Felix peered through the snow flurries. He was done waiting for the rest of the group to turn up. Unfortunately, His Highness didn't agree.
"What could be keeping them?" Alec muttered to himself, but the voice carried to Felix. The other Volturi was more vigilant in his search, seeking out every corner of the valley below. Despite the intensity of his scrutiny, Jane and Demitri had yet to appear.
Though Alec did not expect an answer, Felix provided one.
"What do you think is keeping them? They're fucking."
Alec's mouth drew into a frown. He had always been a prude, Felix knew, but the prudity especially flared up when the crude deed was applied to his sister. In all his three hundred plus years, Felix had never met anyone as priggish and as humorless as the Witch Twins. It was probably a genetic abnormality in their family.
At least Jane had mellowed some after she and Demitri ditched their passive aggressive flirting and finally got together. Not that she said anything remotely lighthearted, but now she would allow Felix to joke without treating him to one of her infamous scathing glares.
And Alec, who Felix had always thought of as the buffer of sanity between Jane and the rest of the world, had become dour and squeamish. Jane's union with Demitri must have set him mourning the loss of exclusivity to his sister.
There might be something to Heidi's theory of the Witch Twin's incestuous relationship, because, by Lucifer, this petty attitude was not normal.
"They know to meet us at Sabina's cabin," Felix argued. "They'll catch up with us later."
"What if they're in trouble?"
Felix heaved a sigh. "What trouble could they possibly run into that they couldn't handle between the two of them? Trust me, they're fucking."
Alec's frown deepened. He continued to scan the horizon for them.
"Look," Felix explained, as the last thread of his patience slowly began to unravel. "The cabin is right there." He thrust his hand towards the building within their vampire sight. "If Jane can find this spot, then she should be able to find the cabin right there. She and Demitri received the same directions we did. Do you not trust Jane's ability in finding her way from here to there with few hints from the directions?"
Alec's shoulders dropped. He must have finally clued in that Felix was close to throwing himself onto the snow-covered road, kicking and screaming. After a few silent seconds passed by, he decided, "Very well."
Felix almost sank into the snowdrift in happiness. Finally.
As they approached the cabin, Felix complained, "You need to do something about this pathological denial of yours. Jane's a big girl; she's free to fuck whoever she wants."
Alec did not even glance his way. "I accept it. It doesn't mean you need to say it."
"What? That Jane's fucking?" Playfully, Felix sang in a baritone. "Your sister's having se-"
He blacked out. When he came to, Alec was standing over him.
"Are you done?" Alec asked, a chilly edge to his voice.
"Sure," Felix grunted.
Alec held out his hand. Felix hesitated, not trusting the other vampire's motives, until he remembered that Alec had no sense of humor. He took it and Alec pulled him up, peeling him from the wet ground.
Alec whisked his hand away as soon as Felix was standing. An odd pressure lingered on Felix's hand. Reeling through his picture-perfect memory, it occurred to him that he and Alec had never touched before. Why that should strike him as noteworthy, Felix had no idea, except that the two had known each other longer than a natural human lifetime.
Alec had already parted open the door. "It doesn't look like she's in," he informed Felix.
"We'll wait then." Felix elbowed his way in.
The cabin was one room. A relatively modern stove range and refrigerator aligned one wall, while sparse living room furniture (two wooden chairs, a table, and a chest of drawers) stood in the opposite side. A furry rug covered the floor in the living room side. A circular wood-burning furnace occupied the center of the room.
The cabin offered few places to hide anything. Felix started searching the kitchen, peeking into the stove and the refrigerator. He kept an eye out for any signs that Sabina might not be following the Volturi's laws.
His ears registered a thump from the other side of the cabin. He swiveled around. Alec had perched on the chest of drawers.
"What are you doing?" Felix asked.
"Nothing."
A squeak allowed him to fix on the source of Alec's terror. A gray mouse hopped across the margin of the wooden floor.
"You're kidding" Felix groaned.
"I don't like rats."
"It's a mouse."
The mouse turned the corner, scampering towards the drawers. Alec crawled back, sending a metal cup crashing to the floor.
"By Lucifer . . ." Felix grabbed a poker and punched the blunt end into the mouse's skull. "There. It's dead."
Alec remained in his huddle. "There'll be more," he said hoarsely.
"So? They'll just stay in their hidey hole."
Alec tightened his huddle.
Felix tromped over to the wall, inspecting it for any crack big enough for a mouse to slip through. A rustle of legs alerted him to the rest of the mouse family. He tore off a bigger hole and smashed in every moving body in the nest.
A still silence hung over as they listened for any possible survivors. After several minutes, or so it seemed to Felix, he announced, "Okay, that's the last of them."
Alec slowly lowered his legs to the floor. He propped himself with his arms on the top of the chest of drawers. When he released his hold on the wooden edge and his legs did not crumple under him, Felix quipped, "I guess that means that trip to Disneyland is off."
The joke was meant to restore everything to normal, and it had succeeded, if Alec's familiar withering glare was any sign. "Shouldn't they be here by now?" he asked.
Back on that track again.
The cabin had no windows, so Alec was staring intently at the door. Felix plopped onto the carpet. Its soft hairs tickled at his neck. He gazed up at the ceiling, at the crossbeams and the white rectangles divided between them. Cracks zigzagged across the paint in the ceiling.
In his previous life as a human, Felix had an interest in the shape of the earth. He wanted to study far mountain ranges and canyons and volcanoes. Back then, men with those ideas were considered crackpots; he was well before interest in the field boomed. But he had never really thought of earth formations as a science. He just liked the idea that the planet was constantly developing and changing.
"What are you looking at?" Alec asked. This tone of voice was different to what Felix was used to hearing from him. No demanding or rebuffing. Just curiosity.
"I'm looking for seismic activity in the cracks of the ceiling," Felix blurted, not really thinking about what his answer would sound like.
"You can do that?"
"To a degree. I think machines provide a more accurate reading, even for us. Seismic activity appears anywhere on Earth, but as there are no fault lines here, I suppose the biggest vibrations are caused by avalanches."
Felix listened to the floor groan as Alec settled onto the carpet next to him, to get a better look at what fascinated him. He did not to move, lest he upset the tenuous peace between them. He even entertained a wild hope that Alec would burst out with an exclamation: "I see them," but he resigned himself to the truth that the visions in the ceiling cracks were his alone.
At least the other vampire was not denouncing his hobby as dumb or useless.
Rather, Alec seemed to put an earnest effort into studying the ceiling. All the stress the house endured, they could see. Even humans could see a good portion of them and derive a history from them.
Felix lay still about an hour, his most taxing interval spent in silence. He was sure Alec could lie still for weeks without feeling the itch to move. He almost envied that ability at that moment. Nevertheless, Felix's disdain for quiet returned.
He reached over and poked Alec's shoulder. A zing of unreality coursed through him as he recalled his earlier revelation of how they had never touched until that day. What an utter waste. Alec had not moved. He could be dead - or deader. Felix rose to his elbow. Alec blinked, but otherwise held perfectly still.
Felix leaned in closer. He was testing himself on how close he could get before Alec moved. Felix's face hovered a couple of inches over Alec's. Still no movement. Felix pushed through to the final barrier. He placed his lips against the other boy's.
Alec moved. His mouth opened, allowing Felix to ravish it. Felix coaxed him up. He always enjoyed getting a response out of Alec, with his jokes and his innuendos. This was much better than any of them.
The cabin door swung open; only then did Alec shove Felix off. Felix zipped to a stand and faced an irate Sabina.
"What did you do to my wall?"
Sabina had cooled down by the time Jane and Demitri deigned to arrive.
Felix had already explained the damage to the wall. "Searching for hiding places," he had said smoothly. "Lucky for you, all that was in there was mice."
Sabina had left the Volturi a year ago, to strike out as a hermit, or some rot that was beyond Felix's comprehension. He could not imagine preferring the perpetual solitude of the mountains to the center of action in Volterra.
Aro had allowed her to leave, provided she endure the periodic checkups of the Volturi guards to ensure she was not doing anything illegal - like sharing her true identity with humans or raising vampire children.
He asked how she was hunting.
"Lots of people get lost in avalanches," Sabina commented. "Especially at this time of year. Even with today's technology, people still get lost."
Throughout this, Alec had not said a word. Only Jane seemed to notice her brother was acting any different than usual.
After they left the cabin, Jane sidled up to Alec. "Did anything happen while you were waiting?" she asked.
Felix overheard. He paused in anticipation for Alec's answer.
"No," Alec said, in his usual serious tone. "Nothing."