Bianca

It’s too good to be true- I know it. Any minute now, Shadows, or Matt as I’m suddenly meant to call him, will come walking into my bedroom and hand me back the collar, the cuff and the anklet and tell me Brian’s been on some sort of hallucinogenic drug that’s made him think he’s the king of Sheba and makes me go right back to the kitchens to wash some more dishes. But nothing happens as I pick out a less dreary dress, a dark red verging on purple skater dress and the only pair of high heels that Vee is willing to lend me on my feet. Hopefully I can take Brian up on that shopping offer and I’ll get to buy some things that actually belong to me, rather than just borrowing other people’s money and possessions.

It was how I got into this mess, and if I haven’t learned my lesson from all those others times before now, I’m a little foolish. I don’t really own very much, and the only other thing I have left to move up to Brian’s bedroom is the little brown box that contains all the letters Violet sent me. The five men who I’m still under the rule of can never see these, not until I work out how to break it to them that this little girl is really my neice, and that she burdens a terrible secret that I’m not allowed to tell anyone until it’s happened and she’s gone where she needs to go. Should I bury it, I wonder for a moment? Is there a place in the vastness of this house that they’ll never look, the only place where they won’t think to hide? The kitchen.

Slipping out of my old bedroom and bidding farewell to the familiar bedspread and tiny bedroom that has kept me company in the dark years I’ve been locked away in there, I slip down the stairs and into the kitchen, hoping that no one’s heard me on my descent. For a moment, I stand with the brown box pressed close to my chest in a blind panic, wondering where on earth to put my hidden secret. So many corners and crevices that are kept hidden that only I would know about, so many places it could be found.

“Bianca? Are you down there?” Brian’s voice floats down into the kitchen and my eyes widen, my feet working for me and running over to the corner of the room, where there lives a gap between the wall and the gleaming appliances. Quickly, I slip the brown box between the crack, where it slots in perfectly like a jigsaw piece and let out a sigh of relief that I don’t even know I’ve been holding in.
“Bianca?” Brian’s voice asks and I turn around to see he’s standing in the entrance of the kitchen door, staring me at quizzically. He has every right to be bewildered; I’m crouched down on the floor trying to find a hiding place for something he really should know. I blink, trying to come up with a believable lie, and suddenly start to feel around the kitchen floor, smiling.

“I…I dropped something, I’m just…yeah” I mumble, grabbing the thin air in pretence and drawing myself back up to full height and smoothing down my dress, my heart thundering against my ribcage. His expression softens and he chuckles, walking over to me. It looks like he’s fighting with himself to do something, but he just stands still, smiling awkwardly over at me. If I didn’t know any better I would have guessed that he was nervous, perhaps a little love-struck with something, but why me? I wasn’t anything special, why was he being so strange and un-Synyster like in front of me once again?

“So. We’re calling in the Bullet guys again. Athena’s got some sort of tattoo on her chest with the initials ‘MV’ on it, above a skull. I don’t know what kind of sick fuck tattoos a little baby, but we’re still trying to decode it” Brian says almost conversationally and my eyes widen slightly, the beating inbetween my ribs quickening as I realise they’ve already discovered one of the few things I was sure I’d be able to keep hidden. It was right in the letter Violet sent me, just before she was killed.

’There is a little girl, Sissy. Her name is Athena, she’s only a few months old, but she already looks so much like her father. He and his band of cohorts took her away yesterday, to take care of her he said. When she came back, carried by one of his burly cronies, her chest was bleeding and our initials had been engraved on her skin. It’s a minor blemish on a canvas of pure white…but it’ll never fade. She’ll grow up with the mark of her father across her body’

I swallow a newfound lump in my throat and nod, barely trusting myself to say anything without my tongue slipping up. Am I the only one in this house that knows the truth?
“Do…do you know who it was?” I ask softly and Brian shakes his head, almost slipping into the old persona he used to carry around me, rather than the bumbling teenage boy he had become when I’d stood up.
“No idea. We’ll do everything we can to find out about Athena’s past, it’s what we do. Now, you’re wanted upstairs. I’ve already told everyone that I’ve granted you your freedom, and Jimmy’s almost ecstatic to hang out with you and the play mat that came for Athena today” Brian smiles, his concerned and worried expression fading away as I break into a smile.

Jimmy’s always secretly been my favourite member of Avenged, because he’s got the personality of a child, the brain of a mad scientist and a heart made out of the purest gold. Brian puzzles me, as do the other four members of this gang, but then again, lots of people in this profession confuse me. Like a certain Mr Tuck.
You’ll be a good fucking girl and keep that pretty little mouth shut, won’t you?
“Bianca? Is everything alright?” Brian whispers uncertainly, but I’m still half stuck in my head and half at the outside world around me. It’s like Tuck is sitting in my brain and hissing those words right back to me as I stand in the safest place I know, surrounded by a warm familiarity.
As long as you don’t say a fucking word to your precious little Synyster, we’ll get along just fine
I slap myself mentally, pulling myself together as I stare back at Brian and nod, offering him a comforting smile as I do so.

“I’m…I’m fine. Just a little dizzy, that’s all” I mumble softly and he nods, smiling gently over at me. And then he does the unthinkable. Brian, even though there’s no one else around and we no longer have to put a strange façade for everyone else, leans over and kisses me on the cheek, slipping his hand into mine. His fingers are thin and his palms are warm, and as he stares back at me with those gooey brown eyes, I feel a strange kind of fuzzy feeling running through my veins. It’s warm and inviting, but I can’t bring myself to look at it properly. Without another word, Brian leads me up the stairs and away from the secret box that I’ve hidden.

I don’t look back, not even for one safety glance; just follow him upstairs and towards the living room, where the four men are still sat deep in thought. That is, if deep in thought qualified that you could drink before midday and smoke until the air was thick with a fog that you could barely see through. I cough deliberately, spotting Jimmy lying on his back as he threw Athena up and down in the air, giggling along with her as he did so.
“Geez, guys. Didn’t anyone tell you smoking in the same room as a baby is going to kill them faster than a blow to the head?” I say with a hand on my hip, and Johnny looks up and over at us, blowing another deliberate lungful of contaminated air out into the room.

“Control your woman Gates- she’s already morphing into the female version of you” he smirks and earns himself a few chuckles from the other men sat around him. But all it takes is one strangely evil look in Matt’s direction and he stops laughing, stubbing out the cigarette between his fingers and crossing his arms over his bulky chest.
“Oh believe me, I can be a real bitch when I want to be, Christ. Learn to live with it” I announce, just as Brian whispers slowly,
“She’s not my woman, Johnny”

I’ll admit, I feel a little upset that Brian’s kissed me a few times already, and he’s still in denial. At least could he admit that we were friends- or was that too much for him to handle? I skip over to Jimmy and lay down next to him, glancing up at the little girl he seems to have fallen in love with so quickly. The other four men in the room are deep in conversation again about the visitation of Bullet again, and my chest begins to tighten and constrict at the thought of coming face to face with Tuck once more. If he discovers the men know about the tattoo, I’ll be the one he blames.

“Hey Bianca” Jimmy whispers, leaning over to me so no one else in the room can hear our little conversation.
“Yeah?” I say and what he replies to me, is enough to make my heart stop for just a moment- almost as though I’ve died and gone to heaven, turned around and come back again.

“I know about your sister”