Chapter 19

Part 5: Katie

We were walking up to this beautiful chapel in Madrid, Spain. I’m not going to lie. I was a bit nervous about coming here to visit the Patron. I wasn’t sure what I should say or if I should even say anything. No one really knew why they wanted me to come see them. The chapel had to have been a few stories high. It was interesting to see Madrid because I have not yet seen it. Zach led me in and led me through the building until we got to a large, gold door. There was a small girl who was about the size of a twig. She was standing guard of the door and her face brightened up the moment that she saw Zach.

 

“Zachary! How wonderful to see you!” She said in a voice that probably had an English accent to go along with it. The way she said Zach’s name seemed like she knew him more than just seeing him the last time Zach had seen the Patron.

 

“Rosana, you knew that Katie was coming today therefore, you knew I was coming today. Stop acting like you’re surprised to see me.”

 

She gave a little fake pouty face and said, “Okay. I wish you would call me Rose like you used to.” I was really confused. Did they know each other more than just the Patron?

 

“Can you just tell him that Katie’s here? He doesn’t need to come out.”

 

“You know he’s going to want to come out and see you.” Rosana said. “I can tell you secretly want him to.”

 

“Rose, don’t get inside my head. Just tell him Katie’s here and that I’m not.” Zach said coldly. I have no idea who they were talking about. But it was obviously someone that Zach had a history with. Rose went into the door and it closed.

 

“What was that about?” I looked at Zach.

 

“What?”

 

“Who don’t you want to see?”

 

He shook his head. “He’s just a member of the Patron that I have a history with and don’t really need to see right now. Not when he’s going to be speaking to you as a Patron member.”

 

“What other way would he speak to me as?”

 

“Katie, he’s no one important. He’s someone who used to be part of my past until my last visit with the Patron. Now he’s truly dead to me.” I was still really confused as to who he was talking about. But then Rose came out from the door with a man in a black cloak. I was shocked. He looked like the spitting image of Zach. Who was this? Zach sighed. “Rose, I told you to tell him to not come out here.”

 

“Zachary, you know that my word overrides whatever you have told Rosana to do.”

 

“Nicolas, I’m only here for Katie. I’m not here to fix the relationship that you screwed up.” Zach said coldly.

 

“Zachary, you will eventually have to forgive me for what I had to do. I can’t play favorites. What you did last time you were here was punishable by death. I convinced the others to go easy on you because of the fact that you are my son.” What?! This was Zach’s father? I was extremely confused. I just looked at Zach who had his eyes shut. “Zachary, you didn’t tell your girlfriend that I was alive did you?”

 

“I didn’t tell her because you are dead to me and because I have done everything in my power to make sure that she doesn’t have to come visit with you and your friends.”

 

Nicolas sighed. “Well, we must be getting going. The others will wonder why I’m taking so long.”

Zach stopped me real quickly. He gave me a kiss. “I’ll be right out here if you need me. Just tell them the truth about everything you know. Most likely Jenna’s going to be in there. Don’t let her get on your nerves.” I nodded. I still had a lot to talk about with him lying to me about his father but it was for a different time. He leaned in and gave me the most passionate kiss that he could possibly give me right now.

 

I follow Nicolas into the room. It had a large dome over the top of it. The dome had beautiful angelic paintings on it. There was an alter at the end of the round room. There were 4 chairs on the alter. 3 of them were occupied by men. One of them was empty but I guessed that was Nicolas’s chair. Jenna was standing next to her father. I just kept repeating what Zach had told me. “Don’t let her get on your nerves.” I took a deep breath and continued to get closer to the Patron.

 

Nicolas sat down in the empty seat. Jenna’s father was the first to speak to me. “Katie, thank you for coming today. I’m sure you still have a bit of recovering to do.”

 

I just looked at him. I’m sure Jenna told him some grand story of how I tried to take advantage of her and she never tied me up with vervain ropes. I grabbed my wrist and started to rub them. Sometimes when I start to think about what happened my wrist start hurting. “I’m managing. Thank you for inviting me here.” I figured to just say as little as possible. Hopefully it would make things as painless as possible.

 

“Katlyn, Jenna tells us that you escaped vervain ropes without any help. Do you know how you did it?” Nicolas asked.

 

I just looked at Jenna. She had a straight face on. Did she tell you that she was the one who put me in the vervain ropes? I thought. I shook my head. “I’m not sure. All I was thinking was that I had to get out and then the next thing I knew, I was freed from the ropes.”

 

They nodded. It was really hard to read them and tell what they were thinking. “What do you know about the power that you have used before? The power to kill people with your mind.” One of the other men on the alter asked.

 

I shook my head. “Not much. I know that I can kill more than one person with it. I know that I can’t control it well when I’m hungry. But other than that I don’t know much.”

 

“Have you ever tried to use it on another vampire?” Nicolas asked.

 

I was confused. “No, why would I use it on another vampire?”

 

“We just want to determine what kind of weapon you are.” Jenna’s father said.

 

“I’m not a weapon. I’ve barely been able to control my bloodlust, let alone my power.”

 

“Nevertheless, we want to see what your power could do to another vampire.” One of the other members said. Oh, please say I can use it on Jenna. He nodded toward Rose and she nodded and went out the door.

 

She returned a few moments later with Zach. “No.” They all looked at me. Even Nicolas was confused as to why I said no. Zach was confused in general.

 

“Katlyn Smith, we need to determine if you can use your power on others of our kind.”

 

“I’m not going to try to kill my boyfriend for your research!” This was their plan all along. Zach was so worried as to what they wanted to do to me, when we should have been worried about him. “I’m not going to use my power on Zach. I can’t control it enough to not hurt him.”

 

“Newsflash, Katie! We don’t care if you hurt him.” Jenna said. I just looked at her. She was starting to push me to my limit.

 

Zach stepped up. “Let me talk to her. I can convince her to do it.” What was he doing? He knows that I could kill him.

 

Nicolas nodded, “Very well, Zachary. Convince her.”

 

Zach came up to me and whispered in my ear. I closed my eyes and nodded. He turned around and faced me. “Just focus.” He said to me. I nodded.

 

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. This had to work. Just then, Jenna started choking like she was losing the ability to breathe. Oh wait! She was. “What are you doing?” Jenna’s father asked. He went over to his daughter. I can’t believe that they didn’t see her for the monster that she really was.

 

I shrugged. “You said you wanted to know how my power worked on a vampire. I figured an original vampire was the best test subject.”

 

“You made your point. Let her go.” Just then Jenna could breathe again.

 

“You little b***h.” Jenna said. She raced up to me and shoved me into the other side of the room. I slammed into the wall on the other side of the room. There was blood coming from the back of my head. The blisters on my wrists were starting to bleed.

 

“Jennifer!” Her father yelled. She sighed.

 

Zach raced to me. “Are you okay?” I shook my head and looked at Jenna. I wanted to kill her. I started to get up and walk over to her, but Zach stopped me. “Katie, let it go. You’re too weak right now.” I nodded.  Zach looked at the Patron. He mainly looked at Nicolas. “She isn’t strong enough to finish questioning. You need to let me bring her home and you can finish later when she’s strong enough.”

 

“This can’t go unpunished Zachary.” Nicolas said

 

“Oh really? So Katie doing what you asked and used her power on a vampire can’t be unpunished, but Jenna tying Katie’s hands up with vervain rope can?” Zach said.

 

“Jenna didn’t do that!” Jenna’s father said.

 

“Yes, she did. She called me to gloat about it. Listen.” Zach pulled out his phone and pulled up a recording. The recording was of Jenna’s call to Zach when she had me tied up. I didn’t even know that he even had a recording of their conversation.

 

Jenna snarled at Zach. “I knew that you would want to talk to Katie, after the whole thing with Jenna. And I figured Jenna would try to cover her tracks by lying to you and telling you that she didn’t do it. So, I recorded it without her knowing.”

 

The Patron was silent. They just looked at Jenna, in disbelief. She just looked at Zach. I tried to stand up but the room started to spin. “Katie.” Zach said. Then the world went black.