In Vendetta House (The Vendetta Series #1)

Chapter 2

Chapter 2



"Holy..." I stare at the mirror, gobsmacked, my jaw slacked. My lips are a terrible, eery shade of blood red, as if I'd been playing with dark lipstick and applied one too many layers.

I run a hand through my hair nervously. Everything is alright, I assure myself. It's alright. Wait. My hand goes through my hair again. Since when did my hair get so long? Last time I checked it only just passed my shoulder blades. It almost feels as if it reached my waist right now. Grabbing a hairbrush, I run it through my hair to bring it forward. No noise escapes my lungs this time as I see my hair. I am in a state of shock. I nearly trip over puddles of water on the floor absently taking steps back, as if backing away from a mirror image might make my real image go away.

My normally dark brown hair looks like a rainbow threw up on the ends and sides: red, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, indigoes and purples blended and streaked into random places on the black base. It's like I had attempted dip-dying it and went a little crazy with my choice of colors. Went a little crazy, full stop. I look like Lily that time she decided to rebel against her parents for being too strict with what she could wear, I just needed some fake eyebrow piercings and a nose stud.

"Sebastian! Come here for a second," I yell. I swear, if this is his idea of funny...

I wipe the floor dry with a rag, hurrying to dry all the puddles of water I spilt. Mom is going to throw a fit if our floors went moldy.

"No!" he yells in reply. My patience, already hanging by a thread, snaps, along with my temper.

"If you don't appear in front of me in five seconds, I will dislocate your shoulder, shove it in your eye and make it talk like a puppet!" I scream so loudly my throat hurts.

"Well, that's not nice at all," I hear dad say from the kitchen downstairs, obviously loud enough for me to hear from so far.

Footsteps come stomping up the stairs and into the bathroom. My fourteen-year-old brother appears in the doorway, still in shredded and stained pajamas. There's a smear of peanut butter in the corner of his mouth. I must have interrupted him devouring his breakfast.

"What do you wa-"

His question is cut off immediately as he took in how my hair looked. His eyes widen at first, then his shoulders start shaking. He doubles over in laughter, eyes watering.

"You." He gasps for a breath. "You look ridiculous!" He resumes guffawing and snorting.

"I'm so glad," I hiss at Sebastian, "Did you do this?"

"What? No! I would never!" he insists, still hiccuping from his laughing fit.

"Not like I could get away with it without losing a few limbs," he mutters quietly, half to himself. Glad he knows what I am capable of doing to his limbs while he sleeps.

He calms down and squints at me, stepping closer to me for a better look. He reaches up, since he only comes up to my mid-arms, and holds a lock of my hair between his thumb and pointer finger. Mom and Dad are both pretty tall, making me tall by default. Sebastian would be too, he just needed his growth spurt.

"Stop that!" I hiss again, smacking his hand away. He shrugs nonchalantly.

"You know, I don't think that's dye, the color looks natural. And you realize that if someone put lipstick on you, it can be wiped off, right?"

Having made his point, Sebastian marches off to resume choking down breakfast. He'll most likely add a layer of maple syrup to his toast.

"You'll pay for this!" I yell after him, though my voice wavers. To be completely honest, I believed he didn't do it.

I look at the person in the reflection staring back at me, wide-eyed. I raise my shaking hand to my hair and run it through. The ends were soft, softer than they should be after having colors this bright blended into it. I remember brushing Lily's hair after she did a DIY hot pink dye job and the hair being so stiff most of it snapped right off. This isn't anything like the dye she used. I wipe at my lips. And wipe again and again, but the color won't come out no matter how hard I try.

Someone had to of snuck into my room. That's the only explanation. This is no reason to freak out. I make a point to not look at my tired reflection in the mirror. My poor face and hair needed a shower.

Out of nowhere, I hear water swishing. My eyes swivel for the source. I realize with a start that it's coming from the runny shampoo inside the bottle I'm staring at. Frowning, I reach a hand forward to go pick it up.

Then the bottle raises itself six inches off the shelf. Hovering in mid-air.

To say I am completely flabbergasted would be an understatement. Instantly, as if on reflex, I feel an urge to turn my gaze to the end of my hair. Specifically, the indigo strands had started glowing. I couldn't help it, I screamed.

A plate smashes loudly downstairs. "What on earth?" Mom cries out.

"Ariel?" Dad yells up in question. I'm too busy denying what I just saw to give a response.

"No. No. No. No. No," I chant to myself, as if that would change what I just saw. I squeeze my eyes shut. The last thing I need on my 18th birthday was schizophrenia, or dementia. Right now I didn't know which was worse. Seeing things or losing your mind? Hmm... it was a tough decision.

My parents stomp into the bathroom. Well, Dad stomps. Mom more or less glides gracefully with concern.

"What did you do to your hair?" Dad shouts. He lets out a grunt of air. Mom probably elbowed his stomach.

"Sorry. Honey, what happened?"

Incapable of speech, I keep my eyes closed and swing my arm to point to where I think the shampoo bottle might be.

"Ariel? Honey? I really don't see anything out of the ordinary," Dad says, confused.

My eyes fly open and my arms go haywire, gesturing everywhere.

"Nothing out of the ordinary? I wake up to multi-colored hair, I look like someone painted my lips, there's a shampoo bottle floating in midair and you say nothing looks out of the ordinary?" I scream.

Dad looks a little worried, raising one eyebrow with an expression like I had made him come all the way upstairs because the sky is blue.

Mom's eyes are darting at everything but at me. I watch her gulp, probably in fear her sweet little straight-A daughter is going insane. There is a few moments of awkward silence. Then mom meets my eyes.

"One of your friends probably snuck in last night and dyed your hair. Lips that color can be brought on by dehydration and I'll have you know the shampoo bottle is very much not floating," she says matter-of-factly.

I whirl around fast enough to create a gust of wind with my movements, and sure enough, the bottle is now back on the shelf. Not floating.

"I... I... I know what I saw," I stammer.

"The bottle was floating a few seconds ago! And.. And.." I struggle for another argument. "My hair. Was. Glowing."

My mouth opens and shuts in bewilderment while Mom leaves the bathroom, murmuring an excuse about the eggs burning.

Dad walks closer and sighs. "Air. Sweeeeeeeetie."

He's wearing his dad-knows-best face. Dad is still a whole head taller than me so he has to bend his head like a ostrich to maintain the same eye level as me. I would have laughed if I weren't so currently freaked out. He likes to claim that his height is short for Asians. I ask him if he's serious every time.

"I get that you're a teenager and all but don't you think you could keep the drama at a close minimum?" He makes a space with his hands, indicating the 'close minimum'. I glare at him with my arms crossed. Dad plants a kiss on my forehead and straightens up. He starts out the door, but pauses.

"While you're at it, sweetie, take those contacts out. They look rather unnatural up close."

Then he leaves too. I frown. Contacts? My vision is perfectly fine.

I lean into the mirror until I am practically nose to nose with the glass and stare into my own eyes. If Sebastian walks in on me doing this I am never going to live this down. But I could hear him downstairs, talking about a computer game.

On closer inspection, I realize dad is right. My eyes are not normally like this. The normal brown now had a thick bright, emerald green circled outside the iris that I hadn't noticed due to my horrible morning eyes. If I stared hard enough it practically glowed. I am pretty sure I'm not wearing any alien-contacts, but I poke my left eye, just in case.

"Ow!" I yelp. Well, now at least I know it's only my eye in there.

I step back from the mirror. If some freak of nature decides to play with me today, fine. I'd had enough weirdness for one day and it's only 9 AM.

"This better not ruin my birthday," I mutter to myself, stomping out the bathroom.

***

As I go down the stairs to the kitchen, I hear Sebastian before I see him.

"Could you be any louder?" I sneer. I grab a extra-sized bagel off the table, stuffed with every ingredient imaginable. I open the fridge door to see if we have anything to drink and grab a half-drunk carton of orange juice while turning to peer at what Sebastian is chomping at so enthusiastically. I hide a much deserved giggle. Baby O's. He is eating Baby O's, the cereal we keep around in case our little two-year-old cousins come to visit.

"Aww, would wittle Sebbie wike some mwilk with that ceweal??" I coo at him.

He responds by throwing me the finger.

"Real mature," I mutter.

"I'm not the seventeen-year-old wearing superman pajamas."

I look down at the top and pants. "These are my favorite ones. And I'm eighteen today, thank you very much."

"Oh, cut it out," Mom intervenes while brushing dust off the wall and hanging up streamers. "Sebastian is eating Baby O's because someone forgot to pick up the cereal yesterday."

She shoots a meaningful glare at dad, who's trying to hide behind his paper at the table. "And all the party food!" she adds loudly.

"I think Sebastian likes the Baby O's more than my nephews do anyway," Dad mutters quietly.

"Ariel, are you sure you can go pick up the food?" Mom asks. Her back is to me, frying something on the stove.

"Well, I'd love for someone else to do it," I hint. "Yet everyone but poor birthday girl Ariel is busy until later when they can dish off the food."

"You need the exercise," Sebastian pipes up from the counter.

I gasp dramatically. "You did not just go there."

Sebastian smiles smugly at me when neither parent scolds him. Fed up, I decide to leave now.

I sulk and pivot back to the staircase, stomping up to make my point. As I pass the hallway, my pajama sleeve gets caught in a photo frame jutting off the wall. The photo comes off the wall and falls to the floor, the glass breaking with a light tinkling smash sound.

I squeak in horror, and stop dead to make sure no one heard the smash. It sounded awfully loud but when no one comes rushing up the stairs demanding to know what's going on, I quickly pick up the pieces of stray glass.

Carefully, I drop them in the waste basket so it's out of the way. That was close. Now I need to buy a new frame for the photo. It is tiny anyway, about the size of my palm. The photo is just one of Mom as a kid, I only hoped Mom wouldn't notice it was missing while I got a replacement frame.

I change in record speed. Unfortunately, I trip over trying to pull on the other legs of my jeans.

"Ow..." I moan, my tailbone sending waves of pain where I landed.

Something in my peripheral vision catches my attention as it flashes past. I turn my head but nothing is there. Warily, I tug on my boots and slip the tiny photograph in one of them, it is easier than trying to squeeze it into the tiny pockets of my jeans. As I head for the door, mom stops me.

"Ariel Nathalia Song, wait there," she calls out from the kitchen.

I sigh, waiting for a lecture of some kind. It's always bad when full names are being used, especially considering the irony of mine. It's obvious I was named after a singing mermaid princess. Then using dad's last name, I was Ariel Song. Hence the teasing. Sebastian could pull his name off, it's not like anyone knew he was named after a talking crab.

"I'm waiting," I chirp, rocking back and forth on my heel while she walks towards me.

"I want you to head straight to the convenience store and straight back, understand? No unexpected stops and no talking to strangers, especially ones who want your help."

She says this almost as if she is scolding me, brows furrowed together, lips pinched tight.

"Mom, you've already given me the 'avoid creepy pedophiles' talk, remember? I'm eighteen. I think I can handle myself."

Her face softens a little, doing that eye swiveling, face searching thing mothers do when they're trying to tell what you're thinking.

"I know, Air. Just... be careful, okay? I want to talk to you later."

Her gaze flicks to my hair quickly, grimacing. I roll my eyes internally, she doesn't actually think I would do this to my own hair, did she? If she wanted to talk to me about staying in line, she had nothing to worry about. I'd rather stay in reading trashy novels on weekends than going to some rowdy party where nobody can hear from the deafening music. At least I can control my own tonight.

"Mom, stop getting sentimental. It's a grocery run. I'll be back in twenty, 'kay?"

I turn the doorknob and step out the threshold, eager to get going and back so I can prepare for my party. I feel like a little girl meeting up for a tea party later.

"Stay safe!" she yells out to me as I'm walking up the driveway.

"I will!" I yell back.