The Housekeeper (Ruby Rose/Terra Juana fanfic)

THIRTY-ONE

"Iselen, you're accused of exposing Marcus and his children's identities on that thing called Facebook, apart from revealing the location of their house with a... tag..."

Alexios hesitated reading the paper he was holding, he was not familiar with those concepts, obviously, and I assumed that the modern technology would look weird and hostile to his eyes. That couldn't mean anything good for me: if Dario was unable to explain them clearly how the net worked and that his evidences concerning my innocence were solid... I frowned, confused, because I didn't even know what punishment was waiting for me. I wasn't a vampire yet... would they forbid my girls from turning me? But that could kill them from sadness eventually and Ruby and Terra weren't to blame for this situation... I fidgeted a little and Marcus raised his hand to cut the Greek guy off.

"Sit down, dear. You too, Vera... Mara?"

"No, thank you. I'm fine." The beautiful woman answered while my father-in-law brought two chairs at vampire speed, I didn't know where he'd found them and wondered were the police officers or security guards watching the Roman Forum were. The Council was controlling their minds to keep them far away, probably. I flopped down on my chair heaving a sigh and Ruby leaned her hand on my shoulder, Terra stayed behind me glaring at John with hostility while the idiot waited for the trial to start smiling like a cat that got the cream. He didn't understand the mess he was getting in, whatever happened with me, Marcus, Dario, Aren and the girls weren't going to let it go... Sooner or later, John was going to pay for that.

"All right... Where was I? Oh yes. You understand you're accused of very serious crimes, new technologies from the 21st century are a real problem when it comes to keep our privacy, our pictures can cause us lot of trouble in the future in a world full of cameras, computers and scanners... I miss those old times when we could say that the portrait hanging in the living room was a great-grandfather and we just looked like him..." Alexios smiled at me kindly and kept talking to me like I was a little girl instead of a grown woman: apparently, old vampires didn't remember that humans weren't stupid and were capable of rational thinking. "Do you have anything to say in your defence?"

"It wasn't me, I didn't do it," I answered knowing that my words sounded weak and ridiculous in that empty room. It was the same stupid excuse millions of people charged with crimes had used for centuries... I hoped Dario had something good in that damned laptop.

"I understand... In this case, we'll listen to both testimonies and see what evidences they can provide. The accuser first..."

John got closer with firm steps and I could hear Terra growling in my head when he greeted the Council with dramatic gestures like he was a theatre actor and the trial a show. His tone of voice always got on my nerves and I focused on my hands on my lap trying to ignore him but it was impossible not to listen to his speech. Actually, he explained what we already knew: someone had published our pic on Vera's gym Facebook account, a picture Antonella took with my phone and only Vera, Ruby and Dario had it too... because the other members of the family didn't have a phone.

The elders could see clearly on the screen John was holding in front of them that my name was linked to the account that posted the pic and my face was on the profile photo, another picture that was stored in my phone and no one else had. I wondered when the asshole had stolen those, the truth is that I didn't pay attention to my social media and only called my human family twice or three times per week, I usually left the device on a table and forgot to charge it most days. Anyway, the members of the Council nodded and it was obvious they understood him... It was pretty easy.

"How can we know she hasn't shared anything else?" The nun dressed in black yelled from the other side of the room startling us all. "How can I know if there's a pic of me on that bloody Internet? She could've taken pics of the guests invited to the party putting us in danger... This immoral human has no decency..."