When he awoke, he was tied to a chair with a bag over his head and one hell of a headache. He had never been so afraid in his life. Panic set in as his yelling for help went unanswered.
A voice coming from the left side of him plainly stated. "Please stop yelling Paul. I'm not going to hurt you." The bag was pulled off his head. In front of him was that lady Thalia.
"What the fuck is going on?"
He was equally frightened and pissed and crying a little. He was kidnapped by some random lady. He wondered if this is what happened to Rhea and now Rhea was helping her. He asked again. "What are you doing lady? What do you want?" he yelled while struggling to get out of the ropes.
Rhea stepped out of the corner and tried to calm him down, "Please Paul, I need you to listen to her. She isn't trying to hurt you, she's trying to tell you the truth about everything."
Thalia commanded Rhea to sit down and she did. It definitely confirmed his brainwashed theory. Paul looked around to see where he was. It was some kind of cave with torches around for light.
Thalia looked at him, "We are in some tunnels under the town. No one can hear you scream, so there's no point in yelling. Now I'm gonna untie you. There's no point in trying to run because you'll get lost in the tunnels and die alone where no one can find your body."
Paul started to calm down. He didn't want to waste energy. She walked over with a knife to cut him out of the ropes.
"Why tie me up just to cut me out?" he asked.
"Well, it's for the initial I've been kidnapped shock. After the no point on running speech, people are more likely to cooperate.”
"People? Like multiple humans. So you've done this before?" Paul asked, not really wanting to know the answer. He didn't want confirmation that he was going to die here. The ropes were cut. Paul got up and created some distance between him and Thalia. Never in a million years did he think he would be in this situation.
"I know this is going to sound crazy, but I need you to try and keep an open mind. Just think about these questions. Have you noticed weird things going on here all of a sudden, like why all the animals attack? Or how Rhea went missing. She wasn't the first kid marked as a runaway. Your classmate Marcos went missing at the beginning of this year. Do you remember the gala incident?" Thalia asked
"That stuff happens all over the place."
"Well did you ever forget a chunk of time or just feel satisfied with an answer for some reason. Or even people referring to stuff you did or said, but you have no recollection of doing?”
Paul was silent. That question made him think about some occurrences, especially around Noah. How he said they talked before and hadn't. How Noah said Paul wouldn't remember his drunken rant anyways. He asked a question back. "How can I remember something I forgot?"
Thalia pulled a bottle out of her book bag. "When did you start taking these vitamins?"
"What the hell? Why do you have those? Did you break into my room?"
"I just kidnapped you. Do you think I'm afraid of breaking into your room?" She snapped. She continued, "You take this because your mom made you after all this stuff started to happen. They're not vitamins, they're herbs that protect from the supernatural.
"The supernatural?" Paul repeated back to her.
"Your friends are mostly all supernatural beings and something bad is happening with them. I don't know if it's them, or it's out to get them, but it's something bad."
"Okay, I'm leaving, you're an absolute nutter. Which way to get out of the death tunnels?" Paul responded. He walked to the doorway and stopped. He couldn't help but ask. “Okay, this is dumb, but what are they? What supernatural entities are my friends?”
Thalia was hesitant but responded, "Vampires and witches and one is a werewolf. I have evidence."
"Dumb that's dumb. Goodbye, I'll take my chances with the tunnels," Paul angrily said.
"Stop. Wait," Thalia pleaded. "I didn't want to be so drastic but." She dropped her bag. Rhea was standing next to her. Thalia drove her hand into Rhea's chest and ripped out her heart. There was no blood and Rhea's body slumped to the ground. She continued, "Look at her body Paul."
He looked down only to see mud and clothes.
Paul's heart started racing. His eyes scanned the floor to comprehend what just happened. "What the fuck did you do to Rhea?"
Paul was about to run out of the cave when Thalia said some words he didn't understand and threw dust at him. His feet were frozen. Paul tried his hardest to move them but nothing happened. Stuck, he was stuck.
"I know supernatural things because I fall into that group. That wasn't Rhea, it was golem I made with magic. Specifically necromancy. I needed a way to investigate without the suspicious eyes of a small town. I also made it so the police would stop investigating because I'm going to find whoever or whatever killed Rhea and kill it.
Paul could see the hurt in her eyes. She was trying to keep herself from crying. He was still confused about a lot of stuff. There was so much more that he wanted answered, so he asked. “What happened to Rhea?”
“She's dead.” Thalia paused to recompose herself and started to explain. "Halloween….the day she went missing. She and Quinn were attacked in the woods by a werewolf. It attacked her first; she died. Your buddy Quinn tackled it and fought it off. They both fell down a hill. Someone dragged her off and buried her deep in the ground."
Paul was in complete shock. He didn't want to believe any of it. "How do you know all this?"
Thalia said nothing to him but went over to her backpack to grab something. She walked back to Paul and placed something from a jar in his hand while uttering a foreign language. His vision went white.
Images of a wolf walking toward him came to him. He could see sharp teeth and yellow eyes. It was like a movie playing in his head. He saw everything Thalia mentioned. It was gruesome and made Paul feel a little sick. The vision stopped and he looked in his hand. He was holding an eyeball. Paul shrieked and dropped it.
Thalia smiled and gave a quiet chuckle. "Yes, that was Rhea's eyeball. I used necromancy to see her final moments. That's how I know."
Paul had a gut feeling. "What was Rhea to you?"
"She was my little sister. I left for college and I left her. I was dead so I couldn't protect her. Now I need to find whoever wolfed out and killed her. I don't know who to trust." Thalia explained.
"Why me?" Paul wanted to know.
"Because you aren't a witch or vampire or werewolf so you have no loyalties to your kind. You were friends with her at all times. And I know it involves your friends and you can be around them without them asking questions. I need you just to give me information, and keep my secret, that's it." Thalia desperately pleaded with Paul.
There was such an inner turmoil in his head but he said yes. They spent the next hour talking. Thalia explained how she went to college and got recruited to a magic society. She told him a story about faking her own death. Looking back Paul remembered she didn't go into the hospital room. He had never seen Thalia with her parents.
She also explained how she came back to Autumnvale and watched everybody for weeks after she got the news about Rhea. The information she pieced together gave Paul a new picture of his town and the events that occurred this year.
His history teacher was a hunter. Noah and Zane were vampires. Noah was actually the one who attacked Rhea in the first place at the bonfire. Tyler can use magic. Thalia didn't know about Beatriz just yet. Melissa was attacked and turned into a vampire. The coma she was in was her brain rewiring itself.
The biggest shock for Paul was his mom knew about vampires. Autumnvale's Historical Society was like their town's supernatural police. Paul was annoyed that they left him out. He felt foolish. Especially with Aiden. They were both in it together and Aiden decided to leave him in the dark.
E.Coli. How dumb was he to believe E.Coli. Father Tivy poisoned the town with a herb that incapacitated supernaturals. Paul pieced together his death wasn't accidental.
Last but not least Thalia explained that Quinn was now a werewolf. Which explains the super strength at the gym. Paul was flabbergasted and a little mad they lied to him and brainwashed him. Thalia dropped Paul off in his car. He drove home trying to wrap his head around everything.
He went to bed not knowing what tomorrow would bring. No matter what he had to face it. He decided to cancel his plans that Sunday and just stay home to think things over. Thalia notes helped a lot. She even gave him some of her journal entries.
He made a list of questions he had. The big one was who killed Rhea. What really happened to Marcos? Is dating a vampire as a human really a thing? What was he going to do about Melissa? Why didn't Aiden just tell him, they were into it together that week, why go lie? Why did Zane even come to Autumnvale? The list began to get very long but he kept going. Next time he talked to Thalia he wanted more answers.