~Alice's POV~
The smell of waffles led Caitlyn and me downstairs to a big but comfortable kitchen. A man leaned against the desk and I saw his eyes ligthning up when they met Caitlyn's. "Good morning babe", he said ,walked towards her and kissed her. Passionately. I tried to somehow walk past them but with no success. Caitlyn pushed the man off her - which seemed to take all her self control - and turned her attention to me. "Brandon, this is Alina. Alina, this is Brandon, my boyfriend." Who would have thought. Brandon looked a bit confused, his gaze wandered back and forth between us, but after a moment, he held out his hand to me and I shook it. I was way too overwhelmed with the situation. The three of us stood there, thinking about a way to break the uncomfortable silence. After about two minutes that felt like half an hour, Brandon had an amazing idea. "Do you want waffles?", he asked.
Ten minutes. It took me only ten minutes to eat the waffles. All of them. With whipped cream and blueberries. Caitlyn and Brandon sat across me at the kitchen table, Brandon looked impressed and Caitlyn seemed to regret her choice of letting me stay here. I looked up at them, felling a bit uncomfortable with all the attention turned towards me, so I tried to start a conversation. "So, uhm how Long have you guys been together now?" Caitlyn's heart eyes were back as she looked at Brandon and then back at me. "We met eachother at college and have been together ever since. About... what was it? About twelve years." "And you aren't married yet?!" Oops I didn't intend to say that out loud. "I'm sorry, I don't want to Sound rude. I'm just surprised. It's really untypical for People that are so in love and have been together that long not be married." Caitlyn grinned. "That's because we are untypical people. And neither of us has proposed yet. Too much is happening right now and has happened for the last two years to even think About marriage." "Cat-" I turned around to look at Brandon. He had a sad expression on his face while he looked at Caitlyn. I could feel the weight of whatever had happened in those two years laying in the room. Something had happened. And there was one thing I knew for certain now: I wasn't the only one keeping secrets.
Our awkward profound silence was interrupted by a loud bang upstairs which sounded like a vase falling down or something like that. Brandon and Caitlyn exchanged worried looks. "Alina come with me Bra-" Caitlyn was interrupted by a ringing telephone. "Brandon, could you please answer the phone? We are going to look if everything is okay with the Professor." We stood up and Caitlyn I and I rushed back upstairs while Brandon went to pick up the phone. The room in which I had woken up was on the first floor, so I didn't notice how BIG the mansion really was. The highest floor was the seventh and of course the professor had to be there. As we finished to walk upstairs Caitlyn seemed out breath and I was almost collapsing. Again. I hate stairs. But can you blame me? i had been running almost two marathons the night before! As the two of us had calmed down a bit, wewent to the left and started walking. One minute. Five minutes. Twenty minutes. How big could a building be?! I started to understand why Caitlyn and Brandon were so worried. The noise didn't Sound that loud in the kitchen, but if it came from the other corner of the mansion We went straight ahead, then left, then right, then left two times until I completely lost my orientation. Caitlyn got quicker with every step and I had trouble to follow her. After about thirty minutes we stopped in front of a closed door. and she pulled out a bunch of keys. Thousands of them. Her hands were shaking. I looked back at the door, stepped forward and opened it. As i turned around, I could see that Caitlyn had got pale. "I-I thought I closed the door Didn't I close the door this morning?" We went inside the room that had three windows spending light. In it stood a big bed with a desk on the left side. The desk was filled with pills, books, pictures and a glass of water. But no sign of a person. "Damn it!" I turned around. Surprised. Caitlyn looked terrified. "Where is he?", she mumbled "Where the hell is he?" As quickly as we had rushed into the room, we rushed out of it. And again: left, right, left, right twice, then left again. My feet hurt. I thought About the weird situation I was in. It felt surreal. Yesterday felt like ages ago. His face. The knife. Her blood on it. The two words. The two words that changed everything. My run through the woods. The storm. The call with my mum. Caitlyn and Brandon. Two total strangers that let me stay with them. With the most famous family in the world. And here I was, running behind a stranger, searching for another stranger and for some reason I felt safe. Damn. And what's your life-story?
I was so lost in my thoughts, that I ran into Caitlyn as she suddenly stopped. "Wha-", I started, but then I stopped too because I saw what was in front of us. Parts of a knight's armour were scattered across the corridor. An old man was sitting on the Floor, leaning against the wall. He held a picture in his hands with a beautiful woman on it. The man - Professor Starling I assumed - looked up to us. He was crying. His eyes were hiding a lot of pain and grief. I knew those eyes. Those were the same eyes that looked back at me when I saw a mirror The old man was broken. Just like I was.
