“I love your hair, by the way,” is the first thing Leda says to me, shutting the basement door behind her. I hadn’t even known that the door she had led me through led to the basement.

It’s about half the size of the whole house – in one corner is a ton of recording equipment and a few instruments. In another, there’s a pool table and a bag of golf clubs and, of course, the rest of the room is occupied by a giant flat-screen TV, which is hooked up to various gaming systems. There’s a bookshelf right next to it, but instead of books, it is overflowing with various videogames – some names I recognized, others I didn’t.

“Ever played ‘Grand Theft Auto’?” I shake my head no. She wanders over to the bookshelf and runs a finger across what appears to be the Xbox games, before stopping and pulling out the game case. “Trust me – its way better than ‘Call Of Duty’… Don’t tell Matt I said that.”

I can’t help but laugh slightly, sitting down on the black leather couch in front of the television. I watch curiously as Leda sets up the game, attempting to memorize the sequence she goes through, in case I ever want to play on my own.

“Since it’s a one-player game, I’ll go first so you can get an idea of what you’re doing,” she tells me, picking up the game controller. I nod, and she sits down next to me, smiling over at me. “There’s no reason to act so nervous around Austin, by the way,” she tells me, and I feel myself blush.

“It’s not easy,” I admit shyly.

“I’m assuming you listen to Of Mice & Men, then?” she asks, and I nod. “Makes sense. I don’t listen to them as much, but I listen to a lot of other bands like theirs. I also listen to your dad’s band.” I frown slightly, finding I’m not totally on board with her referring to Matt as ‘my dad’. As far as I’m concerned, Jim was the only dad I ever have, and ever will have.

“So, are you and Austin close?” she shrugs, hitting play on the game’s home screen.

“I guess you can say that. I’d rather hang out with him than be at home.”

“Why?” I ask, my curiosity getting the better of me again. She chuckles.

“You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?” I blush even more, but she sends me a reassuring smile. “It’s not a big deal. My brothers and I just don’t really get along, which doesn’t really help, because my oldest brother, Anthony, takes care of us.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Our parents passed away a couple years ago, and since Anthony was an adult when it happened, he took our custody.” She frowns slightly. “He’s horrible to both Hunter and I, but he’s worse to me.” I want to say something, anything – but I can’t come up with anything that doesn’t sound completely cliché.

“I’m sorry,” I finally mutter, my niceness finally overpowering my common sense. She glances over at me before shrugging.

“Eh, it’s not a big deal. My parents and I weren’t close to begin with. In some ways, living with Anthony is better.” She lets out a long sigh, cursing under her breath as a police shoots her character; the word ‘wasted’ flashes across the screen before she respawns at a hospital. “What about you? You and your brother are adopted, right?”

“Yeah,” I reply.

“What is that like?” she asks. “I mean, did you even know Matt was your dad?” I shake my head.

“I had no idea until today,” I admit quietly. “I didn’t even think my birth parents were alive until about a week ago.”

“That’s messed up,” she comments, chucking a grenade at a helicopter, causing it to fall, spinning wildly, to the ground.

“Yeah, I guess it sort of is…”

“Were you close with your adoptive parents?” I don’t hesitate to nod, not the least bit surprised that I had been able to answer so quickly.

“My dad – Jim and I were especially close,” I say. Jim had always been the one who let me do more of what I wanted. He was the one who got me into Avenged Sevenfold in the first place; he was the one who took me to my first concert. He was the one who encouraged me to be myself, even though people wouldn’t always be accepting of that. I really admired him; he was the only father I could ever ask for.

My biggest fear was that Matt would try to replace him.

“Did you always know you were adopted?”

“Not until Gus and I were ‘old enough’.”

“How old was that?”

“About ten,” I reply. “But I already had my suspicions to begin with. I mean, there were no photos of us in the hospital –”

“Who has photos of their children in the hospital?” she interjects.

“More people than you would think. Anyway, there weren’t any of those. That, and we didn’t really look much like them. You’d be surprised to know that I am very observant, especially when I was little.” She laughs, taking this as a joke, even though I saw it as a fact.

“Did you want to try?” she asks me suddenly, reaching the controller out towards me. I shake my head.

“No, thank you. I’m okay with just watching.” I smile politely and she just shrugs.

“Alright, then.”

We fall silent, as I watch her bash a few more buttons in a furious attempt to get away from the cops that were currently tailing her.

“What is the point of this game?” I ask, chuckling slightly.

“There are missions,” she replies. “But it’s more fun to roam around and fuck shit up.” She curses under her breath when the cops finally catch up to her. I can’t help the small laugh that escapes my lips.

“Girls?” someone calls, and I jump, recognizing it almost instantly. “Leda? Autumn? Are you down here?”

“Yeah,” Leda calls back, pausing the game. I hear Austin descend the basement steps, and we turn to face him.

“Food’s ready,” he tells us.

“Not hungry,” Leda replies, her thumbs twiddling the joy-sticks.

“Leda…” He sighs. “You need to eat.” I glance over at her, silently agreeing with him. Leda was much thinner than I was, and that was saying a lot. Her clothes were rather baggy on her, though in her defense, they did look a lot like boy clothes – possibly hand-me-downs from her brothers.

“I said,” she snaps, “I’m not hungry.” A look of defeat crosses his face.

“Please?” he asks hopefully. “For me?” She begins to bite at her lip, clearly contemplating this. It sort of reminded me about mine and Gus’ relationship – the keywords obviously being ‘for me?’

“Fine,” she eventually says, setting down the remote. “I’ll try to eat something.” She gets to her feet, looking down at me expectantly, and I scramble to mine. She chuckles in amusement. “Hungry, are we?” I feel my face heat up.

With that, we follow Austin back upstairs.

Notes

A/N: So I did get a chance to update (yay)!

I'm sorry that this one and the last one were filler chapters but I promise things will get better =)

~WOLFY~