It was a feeling hard to place and even harder to put into words, that newborn haze that clouded my memories. They were all right there within my grasp, but hidden enough that if I tried to touch them with my fingers I would feel a thick veil first and would need to push through. Sometimes the veil felt more like a stuck door; I could open it, it was unlocked, but it wouldn't open without a little elbow grease. Eventually, the littlest thing would flash before my eyes and the door would burst open with an abrupt swing, all the memories I thought were lost forever would violently rush in and overwhelm me. The smallest, most random thing…
Alec pushed me and I fell backwards, flat on the floor. He quickly climbed me and continued the kiss, forcing me down with his hands on my shoulders. I could easily get up since I was stronger than him, but something about the way he was trying so hard to subdue me felt so good that I couldn't find it in myself to fight him for power right then. I did get annoyed at how deliberately slow he was being.
It was torture.
I groaned impatiently and opened the buttons on his shirt, which just made him stop altogether.
"What is the hurry? We're not getting any older." He smiled at me condescendingly.
One day I would actually punch him, I could feel it.
His words and his tone incensed me and I threw him back, inverting our positions. The mirth left his expression and he prepared himself to sit up, but I closed my fingers around his neck before he could. His lips parted and his eyes widened before he closed them, a sight so incredibly lovely that I sighed when I witnessed it.
Such an angel.
A shiver travelled through my body when his beautiful, long lashes touched his smooth-looking skin. I burnt the picture into my mind, imprinted it into my brain; my perfect memory made a photograph out of it.
I applied some pressure and he squirmed, his fingernails finding my thighs and digging into my flesh. A soft murmur reached my ears, reverberating in the air like the muffled theremin notes I had heard as I was transformed by Aro's venom. It couldn't hurt him - the weak force I was using on his neck - and he didn't need the air, but he probably felt like I did when he held me down.
The thought made me deliciously warm inside. I could feel the physical evidence of my arousal flowing out of myself and soaking my underwear.
His eyes flew open, getting darker and darker until they were black, an endless abyss that I felt I knew so well - like I had been there before.
I had no time to process my feelings or my thoughts regarding them. At a speed I could hardly follow, Alec slid his hands up my dress and freed me of the piece of cloth that covered me underneath it. Time slowed down and went still, and I knew it was all in my head. I wasn't doing anything with my gift, I was just perceiving its passage differently.
In the stillness of that frozen moment my mind was racing. I allowed myself to notice how awfully young he looked and think how someone that looked so innocent could be so twisted. I asked myself what I was doing with my life and what I had let myself become, and for what. I wondered if I was really going to just live that life that was pretty much forced on me. I thought if Alec was not being forced on me too, in a different way. Had I ever even considered not being with him since I became one of his kind?
I looked down at Alec's childlike features and a need to be nice and soft took over me like a forgotten fairy tale princess waking from a long slumber. All the viciousness he injected into me like poison started to wear off and I found a little bit of myself deep down in my core, hidden away in a safe. The door was unlocked and what rushed in was not a string of memories, but of sentiments. A mildness and a tenderness I couldn't even recall I had ever possessed until they slammed their way back into my heart. I found myself in the middle of a battleground as that part of my personality tried to claw its way out while my newborn vampire body kicked it back inside, moved by the lust for blood and for things that went beyond the basic urge for blood.
My hands left his neck. I lifted one and brushed his hair away from his face, taking care to control my strength and not hurt him by accident. I lowered my face to his and kissed his forehead, barely touching him with my lips. He stared at me with clear confusion caused by the sudden change in my actions.
"I don't want to hurt you."
He grabbed my wrist, outraged and disbelieving at the same time.
"You don't want to hurt me?"
I shook my head and pulled my arm, but he didn't let go and I didn't force my way out. "No, of course not. Why would I?"
"To show me I am yours."
He said it like it was obvious and I was being stupid. A little smile escaped me, but I pressed my lips to get rid of it. I didn't want to anger him any further.
"You already know that and I already know that. I love you. I want you to feel loved."
He stared at me like he couldn't piece two and two together. Was that a concept so wildly difficult to grasp? Then again, he seemed to pour all of his intensity out in the form of violence, whether he felt something positive or negative.
He never did say he loves me. Maybe he doesn't, maybe this is all just some violent want and nothing more and that's why he is never really nice to me anymore and…
He released my arm and stared at my face for what felt like hours. Something was happening behind his eyes but I had no good guess about his mind's workings. I held his gaze, trying and trying to make any sense of his reaction but nothing enlightened me. He was a black screen and the most I could see in his eyes was myself, like a reflection on a TV that someone had just turned off.
Something did happen there, but I had no idea what it was. Something that just occurred to him, or that never before made sense? He seemed like he finished a moderately difficult puzzle because I finally recognised something on his face.
It was understanding.
" Ic lufie þē."
"What?"
He didn't repeat it nor explain it. He just lied there and smiled warmly, just like he used to in the very first days after we met. I smiled back without even meaning to, overjoyed at the small glimpse of the Alec I had fallen in love with.
"Then make me feel loved," he asked, still looking at me with an amazement I couldn't place or understand;
I did just that. It came to me so naturally, so much more naturally than the exacerbated violence he seemed to always try to force out of me… I ran my hands along his skin softly, I trailed kisses along his neck and his collarbone. I was calm and my movements were deliberate, and I looked him in the eyes the whole time.
I think that was my ruin.
It felt too familiar. It reminded me of something else… No, it reminded me of someone else. Someone else holding my hips as I moved on top of them, someone else throwing their head back and screaming out my name in pleasure.
Good God, Marina, this is the worst moment you could have picked to think of someone else.
Except that I didn't really pick it. I was trying to let it go but I could barely help it, the stuck door was squeaking, trying to burst open and the more I tried to ignore it the louder it got in my head. Who was buried so deep in my memories, and why would I remember them at such an inconvenient time?
My thoughts abandoned me as I felt my own release building up. For a few extraordinary moments there was nothing pushing its way back to the surface of my mind, there was nothing but pure physical bliss overwhelming me. I dug my nails into his shoulders and heard him cry out in spite of my strongest efforts. When I opened my eyes he didn't look like he cared at all.
Alec pulled me down into a kiss and it felt so different. It felt light.
He looked me in the eyes. "I love you."
I opened my mouth to answer but I finally figured it out. My words got caught in my throat and I choked. The insistent memory slammed against my skull and I could feel myself flinch.
"I remember now," I said instead of whatever I was going to say before it clicked. "You killed my boyfriend."
A shadow ran across his face, his eyelids twitched almost imperceptibly. He removed his hands from me and quietly watched me get off of him. I zoned out, all the repressed memories of Luke flying before my eyes. I have no idea of how long I sat on the floor allowing everything to come back to me but Alec grabbed my wrist before it was over.
"No. Push it back."
"What?" I felt incredibly dumb. He had been very clear in his request. Or had it been an order?
"It doesn't matter anymore. You have no use for these memories, they'll only hurt you. Let it go."
I yanked my hand out of his grasp. "So you did it. You killed my boyfriend."
He sighed exasperatedly. "You really want to discuss this right now?"
He sounded hurt. He looked angry but he sounded genuinely hurt.
He is right, how insensitive am I?
"You're right. I'm sorry. It's just that…"
Just what? I tried to organise my feelings and my thoughts but everything was so scrambled. There was the nagging desire for blood tainting everything, there were traces of the awful pain of the transformation lingering and clouding my capacities.
I decided to try my best to use words, though they kept escaping me. I said it all in Portuguese because it was easier.
"You have consistently treated me as if I am beneath you. It hurts. It makes me want to hurt you and I don't want to want to hurt you. You're always getting the worst out of me." I didn't care if he understood it all or not, I just needed to let it out, but he didn't bat an eyelash. Feeling ridiculous, I added - "You're a bad influence on me."
He had the nerve to laugh though in his defence he didn't do it for very long. I looked around and my eyes fell on the corpse laying next to us, making me notice how utterly macabre was the whole situation once all the lust had left me and I calmed down. I was covered in blood once again, and this time so was Alec.
"And we just did it right next to a dead guy."
Alec's voice brought me back to the current situation. "I know I have been hard on you, but that is difficult to avoid. You're so new to all of this. It's amusing."
I glared at him but he simply smiled, unfazed. I took a mental note to ask Natalia about Luke when I met her again and took the hand he was offering me.
I risked another look at the corpse we left on the floor before looking at Alec again.
I would never, for as long as I lived, breathe a single word of that confession to Natalia - but with Alec I could be sincere.
"Thank you. I needed that."
He pushed a strand of my hair behind my ear and smiled his nice smile, the one I adored. "I know."
I was in the library again, this time in the middle of an Italian lesson, when it occurred to me. I was embarrassed by how long it took me.
"He speaks Portuguese."
Afton stopped mid-sentence and frowned.
"Who? We all do."
That information annoyed me even more.
"You all do?" He nodded and I gaped indignantly. "Then why the hell have I been speaking English this whole damn time?"
He smirked. "You meant Alec? He knew most Brazilians are not fluent in English. It would be convenient if you were, then he could speak to you in public with less risk of being overheard by other humans who could understand your conversation."
"But why here too?"
He shrugged. "Probably became a habit."
I shook my head stubbornly.
"No, I remember being told not to speak Portuguese with Nat."
I wasn't one hundred percent sure of that, but I threw the bait anyway. Afton gave me a calculating look before answering.
"We were afraid that maybe your Portuguese was too informal or too modern and you would be able to slip her something that would go undetected by most of us. Besides, anything that made it harder for the two of you to confabulate and draw an escape plan was desirable."
Considering how things went down I suppose I couldn't blame them for that.
"Uhm, I'm sorry about the whole running away thing."
I had been making a point of saying that to anyone I was introduced to in the castle. I had started to realise that most of them seemed to hold a grudge against me, or at least were not interested in being friendly because of the turmoil I had caused. That would be a rock in my shoe for quite some time and I didn't want to be isolated in that place, with only Jane and Alec having my back besides Nat.
It's like a new school all over again and I'm the kid no one wants in their little group, doomed to sit alone in the cafeteria.
Afton didn't seem like one of the guards that took personal offence over it, but he was not going out of his way to be friends either. I wondered if I would make any friends there at all, ever.
"I honestly don't care." He closed the book he was trying to use to teach me, seemingly giving up on it. "If you want to score any points with anyone here you have to let them help you and not be in the way of anyone doing their job."
"Let them help me?"
"Yes, of course. They will feel comfortable and useful because you owe them."
I didn't know the first thing about purposefully befriending people and even less vampires, but somehow that made some sense.
"And speaking of not being an obstacle to anyone's job…" He threw the book at me and I almost missed it, startled by the sudden action. "Learn first and chat later. If you don't get fluent soon Master Aro will be severely displeased with me."
God, I was really clueless.
I tried to concentrate on the lesson for the rest of our hours together. I could tell he was not happy about being assigned to teach me and I hoped I could relieve him of that soon. Learning a new language fortunately was proving to be much easier than I expected. We had been meeting up for lessons for less than two weeks and my childhood memories gave me the impression that I made that same progress with English only after a full year.
Afton was not impressed. He said he couldn't see the point in trying to teach a new language to a newborn. I would obviously be too distracted to learn it properly or quickly and he would be stuck with me for much longer than necessary. I didn't want to sound whiny or spoiled so I never complained when he would tell me I was being slow, but I was incredibly annoyed by his lack of acknowledgement.
We went through that entire book in under an hour and he still scolded me.
"You should be done by now. This is a waste of time."
Harsh. I don't think I've ever felt this dumb in my life.
To my relief, someone I hadn't met before interrupted his rant. A lean, young looking guy with curly black hair joined us at the table with a dimpled smile plastered on his face.
"This a new one."
Afton sighed in defeat. He knew our lesson couldn't recover from an interruption like that.
"This is Marina."
The stranger looked at me from head to toe, or as much as he could considering I was seated, and raised an eyebrow. "Which one?"
"How many Marinas are here?" I asked but was completely ignored.
Afton offered the stranger an evil smile that nearly gave me goosebumps. "You know what, why don't you find that out? Our lessons are over for today." He got up and nodded to me as a goodbye, vanishing away before I could retribute.
Can't believe he left me here alone with a person I don't know.
Well, we were not really alone. The library was usually full and at that moment there were about a dozen other vampires around to eavesdrop, but I also didn't know any of them. The cloaks of the ones who had one varied in shade though they were all grey and none of them came close to being as dark as Alec's, Demetri's or even Corin's. I nervously turned to the unknown man, eyeing him suspiciously.
"I'm Filip." He offered.
"Nice to meet you, Filip."
I didn't know what else to say since Afton had already given him my name, but he carried on with no vestige of the awkwardness I left in the air with my words.
"We have just two Marinas, but I hadn't met any of you until now," he answered the question Afton chose to ignore. "The other one is new too. You are probably newer if you are still learning Italian."
"Uhm, Afton did say I'm being very slow," I admitted a little embarrassed.
He then went on to ask me a great number of questions to find out which Marina I was, but it seemed that I had too much in common with my namesake for him to really know. She was also Brazilian, was also found in Minas Gerais, also taken to Volterra by Alec… from what Filip heard in the palazzo, she even had her own boyfriend killed by Alec during his mission.
I felt a weird feeling down in my stomach as I heard Filip listing those similarities. Did Alec have a MO?
"Come with me," he said after his interrogation and hastily grabbed my hand, "I need other opinions."
I let him pull me away through the corridors to a part of the underground quarters I had never been to, doing my best to ignore the judging looks from the others in the library. Filip dragged me unceremoniously, not bothering to explain where we were going or asking me if I wanted to go at all. I felt a rush of excitement and fear, a little skittish from being taken to a new part of the castle by a guy I just met but kind of glad to be going to a reasonably new place to meet new people. He only stopped when we reached a communal area with a TV set and a few outdated computers. A few gaming machines were scattered around and there was a large red couch in the middle of the room where three vampires were sitting down. I blinked at the almost familiar and too-modern-for-this place room.
The one girl and the two guys on the couch looked at me curiously before Filip explained his predicament. The girl got up, tall and bulky and menacing, and put her face mere centimetres away from mine, scrutinising me with disconcerting attention.
"This one is a newborn," was her verdict, "are they both that young?"
"I don't know," Filip admitted.
I looked around with uneasiness and uncertainty. "Uhm, sorry but is it common that you don't know who lives with you?"
"We only really know the guard," the girl answered. "There are a lot of different people living here for different reasons. Sometimes we get to know some guests or visitors if they stay for long enough, but it's somewhat pointless to get to know anyone who is going to leave so we usually wait until the ceremony."
"Ceremony?"
"The welcoming ceremony. When you are given your cloak." She smiled. "I'm Alina, by the way."
Alina looked like a warrior. She was a good thirty centimetres taller than me and had brown, straight hair cut very short. Her milky skin was covered in scars. She looked positively terrifying and it took a lot of me not to back away from her.
All four of them seemed to be much closer to my age than the other people I had met in the castle so far, chronologically speaking. Biologically they were all older, with Alina looking the oldest of them. She should have been in her mid-thirties when she was turned, while the guys looked to be somewhere between mid to late twenties. Filip was probably close to thirty but not really there. I wondered when they were born but didn't ask. The other two didn't introduce themselves and I tried not to be offended, given what Alina had just explained.
"Funny that Afton is the one teaching you," Filip contemplated. "He must have done something wrong." He noticed my inquisitive look. "He is one of the permanent ones. Not very high ranked but permanent. They usually give the teaching chores to one of us transitory guards."
"You're all temporary, then?" I asked and he nodded. "How long have you been here?"
"Me? Just thirty years."
Fuck, never mind being around my age I guess.
Alina was still intrigued by the mystery of the two Marinas, because she waved to Filip as if to dismiss him and kept questioning me. "You're probably the one that blocks the gifts. You are, aren't you? I don't really know what the other one does but I don't think she would come here with Filip."
I refrained from correcting her and saying he didn't exactly invite me and just asked why.
"Because the other one is still Alec's responsibility," the shorter of the two guys answered, "and Afton wouldn't leave her with Filip. He knows better than that." He shot Filip an accusing look and Filip rolled his eyes.
"I'm not an animal," he protested. "And this one is creole, for God's sake. Not my type at all."
I was a little taken aback by the racism but bit my tongue. I'm the new girl, I reminded myself, I'll smile and nod and try not to get in trouble. They began a friendly banter and I took that time to make up my mind. After a rather quick analysis of my situation, I decided to lie. Well, going along with their misconception might be a better term. Alec's position within the coven seemed like it could be an obstacle if I wanted to get closer to these people and I decided I wanted to be around them. Even if they were not that close in age to me they were definitely closer than Alec, Jane or Demetri. When Filip said that "the old ones" rarely go in there I was sure of it.
"I do block some gifts." They stopped talking to look at me. "But I'm not all that good at it yet. I've been training, though."
Alina snapped her long fingers. "I knew it. She's Marina number one."
I couldn't help but notice that it was yet another thing I seemed to share with the other Marina or they wouldn't have mixed us up when I confirmed my ability.
Are they even really talking about two different people?
I shook it off. Whatever got me to fit in.
Once the mystery was solved they were comfortable enough to gossip in my presence.
"I heard the other one is granting Alec special favours," the taller unnamed guy said with a suggestive smile.
" Who said that to you?" Alina demanded, scandalised. "Alec looks like a child, I don't think anyone would do that with him."
I winced.
I guess he does look really young.
Objectively, I already knew that, of course. It was the first thing that struck me when we met. I got used to it with time, however, and he didn't act young. My mind suppressed that fact on a daily basis at that point.
"Corin did."
"Corin's a pervert ."
Whoa.
"Maybe the other Marina was turned around the same age," Filip suggested and they all ultimately agreed that it was likely.
I started to go there and meet with them whenever I could, all the while wondering how long the other Marina had lived in the castle without meeting them as well and for how much longer she wouldn't cross paths with them. Days passed and then weeks and I had yet to come upon her, so I started to relax.
It was a wonderful feeling to watch Tv again and to catch up with all the silliness going around the internet. I renewed my arsenal of memes and references and as soon as I started to use them on Nat she begged me to take her to the media room too. It was much trickier than going by myself since she was much busier and much closer to Aro all the time, but every now and then I managed. I briefed her on my white lie and introduced her to Filip, Alina, Leo and Viktor. I was afraid they would identify me through her, but they really didn't bother with the uncloaked ones, not even if they stood by Aro almost all day. They did get curious about why she was by his side all the time.
"He's testing my gift," Nat explained when they met and they all shrugged and took it.
They initially didn't engage with us all that much, mostly letting us stay there and interacting with each other without worrying if we were listening. That meant we started to be in the loop of the whirlwind of gossip in the castle.
That meant we got to hear a great deal about the elite members of the guard that we knew from other people's perspectives.
After I overheard a little about Alec there were a few comments on Jane. How she was feared and spoiled and whatnot. Then there were Demetri's famous flirtatious adventures, which to my surprise seemed to be quite numerous. Then it was Felix.
"He always goes for the secretaries," Filip was saying one day, "but apparently not anymore? I'm telling you, he found a mate."
"You're delusional," Viktor rolled his eyes.
"Delirious," Leo agreed.
I made a mental note to bounce the info to Nat when I could and turned to the entrance when I heard footsteps. Alina made her way inside and flashed me a smile.
"Aren't we pretty today?" She teased me, noticing my unusual choice of clothes and hairstyle. I put a little extra effort into my looks that day, mostly because I missed getting dolled up. I was still not allowed to go outside to see the city, but Alec appreciated the extra effort enough to make it worth it.
I really regretted not seeing Volterra before running away and being turned.
My dress was a little fancier than most days, navy blue and long, flowing down to the floor. I arranged my hair in a French braid and put some beaded hair clips around it. I even took the time to apply some light makeup.
"So?" Viktor eyed me with a smirk. "Got a date?"
I shook my head. "Nah. Just missed getting pretty."
He exchanged a look with Filip and Leo chuckled. Alina brushed her fingers along my braid, careful not to mess it up.
"You look stunning."
"Thanks."
I ended up passing my free time without Nat watching TV, wondering if she would be able to make it there that day. When she first went there I was a little afraid that I was doing something wrong by using the computers and Aro would see it in her thoughts that I did it, but he never even mentioned it. I did think of looking up myself or my family, but I couldn't do it without at least one surname and never got to try. I started to settle into a routine in the castle, training with Alec to control and improve my gift, spending his free time with him and Jane, and splitting the rest of my free time between the media room and the library. I found that it had a lot of books on topics that interested me, arts in particular, and it didn't seem such a dreadful place anymore, even if I still had to be there for language lessons. Fortunately, when I was done with Italian and moved to Latin Afton was freed from the teaching post and a transitory guard took his place.
"How is Latin going?" Alina asked me. "Vina is not as impatient as Afton, right?"
"No, she isn't," I agreed, "but Latin is so much worse than Italian."
She smiled sympathetically. "I bet you're doing all right."
"Do you think you'll be staying?"
I stared at Leo for a little too long while considering what to answer. Alec said I was staying for sure but if I told them that they might figure out I was the wrong Marina.
"Why so curious now? Bet any money on me?"
I had heard bets were all the rage there, so it didn't seem far-fetched.
He scoffed. "Wouldn't bet on you, to be honest. Tiny and frail like that, they won't keep you unless your gift is formidable, sorry to say. Doesn't look like you'd make it up as a fighter."
"Don't listen to him, you wouldn't be here at all if they didn't believe you could make it." Aline scowled at Leo but he just laughed at her.
"What a shame we're not gifted," Filip deadpanned. "I would like to see it working before betting."
Alina playfully smacked his head, causing everyone to laugh.
"There were so many people gathered when I arrived." I suddenly remembered my first time in Volterra. "You guys were not there, I guess."
"I don't think many guards were there," Leo said. "The most curious ones regarding newcomers are usually the ones that know they will be leaving soon."
"Sandrine said there was a human girl they brought that literally paralysed everyone in the room," Viktor commented. "Do you think it's true?"
"A human?" Alina frowned. "No, certainly she exaggerates."
"You ask her when you see her, she said she felt it herself."
"Oh, she'll swear on it, I'm sure. Doesn't make it true."
I froze. Whoever that Sandrine was, I hoped I wouldn't meet her so soon.
Which meant, of course , that they called her to the room so they could ask her.
I tried to make up an excuse to leave before Leo went back with her on his heels but they all insisted for me to stay.
"You're leaving before the gossip arrives?" Filip raised an eyebrow. "Who even are you?"
Fuck. Maybe she won't recognise me. I barely did when I saw myself.
It was just wishful thinking, of course. I knew the main reason I didn't recognise myself was because my senses were so inefficient when I was human, not because I changed that much.
Sandrine arrived. She was nearly as tall as Alina but not as bulky. Her black hair was kept close to her scalp by a pair of Dutch braids and her skin was shiny like onyx underneath her vampiric pallor. She greeted everyone she knew and then her eyes fell on me. The smile on her face slowly melted away and the blood would be leaving her face if she had any blood there. There was no doubt then, she did remember me. I pretended I didn't notice her reaction while praying that the others actually didn't.
"Hi!" I walked over to her and offered my hand. "I'm Marina."
She took a step back, which would have been hilarious if I wasn't making a conscious effort not to freak out. She looked like she could snap me in half with a hand on her back.
She recomposed herself and cautiously shook my hand.
"Hi."
Leo frowned. "It's like you've seen a ghost," he told Sandrine. "Relax, she is a newborn but she is pretty tame. No need for alarm."
Sandrine laughed nervously and I was sure it was forced and fake. "She startled me, is all."
"Tell them about the human!"
Sandrine risked another look at me, the muscles on her face tensing up. She clenched her jaw for the briefest moment before faking another laugh.
"Yes, it's true. She did it twice, I was there."
"Don't be so underwhelming," Leo complained. "This is a big deal and you say it like that?"
"Where do you think she is now?" Filip asked. Then he turned to me. "Seen other newborns around?"
I shrugged. "Just Nat."
Act like you want to get an Oscar, Marina, don't be shy.
Filip took one of his curls around his index finger and played with it with a pensive expression on his face. "Maybe she knows something."
Sandrine kept glancing at me in a frightened way that promised to ruin my Oscar winning performance at any moment, but if anyone else noticed they didn't comment on it. Not in my presence, at least.
"Alright." I waved at everyone, making a point of drawing attention to the fact that I was leaving. "Gossip's been delivered successfully, I'll be going. Y'know, to spread it."
"Always providing such a valuable service to our community," Leo mocked.
"Ask Natalia about the human," Viktor reminded me and I nodded, leaving the room as fast as I could without breaking into a sprint.
"There are other media rooms in the castle, did you know?"
Natalia started to speak excitedly before I could voice any of my concerns. We were alone in her room, which was relatively close to mine, and I talked in the quietest tone I could because I still felt uneasy about everyone having super hearing in that place. Nat hardly ever cared about that, she spoke as animatedly as she had always done.
"Really?"
"Yeah, that's why we always ever see those same guys in that one. You were right, this is just like in school. Each little group of vamps that band together hang in their own preferred place and expect no one to bother them there. Felix took me to other media rooms and they are so much better, Ma."
"Felix took you?"
A little red light lit up in my mind.
"Yep, he did. I mentioned the one we have been using and he straight up laughed in my face. That one is known to be super lame. There are some with smart TVs and Xboxes."
I tried not to get distracted by the sudden urge to play an Xbox and grabbed her shoulders. "Nat, you're ruining our cover! They are already onto me!"
I told her about Sandrine and she rolled her eyes. "So what? It's been fun, but we're not doing anything wrong. Why are you freaking out?"
"I don't know if they will want us there if they know we're close to some of the elite guards. Especially now that they have trash-talked them in our presence."
"Hm, that's actually a good point." She chuckled. "This is such a school problem. I'm glad this is the type of drama we have in our lives now, this shit I know how to deal with."
It was true, that sort of problem seemed so small compared to what we had been through to get there. It was refreshing, in a way.
"Speaking of school drama," Nat added, "are you ever going to tell Alina you're not into her?"
What?!
" What?! "
"Oh, for God's sake. You have to have noticed that she is always all over you." Nat rolled her eyes. "Always finding excuses to touch you, always complimenting you and not just your looks. And when she touches you she lingers . It's so freaking obvious."
"You're crazy."
"Marina, this is funny and silly so far but if Alec ever knows about this it could get really ugly."
Luke flashed in my head, but I shook it off. Focus on one problem at a time.
"She is just really friendly."
"Yeah, sure. Only to you."
I scrunched up my face out of discomfort. Everything in me was saying to dismiss something so absurd, but what if I was just that oblivious?
"Marina," Nat tried again, "I'm telling you, Xena there is totally making the moves on you."
"No way."
She threw her hands up in the air, the personification of frustration.
"Jesus Christ! You'll only admit that I'm right when it's too late. Alec is going to flip out and I bet you even I will get some."
She took a notepad from her desk and dramatically started to write while saying every word aloud to me.
"I, Natalia… Shit, what's my surname?" She stopped for a few seconds but gave up. "Ugh, never mind that. I, Natalia Volturi, declare myself not guilty of whatever Marina caused by being so goddamn blind to any type of flirting on the grounds…"
My hand flew to her notepad and I snatched it away, mortified.
"Stop that! I'll talk to her, damn."
I had no intention of embarrassing myself like that.
" Good. If you don't I'll know and then I will."
"Meddler."
"Hey, someone has to be."
I glared at her and boiled with fury as I heard her laughing.
Yeah, guess who is talking to Felix after all.
It began around the time I hit the six months mark. Six months old in vampire age and about six months living in the castle. For most of its residents time was a completely different entity than to me. They spoke in terms of decades or even centuries, they spent years sharing a roof with other people before taking notice of them, and they considered someone living there for five years as brand new, saying they had "just arrived". So I shouldn't have gotten too comfortable in such a short amount of time, but I did. Six months to me was time enough to feel settled to a certain level, but to most of the other vampires in there it was hardly a blink of an eye.
After six months I started to get noticed by bullies, for lack of a better word, and I was already comfortable there. It came out of nowhere from my perspective.
Like with any other new face, when I crossed paths with the first one I just nodded. If they stopped to talk I would offer my name. He never did stop to talk, he lunged at me instead.
And I was completely unprepared in every sense.
What the fuck?
He was not very tall or looked very strong, but he was still taller than me and incomparably more skilled in combat. He threw me against the wall like I weighed nothing and the most I managed to do was grunt when I hit it. I heard his delighted chuckle near my ear, still confused by what just happened and covered in dust from the stones I broke. His eyes met mine and I moved my feet to try and get away from him, touching some rubble with my toes.
"Where is the pretty little newbie going?" He sang. I was distracted by the brightness of his red hair and he took the chance to grab my hair and throw me on the floor. "You don't look like you've met the welcome committee at all."
He knelt down and slapped me across the face.
I was flabbergasted.
"See you around." He walked off as if nothing had happened.
I looked around, but there was no one else. No one saw it, no one would know if I didn't tell.
I didn't tell anyone for a while, not even Nat. He must have spread the word because it started to happen more and more often, and I didn't even know what was more surprising to me: that so many of them had no idea of who I was or that so many of them were so happy to beat up a 5'1'' girl. The first fact puzzled me enough to get me to ask Alec about it.
I asked him a few days later, hoping there was no trace of any beating on my body.
"When I got here the first time, as a human,' I started carefully, watching his face, "Felix said 'we all know who you are'". Who exactly did he include in this 'we'?"
Alec stared at me suspiciously before answering, dragging out his words. "We the permanent guards, I suppose he meant. Though a part of the human staff was also warned about your arrival. Why do you ask?"
I shrugged, trying to speak with nonchalance. "I am constantly meeting people that never heard of me and that memory came back. I just wondered about it."
He raised his chin, as he usually did when he tried to look imposing and force something out of me. "Is someone bothering you?"
That would be putting it very, very lightly.
"No, of course not. I have met a lot of the temporary guards and they are pretty nice. They just didn't know about me at all."
Not entirely true but close enough, I guess.
Alec sighed and by the way he looked at me I knew he was about to use his patronising tone and piss me off.
"Don't bother making friends with the lower guards, love."
"Don't be such an elitist."
He sighed.
"You need to learn your place and that doesn't strictly mean learning who is above you but also who is under you."
"No one is under me, I am not part of the guard yet." I felt pretty smart pointing that out but Alec looked ready to slap me out of frustration.
"When the time comes that you are a part of the guard they will not respect you because you decided to befriend them. You will throw everything out of balance if you don't start minding our hierarchy."
He sounded serious enough for me to consider his point.
"This is more serious than it seems to you," he went on, "as everything, always." He said the last part under his breath, like I wouldn't hear him.
"Okay, sorry. I'll be mindful."
My dismissive tone did not convince him.
"If they don't know who you are, tell them. If they don't fear you, make them."
I raised my eyebrows. "They definitely don't fear me."
Alec smirked.
"They should."
