivian finally moved to the door successfully, left with few other options and a growing sense that, much like Silvia months ago, she had made a mistake she didn't yet know.