Explanations, Schemes, and Really Bitter Ex-Girlfriends

Alexandar looks freaked out. I've only known him a good day and I know this isn't like him.

"You're here too?"
He sits up as best he can. "I guess so. I can't believe they took you too, though. There's no way they could have known about you. Were you with Delaina?"

I nod. "That has to explain it. If they figured out you're valuable to him too, who knows how long they've been watching."

"Them? Watching? Valuable? To who?" I say, in the most panicked voice I can muster without giving away our consciousness. I do not need more glass over my head.

Alex sits up a bit more and begins his whispered tale.

"Last year, a girl named Yasmine befriended Vlad, worked her charms and shit, and he fell madly after her. It was sickening. She wasn't his type, and you knew she had some other motive. Delaina and I tried to tell him, but...he didn't...anyway, she gets in good enough with him to convince him to take her to the house he's always going to."

"The Inside." I say, watching the puzzle come together in my head.

"Yeah. She wore him down, and he brought her. She learned all his codes and even got to skip the door test, because she had so convinced him that she was the girl that we'd all been waiting for, to complete the group. See, normally we've got twenty people of varying and various abilities. We had nineteen. We've been working at nineteen, but we need twenty to get to full capacity. She conned him into thinking that she was an elemental."

"An elemental?" I ask. Psychic vocabulary isn't my strong suit yet.

"A person who can control either earth, fire, water, or air. She went the earth route and convinced him to get her down there. So when we all meet her, we know who she is, but he doesn't buy it...yet. A few days later Delaina comes across evidence that Yasmine was a mole for the Outside. We're not sure who they are, but they're anti-psychic, and they hate us. WE picked the opposite. Not exactly clever, but...anyway, we bring this to Vlad, who finally believes us."

"Wait, something's not right. If Vlad can read minds, wouldn't he have just..." My question is interrupted.

"Because she was'nt a fraud entirely. She did have powers. She could make a person believe anything she wanted. A siren like psychic. Not exactly the mythical creature, but she was a descendant of one. Could dupe even a good mindreader. And Vlad is a very good mindreader. Mindreader skill is partly defined by the person being read not even knowing they are being read. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that Yasmine wants revenge on the whole Inside, and on Vlad specifically for shutting her out. Apparently she was really big in the Outside (on the Outside?) and the foiled scheme downgraded her position. She's got Delaina and me to exact revenge upon for revealing the secret, and she probably wants to see him suffer. They probably got him too. It explains how they got his car."

"Then why me? Wouldn't they have just dropped me off home if they knew I had nothing to do with it?"
Alex's slightly scared look takes a turn for the panicked.

"That's exactly what they would have done. They kept you. Which means they know he cares about you. They'd want to do something to somebody innocent that he cares about. Psychologically torment him. And the fact that they'd even know to take you is...Oh, God." He says this with a look that reminds me of a cross between the kid from the Sixth Sense and a deer in headlights.

"What? Alex, what?" I ask him.

The car stops.

"Play dead." Alex says. I comply, and he follows suit. We stick our hands back into the loosened string and return to our original positions.

"It means that the Inside has been infiltrated. Again. We have another mole in our midst."

He shuts up just in time as the trunk is opened, we're slapped "awake", hauled out of the car, and herded with Delaina, who seems okay, if a bit peeved. Our hand ties are "untied" (My movement to the window had seen to it that the strings tying us together were loosened) and we're pushed toward some undisclosed location.

A giant, abandoned warehouse.