The next morning

When I woke up the next day, it was still quite early and the sun was just rising. I looked at Dave lying next to me and immediately all the events of the previous night came flooding to me.

Oh my goodness, I had hit another person. In my twenty-five years of existence, I had never even slapped anyone, and yesterday I hit someone with a pan hard enough to knock her out.

I had been driven by adrenaline, and in the heat of the moment, I had to try to react as quickly as I could, but now I felt submerged by the guilt. I threw the blanket off my legs and jumped out of bed. I quickly brushed my teeth and washed my face. I looked at my own reflection in the mirror.

'You hit someone, Ash!'

I could not face my own guilt-laden eyes and I went back to the bedroom. Dave was still out like a log but I presumed that the effects of the drug must have worn off already. He looked more peaceful now.

I got down the stairs and went straight to the kitchen. Martha was already awake and was sipping on a hot cup of coffee. She stood up as soon as she saw me and noting my distressed look, she asked,

'Are you okay, Miss Ash?

'How can I be fine, Martha?' I wailed. 'I drugged and hit someone yesterday.'

'Don't feel guilty for doing that to that hussy Miss. She started it and drugged our poor Mr Dawn. You were only acting to save him.'

'Save who?' a deep voice asked at the door of the kitchen and both Martha and I jumped like guilty school students who had been caught cheating by the teacher.

'Oh, Mr Dawn, are you okay?' Martha cried on seeing his pale face.

'I'm having a bad migraine and I slept in my work clothes. Can anyone explain what happened yesterday?' Dave asked with a wince.

Martha looked at me and I looked at her, wondering who would be telling him about the events of the night. 'Sit here,' she said, 'while I give you a cup of steaming coffee. Miss Ash will tell you everything. She then flew to the other side of the kitchen. Wow, thank you Martha for your help.

I sat down at the kitchen table as well and tried to look for the appropriate words. It was better to get it out in the open as soon as possible so that a solution could be found before Estena woke up.

'Well,' I started with hesitation. 'You know that I was in the office, right? On the screen, I noticed Estena putting 2 pills in your wine while you went out to answer the call during dinner. Earlier, I had heard her talking about Ruffies and after checking, I learnt that it was a drug that is normally used to subdue someone.' I then took a slight pause to observe the reactions of Dave whose face was still blank of all expressons.

'So she drugged you and took you to the bedroom where maybe she planned to ...uhhh.' I found it difficult to continue and as I looked at Dave this time, his nose had flared a little and I could see a tinge of red on his cheeks. Was it anger or embarrassment, I couldn't say, but what I knew was that he wasn't happy.

After a few seconds, 'Okay, she drugged me. What next?' I was relieved that he was not questioning whether I had imagined things. I guess that his migraine proved my words to be true.

Martha brought two cups of coffee and placed one in front of each of us. Dave lifted his to blow on the steam and he took his first sip. She then waited quietly behind.

'She took you to your room and as I, as Martha and I, were frightened what could happen to you, we also drugged Estena with the same pill she had given you.'

Dave spit out his coffee and used the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. I knew that he would probably be shocked by what we would tell him but I hadn't expected his reaction to be so extreme.

'You did what?' he asked after he had used the hand towel that Martha gave him, to clean up the spilled coffee.

'Miss Ash saved you Mr Dawn. We did not know what that woman would do to you. She even stopped me from coming close to you to see if you were fine. If Miss Ash had not hit her, who knows what she would have done to you?'

'You hit her?' he barked out in surprise. Oops, that was not the way that I had planned to tell him. Martha became all flustered as she realized her mistake and she made the pretext of having to check on Estena to see if she had woken up to leave the kitchen, leaving me alone with Dave.

'Listen, I do not know how you feel about Estena, but I know that you wouldn't have liked to be helpless and out of control. And you know what else I discovered, she's the woman who was with Mr Freere at the viewpoint. The one with the scarf. That must mean something,' I continued in a rush.

Dave merely pinched the bridge of his nose in reply.

'I even pretended to be your fiancee but that didn't stop her and she locked herself in the room with you. Who would do that? She stripped till her lingerie and if I hadn't asked Martha to distract her, while I surprised her from behind, who knows what could have happened? I took the cast iron pan and hit her on the temple. I had read that it was one of the most effective spots. And you know that she's a strong vampire. I couldn't have done it any other way.' I felt quite breathless at that point, but I had to continue to convince Dave.

'You pretended to be my fiancee?'

Out of all the things I had said, that was the one he chose to focus on?

'Well, I had thought that if she learnt that your fiancee was here she would go back to her room on her own. I even put my underwear in plain sight for her to make it more realist. But that didn't work.' I peeked at him to gauge his reaction, but his eyes were now closed. 'I couldn't let her recognize me once I learnt that she was the woman ccompanying Mr Freere so I told Martha to call me Gati. That was the only name I could think of at that time. I know it was not the best of ideas, but I was running out of ideas.'

'Miss Ash, Mr Dawn, Estena is waking up. I saw her eyes flutter a few times. What will we tell her?' Martha interrupted my passionate plea by dropping this bombshell. What, indeed, would happen now that she was awake?