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*
“WHAT THE HECK?”
A thump echoed through the half-lit room as Floriana rolled off a wooden bed and fell onto the carpeted floor.
She had just woken up from a long, deep sleep and found herself alone and disoriented in an unknown place. Her body felt heavy as stone, and her head whirled like she was sinking in a sand dune. She knew the feeling well, she had experienced before. She had been drugged, there in the secret crypt she had just discovered in the House of the Rose. Or was it a few hours ago? She looked around the room, but there was no clock. Was it night or day? She could not tell, as she could not know whether she was still in the House of the Rose.
She felt her guts dancing inside her abdomen. Is it Eric’s doing? He’s done this before, she thought. If this is his way of disciplining me for sneaking around places I wasn’t authorized to enter, then we need to have a good talk.
Fighting the blurriness in her eyes, Floriana took another look around. The room she was in looked nothing like a room in the House of the Rose. She seemed to be in an attic of a fifty or sixty-year-old building furnished only with a bed and a small round table with two wooden chairs. A few rays of sunlight slipped through the heavy curtain at the other side of the room. Dizzy as she was, she managed to stand up and walk across the small room. As soon as her eyes became accustomed to the light, she looked anxiously out of the window. Tall oaks and hickories dropped shadows of their leaves over the two-story building she was apparently in. The sun was up, but it felt so chilly that she had to rub her arms to feel warmer. The cropped tee she was wearing was ideal for the hot summer temperature of Malta, but this forest seemed to be nowhere close to the Mediterranean Sea. “I've a feeling we're not in Malta anymore,” she mumbled as she gazed at the empty courtyard below her window. Still feeling dizzy, she moved away and tottered toward the closed door.
“Damn, I’m feeling like I’m on a swaying ship.”
Carefully taking one step after another, she managed to keep her balance until she reached the door. Her hand was an inch away from the door handle when it turned slowly to the left. As the door opened at a sluggish pace, she hid herself behind it. When a dark figured moved carefully into the room, Floriana took a big breath and struck, out with her foot screaming incomprehensibly. The young man she had targeted folded over his legs before he tumbled to the floor, followed by Floriana, who had lost her balance.
“What the heck are you doing?” he moaned as turned his face to her.
“Vittor, what are you doing here?” Floriana exclaimed with surprise.
“I came to see how you are doing,” Vittor groaned in pain.
“No, I mean what are we both doing here? What is this place? And how did I get here?” Floriana bombarded him with questions as she crawled towards him.
“Duclan brought you here. I guess you have already met him,” Vittor propped his body painfully up against his arms and raised his torso with difficulty. “When did you become a ninja,” he gurgled in pain.
“Long story, I’ll explain later,” she answered as she helped him sit on bent legs. “Tell me now, how did Dr. Davis bring me here?”
“He drugged you, put you in a private jet, and here you are. Seriously, Sis, you need to do something about this. You let yourself be drugged too easily.” His tone was serious.
“I’ll take that in mind.” She frowned. “Why would Duclan drag me here? Why are you here? And where is here?”
Vittor folded his arms around his belly. “You really knocked me down. You should have done that to Duclan.”
“I didn’t even see him. He must have come from behind. One moment I was at the House of the Rose, and the next I was here,” she defended. However, she preferred to not to mention the secret crypt she had found beneath their grandfather’s study.
“Well, first things first. We are in Virginia, in a small town called Millville, in the forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Dr. Duclan Davis is a double agent who works for both the Order of the Black Rose and a secret society called Kaiserreich that believes in Aryan Supremacy.”
“And what are you doing here with them, Vittor?” Floriana asked, dazed.
“I’ve made a mistake, and now I don’t know how to fix it.”
***
“LET ME START WITH A flashback. Do you remember how the Bacterium-Z outbreak started?” Vittor asked.
“Of course, I remember. If it wasn’t for Bacterium-Z, I wouldn’t have been reunited with you,” Floriana retorted.
“Well, then you probably remember that it all started during World War II because of an alchemist our grandfather worked with, Dr. Foulkaneli, was working on the creation of a superhuman, the ultimate soldier, who could be used both on the battlefield and for city surveillance. It took our people decades to retrieve Dr. Foulkaneli’s notes from a leather folder locked in a KGB underground storage facility in Moscow. It was Dr. Foulkaneli’s findings that our father, Rokku Rossi, used to create Bacterium-Z, which almost caused the apocalypse and divided our family, causing so much pain to all of us.” Vittor's eyes had turned the dark blue of a wavy sea.
“I don’t understand. All that happened in the past. What does it have to do with us being here right now?” A lump lodged in Floriana’s throat as she feared what Vittor would reveal.
“Dr. Foulkaneli is here,” Vittor said with eyes wide open.
“What?” Floriana let out a small cry of surprise.
“Quiet!” Vittor shushed her. “I know, it’s hard to believe, but he’s here. I met him.”
“What is he doing here? And what are you doing here with him, Vittor?” she asked.
“I added one more bad decision to the Rossi family's long list.” He lowered his eyes apologetically.
“What do you mean? And how on earth did you get in touch with Dr. Foulkaneli? And furthermore, how can he be still alive? He must be much older than Grandpa, who is already very old, in case you didn’t notice.”
Vittor ignored the sarcasm in her voice and continued his narration. “It seems our dear grandpa has a secret, or more specifically, he has one more secret he has not shared with us. He had not always been Grand Master of the Order of the Black Rose. He was a respectable scientist before he was anointed Master of Malta. As you know, those that take the seat of Master of Malta are traditionally appointed Grand Master, Master of all Masters. As a prominent young scientist, he gained Dr. Foulkaneli’s complete confidence, and it was with him that that mad alchemist shared all his incredible discoveries. The Water of Life was one of them. Yes, our sweet grandpa has found the way to expand his life expectancy.”
“And I thought I was the black sheep of the family.” Floriana burst out in laughter, forcing Vittor to signal her to calm down.
“Shush! I told you to keep quiet. Actually, our family is full of black sheep. You haven’t heard the whole story yet.”
“I’m all ears.” Floriana shrank back.
Vittor pointed at her. “And don’t interrupt me again. They don’t know I’m here. But I had to. I have to prepare you for what you are going to face soon. The ugly truth. So, let me just spit it out.”
After Floriana nodding, boggled, he started talking again. “The Water of Life is just one of their incredible discoveries. It doesn’t make you immortal. It’s more like a powerful medicine that cures life-threatening diseases. I had never heard of it until I arrived here. And here comes the difficult part; how I got here.”
He cleared his throat. “I was an infant when our mother moved to London with you and left me back in Malta to be raised by our grandfather. To speak the truth, she abandoned me. She chose you over me.”
“I ... I...” Floriana stuttered.
“I said don’t interrupt me,” Vittor scoffed. “You are making this too difficult for me. I’m not saying it was your fault, yet I have to admit that there have been times since we met that I blamed you. I know it wasn’t your fault; you were only two years old when you two left. It was our mother's decision. She took you with her to London and cut any ties to me, her own child. I didn't know that you existed until Eric brought you to the House of the Rose two years ago. I was then told that you are my sister and that our mother found a tragic death in a car accident somewhere in Latin America ten years ago. A whole new world opened up to me. I had a sister. My grandfather wasn’t the only family I had anymore. I had a sister two years older than me, close to my age, and I was excited. We could talk about things people of our age talk about, not just the science stuff I talked about with Grandpa, or the dull Order business I discuss with Eric. I had always been a geek, an introvert, and making new friends wasn't easy to me. I was always happy with our conversations. You are a smart and charming girl. I loved messaging and Skyping with you. But there was always a thorn there, stinging my heart. Why did our mother choose you over me? That thought kept coming back into my mind, swirling around, driving me crazy. Until I met her.”
“You met who?” Floriana gasped.
“Our mother. Until I met our mother.” Vittor lowered his gaze.
“You met our mother? ... How...? But she's dead...”
Floriana felt like she was losing her senses, like the blood had been drained from her body.
“She isn't dead. She faked her death, and with the help of Dr. Foulkaneli’s secret society, she placed the corpse of another woman into the smashed car and set it on fire. They even managed to replace the DNA sample the local coroner took from the dead body with our mother's, and then Althea ... was officially dead.”
“How did you find her? How long had you been looking for her?"
"I didn't find her. She found me. She approached me two months ago while I was shopping in a supermarket in Valletta and said, ‘Hey Vittor, I’m your mother.’ Then she gave me her business card and told me, ‘I’m sure you have many questions to ask me, and I’m willing to answer to as many as I can. Just send me an e-mail,’ and left. We had been exchanging e-mails for last two months when she asked me to visit her here in Virginia. She told me that because I’m a prominent young scientist, working with her would be a great opportunity for me to widen my career prospects and become a brilliant genetic engineer. According to her, our separation devastated her, and she couldn’t bear the burden of her choice; she couldn’t cope with the fact that she left one of her two children behind. She told me she wanted to end her life but wasn’t brave enough. So, with the help of her new friends and collaborators, she staged her death so she could start a new life under a new identity. That was her punishment, so she said. A life without her children, away from the places she loved the most, alone with her fading memories. Her new job soon became her redemption. As a research scientist, she works with her new team to find new treatments for incurable diseases. She found helping people brought her the inner peace she couldn’t find in her old sinful life. At least, so she said. She asked me to join her in her cause, but she requested I not mention anything to you or anyone else. I’ve been here for two weeks. I came to an understanding of who our mother really is, and I gained a good insight into what she’s been working on for the last decade.” Vittor took his glasses off and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
Floriana swallowed hard against the sob that was rising in her throat. “Is Mom here?”
“Yes. She’s the one who ordered Duclan to bring you here,” Vittor said quietly.
“Where is she? I want to see her.” Floriana’s heart battered her chest as she jerked to her feet and ran towards the closed door.
“I’m not sure that would be a good idea.” Vittor grabbed her arm as she passed him.
“Why?” Flushed red, Floriana gave him a surprised look.
“Because our mother is batshit crazy!”