Saved by the Devil [EDITING]

10 • Calloused

•Davina Alexander•

I've spent the entire afternoon packing. Folding shirts, dresses, jeans, pants, pajamas and everything in between for the upcoming trip to Italy. We leave tomorrow morning for Diavolo's birthday trip – an annual occurrence according to what Elena has told me. 

This will be my first time on a plane, consciously that is since that's how I was transported to the mainland. It doesn't scare me, it actually somehow comforts me to know I'll have more miles between my past and present. 

A knock on my door "Come in," I said from the bed.

The door opened and in came Diavolo "Hey." He's here to read.

"Hi," I smiled.

"Ready to hear more about Patroclus and Achilles?"

I nodded "Have been thinking about them all day long."

We've been reading The Iliad, as he promised. It's an interesting story; intricate with lots of names, and it's pure magic. Diavolo said it would awaken something in me – a desire to read more stories that make me feel like this, and it has. We've planned to follow this one with The Odyssey. He's told me though it's the following act, it's on the same level or better – at least to him.

Once our agreed hour was over, he left the book on the nightstand and looked at me. "How are you feeling about tomorrow?"

"Um," I pulled my knees close to my chest. "Nervous, but excited. It's funny to think it takes so many hours to cross an ocean that looks so tiny on the pages of book."

He smiled "I think it's funny too, silly even."

I chuckled "But it's surely worth it if you're willing to do it so often."

"Well," he sighed "I am biased, but Italy is the most beautiful place in the world."

"I'll let you know my thoughts when we get there."

"And I will be delighted to hear them," he gently knocked our shoulders together, in a playful manner, and winked. "You will have a room of your own, though Alexandria is on the one across from it; I cannot guarantee restful nights."

I grinned "That's all right – I adore her."

"Yeah, well, she hasn't sunk her teeth into you; literally. Wait, has she bitten you?" He rose an eyebrow.

"Uh," I pretended to check myself "I don't think so, but she is super sneaky."

"Just as Elena was."

I moved on the bed to sit opposite to him "How is it to grow up with an older sister? Did you love it?"

Diavolo smiled "She would tease me mercilessly, until she came back from college. Made sure, for years, that our brothers and I knew she was the boss; one birthday she asked us all to dress as different princesses, and we did."

I giggled at the image in my mind "Did your parents love it?"

"Mom did," he nodded. "But dad wasn't around that birthday – he wouldn't have allowed it though, so it was for the best."

From what I've gathered and deduced by the way they rarely speak of their father; he wasn't a figure with a positive impact in their lives. If he's ever mentioned at all, it's just to state fact, never with emotion accompanied by a memory. 

There's not much left in my memory about my parents, so they've just become the people who made me and got rid of me. I do resent them, but just they're just faces I faintly remember leaving without looking back to what they had given up...or to whom they had given it up to.