Alec would like me to add that I am an extremely unobservant human who does not know what she's talking about. But I'll tell you what I saw and you can make your own assumptions about Alec and Bree.
It was rainy where we were which meant that I could go out in the daytime if I played my cards right. Unfortunately, that wasn't going so well.
"Come on, Alec. I'm sure you want to get out there too," I said looking out the window as the droplets were sliding down the glass.
"No."
"But the rain was the whole reason we came here," I whined. Bree was sitting on the other hotel bed looking like she was on the verge of telling us both to shut up. She glared in my direction. I knew my pestering Alec wasn't going to get me anywhere. All I was doing was irritating him. Bree's patience had been especially short lately.
"Why don't you try sleeping?" Alec asked with fake smile. That was his favorite suggestion.
"Yeah, well why don't you try..." I grumbled under my breath, but he cut me off.
"Maybe you should consider the fact that I can hear your mumbling before you finish that sentence," Alec interrupted. Stupid vampire hearing...
I narrowed my eyes at him. At this point I hadn't slept in about three days. I was starting to look like a not-so pretty version of a vampire myself. My skin had gotten pale and there were dark shadows under my eyes. However, they still managed to come off looking beautiful and stunning, while I was just starting to look sick.
"Maybe I should run to the pharmacy and get some sleeping pills?" Bree suggested without looking at him. Bree still wasn't in the mood to talk to Alec. They were tense with each other, though they pretended that nothing was wrong. They never looked at each other in the eye. I felt like I was taking the brunt of their tension. I was a good distraction from the other vampire in the room.
"No," I protested. "They have a dependency risk."
"I don't mind. You could just use them the rest of your life," Alec suggested thoughtfully.
"Not like that's going to be very long," I grumbled. Alec visibly flinched, and Bree looked up from what she was doing to judge his reaction. He quickly turned from concerned, to scolding.
"Jay," Alec said in a warning tone. "That's not very good for morale." I snorted and plopped on the hotel bed, bouncing with the mattress.
"I'm sorry. I take it back. I'm going to live forever," I said with no sincerity.
"Good," Alec said distractedly. Alec glanced briefly at Bree. He was putting effort into making her feel better. "Maybe we could hit her in the head with a blunt object? That will put her out," he suggested just loud enough for me to hear. Bree's mouth twitched in the direction of a smile, but it didn't quite get there. She wasn't in the mood for any of his jokes at my expense.
"If you're so bored why don't you watch one of the movies you can order from the television?" Bree asked
"Because I've seen every movie, from every one of these hotels a thousand times," I complained. Then I sat up.
"Why don't you read a book?"
"I want to go outside," I said. Bree sighed heavily.
"Has it occurred to you that if we can go outside than other vampires can go outside as well?" Alec asked.
"So if I go outside, I get slaughtered. If I stay here, I die of boredom," I said. Alec rolled his eyes.
Suddenly Bree was struck with an idea. One that would change the way we stayed in hotels the rest of my life. She bent over the side of the bed, searching through the drawers which was habit to most people who go to hotels. She lifted the generic Gideon's Bible and found a paper and pen. Then she found something else.
A deck of cards.
Her brows went up. She looked from Alec to me.
"Do either of you play poker?" she asked.
"I played strip poker once," I confessed thoughtlessly. Alec made a face in my direction. I would never play strip poker with a vampire. Its bad enough they're impossibly beautiful in comparison with their clothes still on. A naked vampire? My ego doesn't need another blow.
"Its only fun with money," Alec said
"I have money," Bree said. They both looked at me. I smiled as pretty as I could in Alec's direction. He rolled his eyes.
"Isn't it bad enough that I buy you clothes, books, food, and hotel rooms? Humans are expensive to take care of. I'm not going to pay for a gambling habit," Alec said.
"I don't have money, but I do have something to offer," I said.
"Oh?" Alec said not quite taking me seriously.
"The ante for me is a fifteen minutes worth of silence. I'll owe you a certain amount of time of not talking that you have every right to activate at whenever you like," I offered. There was a stunned silence in the room. Alec and Bree exchanged a glance for the first time since the incident at the bookstore. Then Alec moved to the same bed Bree sat on and sat cross legged beside her.
"I'm in," he announced.
"Me too," Bree quickly followed. Alec dealt the cards with all the grace and perfection of a professional dealer. Bree caught her cards gracefully. Mine came at me too fast and hit me in the face. Alec shook his head at me muttering about human reflexes. I ignored him and took my hand.
We played like that for an hour until I noticed that Bree was folding her hands very quickly. Alec and I were usually left in the hand. Me chalking up another hour for my losses, and Alec handing me bills in tens and twenties.
I folded early in our game leaving Bree and Alec in the hand. I watched walking around to see Alec's hand and Bree's. Bree had a good hand, Alec was completely bluffing. Then I noticed Alec looking up and staring in Bree's direction. She met his eyes and then sighed at her cards.
"Maybe you should fold?" Alec suggested, his melodic voice singing its message.
"Don't fold," I coughed into my fist. Alec shot me a glance. That trick hardly works with humans, I'm not sure why I thought it would work with vampires.
"No Jay. It's okay," Bree said and then dropped her cards. "It's not that good of a hand anyway." She gently laid down her cards. Alec smirked and gathered the money. Then I looked to Alec suspiciously as he swooped his hand over the pile over cash and gathered it in his cold hands.
"You're cheating," I suddenly realized. Alec looked up, orange eyes full of innocence as if to say, 'Who? Me?' Suddenly I was sure. "You are cheating!"
"How, pray tell, am I cheating?" Alec asked as cool as ever.
"You're using your suggestion," I said. Bree's head snapped into an upright position as she looked at Alec. Alec growled and gave me a death glare.
"Suggestion?" Bree asked. Her glare was ten times greater than his. The tension between them warned me that I was too fragile to get caught between them. Her wonderful voice turned to a venomous tone I didn't recognize. "When I asked you if you had any abilities, you said no." I must have not been conscious for the conversation she was talking about, because I don't remember her asking about his abilities. Either that or it was one of their super speedy conversations I couldn't keep up with.
"It's not a real ability. It is not very hard to block. I can't even suggest Jay anymore," he said defensively. It was true. I could block him, but only because it was easy for me to recognize when he was manipulating me. It was the same feeling I got when he tried to suggest that I sleep, or that I be quiet.
"It is not very hard to block, but only if you know someone is using it on you. You lied," Bree said offended. I looked at Alec, who opened his mouth to defend himself, but his words died in his throat. He knew he'd done wrong. Bree didn't even bother to look at me, her target locked on the vampire across from her.
"Jay, go wait in the bathroom," Bree instructed coldly. She usually was not in charge of me. I had to look at Alec to confirm the order. His muscles tensed. He didn't take his eyes off of Bree. Danger flickered in Bree's eyes, reflecting off of his.
"Go," Alec ordered me. I hesitated for a second, but eventually obeyed. This was one of those times when it was best not to argue. The bathroom was a part of the room with no windows and only one door. I didn't have to worry about any enemy vampires. My scent was protected from those in the hallway.
So I put the lid down on the toilet and used it as a chair. Any other time I would have sat there and complain about my bossy vampires, but this time I was interested. To be perfectly honest, part of me was worried that Bree was going to kill Alec by the look she was giving him.
Then the shouting started. I've been around vampires long enough to get bits and pieces of the super speedy conversations. They used it all the time, usually when they were talking about something they didn't want me to hear. Its kind of like listening to the fast speaking sports announcer on the Spanish radio station when you only know a few Spanish words. What I got from their shouting was this:
"You're still upset for my overreaction at the bookstore. I understand..."
"This has nothing to do with that, its the fact that I've been dieting, locked in the same place as another human, and I have not once seriously considered killing her! I think I have more than earned your trust." There was some quick murmuring that I couldn't decipher. Alec shouted back, and she started ranting again.
"You don't trust me! You came back early from hunting!"
"And its a good thing I did!"
"Its just a coincidence you happened to come back at a bad time."
"Bad time? You were fighting a Predator with Jaylin only a few yards away!"
"We were cornered! What was I supposed to do?"
"You should never have let her talk you into taking her out in the first place!"
"We can't keep her cooped up forever, Alec. Human or not."
"The hell we can't," he growled.
"Even Bella escaped from the Cullens eventually when they were protecting her. Sooner or later Jaylin is going to start getting desperate," Bree pointed out.
"The Cullens aren't real!" Alec roared in frustration. The walls vibrated at his great volume.
"That's not my point! My point is that you told me you didn't have any ability at all. That means if ever we went head to head, you didn't want me to know you had any sort of edge. You don't trust me," Bree said slowing down her words making it easier for me to overhear. "Alec, you have to trust someone. I'm your best bet."
"How can I trust you when you can't even take down a Predator on your own!" Alec burst. I cringed at that, sensing Bree's reaction of what he was saying even from a room away from them.
Suddenly there was a flurry of words between them. It was getting heated. Even though I was alone in the bathroom I was debating on intervening. Then there came a familiar roar followed by a bump on the wall. There were frantic movements on the other side. I could hear furniture snapping, bodies colliding and the television screen smashed against the other wall. Glass tinkled to the ground.
I covered my mouth to keep from screaming. Was there another vampire in there or were they fighting each other? I stood up quickly, ready to grab the door and try to break up the fight. As stupid of an idea as that sounds, I was just as ready to sacrifice myself for them as they were for me. What if one killed the other? Think about it.
But the moment I touched the door handle were was one final, wall-shattering crash. I opened the door. It was like a tornado had just swept through the hotel room. Half of the television was in sharp plastic pieces on the floor, the other half was still hanging by its cord that was plugged in the wall as it hung out the broken window.
One bed was in complete shreds. The other one was where Alec and Bree were, both of them black eyed. Bree was sitting on him, pinning him to the mattress. They're fists were clenched into one another cold hard throats, but they were frozen. Staring at one another.
The wall behind them was in pieces. There were clean holes that went all the way through. Good thing the next room was unoccupied.
"Um..." I said to interrupt them. Neither of them looked my way. It was like I wasn't even there to them. Alec smiled from underneath her.
"You're very good," he admitted through her strangle hold.
"Best mediator in the Game. I'm used to taking down cheaters," she choked to get the words out as Alec had her own throat clenched in his fist.
I don't know about them, but I was very aware that she was sitting on top of him, pinning him in a very compromised position. They stared one another down for a long moment. Then she grudgingly relaxed her grip. Alec also let her go. Bree gracefully rose to her feet and stepped down from the bed like a princess stepping from her throne.
"I'm going to go hunt," she said. Her eyes were onyx black. She walked past me very quickly. I kept myself still until she was out of the room. Then as the door closed behind her I relaxed. Alec had a perplexed look on his face as he still laid there on the ruined bed. He rose up on his elbow and leaned on it.
I half expected him to deem her too dangerous and to demand that we leave before she came back. If she could explode and attack him like that than I could only imagine what Alec thought she was going to do to me if I ever irritated her.
But he didn't demand anything. He just laid there. Then he looked at me. There was a strange smile on his face. It startled me.
"I'm feeling confident," he declared. I hesitated to answer. Then as soon as he saw my confused look, his smile dropped off of his face into his familiar frown.
"Really? Because it looks like Bree just kicked your ass," I said.
"That is why I'm feeling confident. She's strong. She has your best interest in mind. She's an excellent partner," he said his mood all of the sudden considerably lighter, despite the return of his scowl. That's when my suspicions started to rise. I think one vampire has a crush on another one.