"Balloons?"
Felix nodded eagerly, hauling over a medium sized cardboard box from the depths of his closet. I waited patiently on his couch with my legs crossed. Demetri sat on the floor in front of the couch and next to Felix's briefly abandoned spot. A joypad, as the men had been suggestively referring to the video game controllers as all day, hung loosely in his left hand. The pad of his thumb tapped impatiently on the A button. Though his focus was as equally dedicated as Felix's regarding the purpose of the box.
"Genius, isn't it?"
I tilted my head and looked between the two of them. "What exactly is your plan—?"
"Never mind that." Felix dropped the box beside me on the couch. Growing all the more curious, I reached in and clasped a handful of latex party balloons. "First, you blow up these balloons and we play video games."
My jaw dropped and with a whine, "how come I have to do all the work?"
He waved me off, sitting back down with his controller. "We all have to pay our dues."
"Fiya," Demetri kept the game paused and rhythmically patted my knee. The nickname they had adopted had grown on me. While I rather liked my full name, this was the first time I would receive a real nickname from actual friends. "Dear, sweet, Fiya. It just so happens that Felix and I are the kings of the prank world. And we are willing to train you in the sacred art of practical jokes. This is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity."
Felix was nodding urgently on my other side, feeding me a theatrical explanation of the so-called, 'coursework'. "You will study the most exalted pranks of them all. The art of the prank requires stealth, creativity and at times, even a dash of Judas."
I squinted at the duo's natural flare for dramatics. Forget video games. They should be putting on full scale Shakespearean productions. They could rewrite each play for vampires. It would definitely put a new spin on Romeo and Juliet...
"But first. You have to blow up like 50 of these things."
Unfortunately for them, embellishments and persuasion had been ingrained in me by a professional con man. I wasn't eating any of their baloney. "No way. Your instructions alone could be a prank." If I was going to individually blow up 50 balloons, it had better be for a real prank. If they ditched the latter and only pranked me, I'd accuse them of being false kings for such a bland and uncreative approach.
Felix wiped a fake tear from his eyes. "She's a natural! So intelligent." He threw a sassy smirk to Demetri. "She gets that from me."
Four days. I had received four days alone to grieve before Felix and Demetri had kidnapped me from my room to watch them engage in various activities - mainly, video games. It became the regular routine in order to keep me from wallowing alone in my room. They meant well, declaring that distraction was the best medicine. I'm not sure that the jingle held quite as much weight with me. Mainly due to the fact that it didn't seem like the healthiest coping strategy, but they insisted so I sucked it up.
In the days that followed, we found a pattern of hopping between different hobbies. As odd as the approach had seemed at the beginning, I found stability in the developing schedule. There were a few sparring sessions where Demetri got his butt kicked and we played a rather heated game of Monopoly. For the most part, however, we were usually holed up in Felix's room as they switched off between playing several games where the goal was to tally the most kills in one war zone or another and another game, something called Mario Kart.
Their rambunctious behaviour had been turned up about three levels from its standard. Eventually, somewhere between the stupid jokes and witty banter, I started laughing again.
The guilt that I felt from being able to tell jokes and smile only a few days after learning of my father's passing, wasn't as overwhelming as I expected it to be. It was possible that I'd numbed myself to the idea, relying on the memory of my father rather than the reality. The memories from my childhood had been what was driving me for the last five years. They were flashbacks from a child's perspective, romanticised and influential but subject to change as I grew older.
One of the strongest was of a silly little excursion to find the best gelato in Italy was once an imaginative quest, such a perspective that had been destroyed by the disillusionment of reality. A homeschool field trip to a museum was a cover for a reconnaissance trip to survey the building and time the changing of the guards. As I got older, our grand adventures became more targeted and less fantastically oriented. A memory that had been forcing itself through my mind the last few days made my stomach twist in knots. Another once happy memory, impeded by the recollection of the details. Details that changed the whole story. It was my memory of the first time I purposefully broke my wrist for the overall success of a job we were working. I'd done it of my own volition and he bought me an ice cream cone. I wonder now what he thought we were celebrating.
I was a good little soldier back then. Perhaps that was what Aro saw in me. I was young enough to be moulded, directed and inspired. Maybe he believed that if he gained my loyalty, a perfect soldier would be his reward. It wouldn't be a half bad plan. Especially since, even after his show of cruelty the other day, I found myself unable to hold any sustainable form of ill-will to any of the three masters. For they had given me something I craved more than my own life. Something I had been unable to discover on my own and that no one else was willing to help me uncover.
The leaders of the Volturi had given me answers. Their methods were questionable, sure. But the value of the information to me, outweighed even a man's life. Apparently, my primary loyalties didn't abide by an ethical code in life or death situations. Perhaps Aro knew this.
Demetri rolled his eyes at Felix and gave me a charming smile. I eyed him suspiciously. After all, this conversation had begun with a simple question presented in his charismatic voice and now, all of a sudden I was being tasked with giving up my air supply to an army of rainbow latex balls. "You're one of us now. You're on balloons cause the next steps require a more vampiric quality." He winked. "All in, baby."
"Yes!" Felix declared, pointing his finger towards the ceiling in a matter of fact way. "We must redeem ourselves. For you see," He dropped his head, lifting his hand across his heart and an arm reaching for air as if he were delivering a rousing soliloquy. Bingo for melodramatic storytelling. "Our last prank was extravagant. It would have been a marvel! A new take on a complete classic."
I looked to Demetri and he offered the actual background. "We put saran wrap over everyone's doors so they'd walk into it. Including the throne rooms."
"But alas!" I laughed in both surprise and amusement at Felix's sudden exclamation and shoved his shoulder. He humoured me and let his shoulder tilt as if I actually had the strength to make him move a muscle. He did however, finally drop the storytelling act, admitting plainly. "It totally backfired cause, you know, extreme vampire senses. Everyone could see it." I shook my head in pity and amusement. This could be really fun.
I bit the inside of my cheek and gave in. "Fine. I'll blow up the stupid balloons." They fist bumped and immediately turned away from me, their focus now returning to their electronics. I picked a blue balloon and began my long journey into balloon world.
Watching them play was surprisingly entertaining, and blowing up the balloons was an excellently mindless task to do at the same time. Without much space beside nor in front of me, I'd been tossing finished balloons in different directions around the room. Felix clearly hadn't accounted for the space the balloons would take once they were full of air. So, I had fun making his room a mess of random traveling balloons.
As the guys swapped out their current game for another, I voiced a question that had been picking at me for a few days. "On the topic of your vampire abilities, just how invincible are you guys?" I finished off another balloon and threw it over my shoulder.
Demetri shrugged, "err...completely?"
"Well, I mean, technically nothing is invincible. Any comic book will prove that."
He tittered, doubling down. "No, we're pretty much invulnerable."
Felix let out a barking laugh, chanting "Yeah! Superman who?", while strategically weaving his body and his controller with his avatar's movements on the screen.
Adding another balloon to the room, I proposed "what if you were to get lemon juice in your eye."
Felix snorted, "what?"
"Lemon juice." I said simply. "It's supposed to sting."
"Doubt it." I could see the arrogant grin in the reflection of the television.
I tapped my chin, a thought occurring to me that may or may not have been inspired by our last conversation. "We should try it."
Felix snorted again, "no."
I crossed my arms mockingly and even though he couldn't see me behind him, the playful taunt was clear. "What are you, scared?"
Demetri chipped in giddily as Felix's character walked into a room full of unfriendlies. "Sounds scared to me."
The mere suggestion was enough to knock him off his game, as he turned to both of us and shouted indignantly, "I am not!" Almost simultaneously, his screen filled with blood and Demetri cackled in glory as the game declared him the winner. "Damn it!"
I doubled over in a fit of giggles, almost missing the high five Demetri offered me. Felix was frowning, pointing a finger of blame in my direction. "Evil." I stuck my tongue out at him and he responded in kind.
"Speaking of evil," Demetri turned on me, winking at Felix this time. The game was momentarily forgotten as Felix caught on to whatever Demetri was about to suggest. They both faced me with goofy looks. "How is Alec?"
After the night Alec had spent consoling me and basically being the exact opposite of who he'd always appeared to be, I hadn't seen him. He'd let me cry in his arms for hours until I fell asleep. The act was gentle, caring and it kind of freaked me out. I'd pledged a thousand years of hatred to him and in return, he showed a great deal of unearned compassion. These contradictions in his attitude weren't exactly new. What was bothering me however, was the traction his behaviour had gained within my own emotional responses. Yet, he was gone and so my questions and confusion went unanswered and untested.
His lack of any presence was only in the physical sense, because I could not stop thinking about him. What he was doing. How he was feeling. If he was okay. If I'd crossed his mind at all. Little things reminded me of him. And not in a logical way to be reminded of something. Of course not.
It was stupid, inconceivably inane things. The smooth handle of a door were like the touch off his hand and the small details of a canvas that hung on the corridor walls matched the wave of his hair. I'd put my hair behind my ear and suddenly, it felt as if he were standing behind me. But when I turned, he was nowhere to be found. The list goes on.
It was horrible.
I avoided eye contact, focusing on another balloon. "How should I know?"
"An interesting response, don't you think, Demetri." I glared at Felix, but he was too busy rubbing his chin in fake thought.
"Hmm," he agreed. "Quite defensive."
I groaned, fixing them with a glare, "what are you two implying?"
"Oh nothing." Felix commented nonchalantly, though this was quickly replaced by a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "Just that one of the lower guards might have mentioned seeing our dear Alec leaving your room a few mornings ago."
Demetri had joined Felix's investigation, both playing their own form of good cop. "Anything you'd like to tell us?"
Rolling my eyes, I picked up another balloon. "Not particularly."
They frowned before attempting a new tactic. "Say, Demetri, where has good ol' Alec been anyways." I couldn't help it, I glanced up from my project to wait for his response.
"Escorted Dr. Cullen back to his coven." He gave me a side look, seeing that they had my attention. "Wonder when he'll be back...how about you, Fiya? Looking forward to Alec's return?"
I shrugged off their tactics, trying to appear as impartial as I could. "He can disappear with the library of Alexandria as far as I'm concerned." Seeing they weren't getting much out of me, they restarted their games with pouts.
As much as I hated to admit it, I did miss Alec. Though, I wasn't quite sure why or what about him triggered the feeling. It was some sort of hole in me that kept him around and at the forefront of my mind. Then, knowing it may only give them more ammunition, I couldn't help but ask, "Why do your eyes change colour?"
"Don't you remember the rhyme?" Felix said indignantly, "the darker the red—"
"The more recently fed, I know. But how long should it last?" The two exchanged mischievous glances once again and paused their game another time.
Demetri turned a shit eating grin on me. "Why do you ask?"
I bit the inside of my cheek and glanced up, trying to calm my heartbeat at the suggestion. "It's just that sometimes they change to black so quickly..." As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I'd been made. I could only be referring to Alec's fits. He was always told to go feed after I'd pissed him off. With their additional knowledge, of course they'd made the connection.
"Base instincts." Demetri offered. "Anger, jealousy-"
"Arousal." Felix winked and flipped back around to the game. My eyes widened as I took this in and Demetri barked out a laugh before picking up his console just in time for Felix to unpause it. Felix's attempt to cheat distracted the conversation and it seemed they'd forgotten about their prime opportunity to tease me. That is, until Felix asked again with an even more suggestive tone, "so, how is Alec?"
I impulsively turned the balloon I was just about to tie and let the air blow into Felix's face. He attempted to bat it away from him as I burst into a fit of laughter. "Gross! Not cool."
I was too busy holding my stomach to sympathise with the distress my attack had caused him. "Your face!"
Felix grabbed a new balloon and blew it up to a wimpy size before returning the favour. I also tried to push away the air spraying my face. "Ew! You're disgusting."
"You did it first!"
"Shh!" Demetri hushed us and all three of us froze as if expecting something dramatic. Demetri's head swung to the doors and he jumped up. "Incoming. Hide the balloons."
"What?" I barely moved before the balloons started disappearing from around the room two by two. I leaned back onto the couch solemnly as the two men returned to their controllers on the ground in front of me, already gearing up for the next level.
The room was clear of any balloon evidence just in time for Heidi's heels to enter it. The woman's normally professionally suggestive attire had been traded in for a much more risqué theme. She'd gone from a high end, but discreet escort to Paris Hilton circa 2006.
Letting out a low whistle, Demetri winked at Heidi. "Looking good, Heidi. What's the occasion?"
She pointed to me then herself, purposefully excluding the guys, "we are going out." Before I could ask any questions, the boys denied her, claiming me for themselves.
"Psh. No way, Saffiya's ours. We are attending to some very important business." That was one way of putting it. "You can have her tomorrow."
Heidi crossed her arms over her chest. "Haven't you two got anything better to do than force her to watch violence and half naked women?"
"It's educational."
"Yeah, we're teaching her battle strategy and war stuff."
I piped in for two reasons. Mainly because I was oddly enjoying the violence in the game despite multitasking with our various conversation topics. The storyline wasn't half bad and it was almost like watching a film. The second was that I had a feeling that Heidi expected me to dress up right along with her and her heels could spear a freaking shark. No, thank you. "And its role in gender politics. It's a metaphor...for the transition of society...during wars."
Heidi blinked, almost seeming convinced. Felix took one hand from his controller and discretely fist bumped my save, giving Demetri the opportunity to attack him in the game. Yet again, a game over screen appeared and Felix's jaw dropped.
"Not fair!"
"Snooze, you lose!" Demetri gloated, glancing at Heidi to see if he had her attention. He didn't.
I threw my arms behind my head and grinned at Heidi. "Hey Heidi, Demetri had some unique thoughts on the dangers that video games pose to modern society due to their hyper sexualization of women." The man I'd referred to stared at me, wide eyed at my claim. I jerked my head over towards Heidi.
Heidi raised an eyebrow at Demetri, actually looking impressed. Demetri appeared to be uncharacteristically flustered by Heidi's level of interest in the fact that he had positive, forward-thinking, intellectual thoughts on gender. It was a change from his usual glamorous charm, but he'll thank me one day.
"Is that so?" I'd noticed that in Heidi's mural, between a blue sun and a yin and yang symbol, was an attempted portrait drawing of Gloria Steinem. I figured she'd be intrigued if Demetri showed any recognition of the topic, but I never thought she'd believe it so easily.
Especially not with the man's blundering reply, "what can I say? I love sex!" I waited for her to roll her eyes, but she giggled. It was my turn to exchange looks with Felix, both of us equally dumbfounded at the unexpected sound coming from the woman. Our reactions might've been for different reasons, however, because Felix followed this up with:
"Who doesn't?" I snorted and Felix patted my knee eccentrically as if I wasn't already paying attention to him. "Right, Fiya?"
"You all seem to keep forgetting that I spent my teenage years in a convent." I added nonchalantly, "outside of an anatomy book, the closest I got to sex was probably Shakespeare or the Parliament of Fowles." All eyes turned to me, stunned by my words. Although I wasn't sure what exactly was so surprising about my statement. "What?"
Heidi was also staring at me with slight disbelief before declaring, "oh my god. She's a nerd."
"I prefer intellectually curious."
A muttered, "no wonder the twins have taken so well to you" was drowned out by Felix's taunt,
"A fifteen year old who reads Chaucer? Please — nerd."
I fell back against the couch and crossed my arms in a fit. "Okay, then what do you do for fun? I can't imagine any of you have never read a book in all your centuries of existence."
Sheepishly, Demetri ran a hand through his hair. "We've just been so busy." Felix nodded his head in agreement, supporting the empty excuse.
Heidi ratted them out. "Their 'intellectual curiosity' went out the window once they discovered video games." She sat gracefully on the arm of the couch, inspecting her nails with the perfectionistic attitude of a cat.
"Can you blame us? It took a decade before Aro agreed to buy a television." Demetri defended them, sliding in an amusing brag of how they "had to convince Aro that video gaming would one day become a respectable art form that deserved the Volturi's admiration."
I let out a small bout of laughter, halted slightly by the sound of the leader's name. Yet, my amusement at their dedication for such a simple activity allowed me to focus on the charm with which my friends had exhibited for such a case.
Demetri grinned at this and with a quick glance to Heidi, he added, "I don't think he bought it, but he let us buy whatever we wanted."
Felix snickered beside us, "convincing him to build the movie theatre was a little more difficult."
My jaw dropped, "he actually let you build a movie theatre?"
With his signature lopsided grin, Felix said, "not yet!"
Heidi, taking her eyes briefly from her nails, chimed in with an unusual suggestion. "Perhaps you could get him to change his mind, Fiya."
Felix patted my leg excitedly, "yeah! He likes you." He missed the pointed look Demetri sent him, but I was already questioning his logic and the audacity of his words. Heidi swiped at the back of his head and his hand went to cover it, "hey!"
I almost choked on the air that rushed into my lungs. Collecting myself, I tried to bring the lightheartedness back into the room, but my attempt fell short. "I'd hate to see what he does to the people he hates."
Demetri's face grew real serious for a second before he nodded and said, "don't worry. You will."
Almost immediately, Heidi broke the tension that had been ignited with Demetri's ominous comment. "That's enough of that. It's my turn." She declared, standing from her seat and waving her hand towards me. "Ready, Saffiya?"
I hesitated, glancing at the guys. "Where exactly are we going?"
"Lusso."
The answer drew a surprisingly outraged response from the two men. "Without us!"
"No fair!"
Heidi raised her hands as if to hold them back. "Girl's night, gentlemen." She winked at Demetri, "maybe next time."
"But Fiya might not be human next time. There's so many possibilities—"
"What's Lusso?" I interrupted, feeling even more out of the loop than usual.
"It's a night club."
I started to rise from my position on the couch, "like, outside the castle?" If there was one thing that had become clear over the last two weeks or so, it was that I was severely lacking in vitamin D and fresh air. All I wanted was to sit outside, under the sun and just take in the world around me. Though right now, I'd settle for the shining moon and night air.
Heidi raised a finger to include the single stipulation. "You have to promise not to try and run away again."
"Cross my heart, " I agreed fervently. "Can we go now? Let's go!"
"Kids. They only break your heart." I heard Felix cry dramatically as I practically dragged Heidi out of his room.
