Hidden Princess

Chapter 2

"Here is your new phone. It already has my new number programmed into it." Dário says as he hands me the new iPhone 11. "You do not call anyone from home. You can't even talk to Demétrio, just in case they are tracking his calls. He knows where we are going in case anything happens. You start school tomorrow."

We traveled from South Carolina, all the way across the country to Skokie, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. It was a long trip, and Dário wouldn't stop at any of the places that I thought looked like fun to visit. It's also cold here. It never gets below 70 degrees in Eplea, so with it being 45 in the middle of October, I'm freezing.

"Está tão frio," I say with a shiver.

"English, Nia," Dário says as he turns into the driveway of a two story brick house. "You have to get used to it."

"Sorry," I shiver. "It's so cold here." I glance out the windshield and look at the house. "Caramba, Rio. How big is this house?"

"Um, I think 6 bed rooms and 5 bathrooms," He says as he shuts the car off, cutting me off from the heat.

"So much for trying to lie low," I mutter under my breath. Dário doesn't hear me, and if he did he chose to ignore my comment. I pull the jacket Dário gave me tighter around my body as I climb out of the car. I run up to the door and stand there bouncing trying to keep warm as Dário makes his way up to the door with the bags that we got when we stopped to go shopping for warmer clothes.

"You know, Nia, you could help me carry these things in." Dário says with a chuckle when he sees me standing by the door.

"Ah but Dário, you never let the princess carry her own things," I joke back. "Anyways, I'm freezing and I want to get inside so hurry up!"

"Yes, Princess." Dário rolls his eyes as he unlocks the door. I push past him to get inside the house. I sigh as the heat wraps around me as I walk inside. I take the coat off and throw it over the back of the couch.

"This place is huge!" I say, looking around the living room and into the big kitchen. There's a chandelier hanging in the middle of the living room. "Not as huge as a palace, but still, huge. Why did you need to get us a place this big? Aren't I supposed to be trying to not draw attention to myself?"

"I didn't get it for us," Dário says. "It was one of your father's safe houses. The only people who knew about it was your dad and my dad. My dad told me about it a few weeks ago just in case something like this happened and we had to get you out."

"Oh, I didn't even know he had safe houses." I say, looking around the living room. "Well I'm going to go pick which room I want out of the seven, and take a long hot bubble bath." I say heading up the stairs.

"Take one of the master bedrooms."

"There's more than one master bedroom?" I ask spinning around and looking over the banister.

"There's two."

"Caramba," I mutter as I continue up the stairs.

Okay, I hate school, and I haven't even made it through my first day. It's not even lunch yet! I haven't actually been in a school with other kids since I was 13 and had to start having tutors come to the palace since I had to start learning more about running the country. And high school is a lot different, and high school in America is so much different than what my friends back home have told me.

I don't understand why there is this class called English. Why do you have to have a class on your own language? It doesn't even have anything to do with speaking English. It's really confusing."O que diabos é isso?" (What the hell is this?) I mutter to myself. "What? Can't you speak English?" The girl in front of me says turning around. "Go speak your Spanish somewhere else.""I don't speak Spanish," I say, not even looking up at her."Seriously? You just did, I heard you.""I speak Portuguese, not Spanish." I glance up at her. She has short bleach blonde hair and grey eyes."Whatever." She rolls her eyes and turns away from me."There's no need to be such a bitch Lila," the girl sitting next to me says. She looks over at me. "Just ignore her, she thinks she's a princess and owns the school." She gives me a small smile. "I'm Cami, by the way." Cami has dirty blonde hair and green eyes, and her skin is pale compared to Lila's obviously fake tan."Apolônia," I smile back.Lila scoffs. "What kind of name is Apolonia?"The name of a real princess. Is what I want to say but instead I don't respond to her. She can't even say my name correctly."A pretty fucking cool name," Cami says, narrowing her eyes at Lila."Whatever. At least my only friend isn't my brother." Lila shoots back."Apolônia is my friend." Cami gets the pronunciation of my name almost perfectly. "So that come back has no merit." Cami shrugs before turning her attention back to me. "Do you have lunch after this class?""Yeah, I do.""Cool you can sit with me.""Thanks," I smile at her. "And all my friends call me Nia." Cami smiles at me before going back to the worksheet we've been working on all class.After class, Cami lead me to the cafeteria."Want to go eat outside?" She asks as we walk through the line. I look at her with wide eyes."You're kidding right?" I ask. "It's freezing out there!""Oh come on! It's fifty and sunny! That's pretty warm!" Cami laughs."Yeah, but when you spend your whole life with winter being 70 degrees, anything lower than that is freezing." I say. "Damn, I want to come spend winters with you!" Cami says her eyes wide. I laugh."Maybe you can come visit sometime and I can show you where I'm from" I say and Cami's face breaks out into a smile. Her personality reminds me so much of Amália, and I know that if they ever met, they'd love each Once we get through the line she leads me around the cafeteria to a table. There's only one guy sitting there and she heads right towards him."Hey, Alex!" She greets the guy."Hey Cam." He says without even looking up from whatever it is he is looking at. "This is my new friend Nia. Nia, this is Alex, my twin brother." Cami says, introducing us as her and I sit down. Alex looks up and gives me a smile. Now that I can see his face, I can tell they are twins. They have the same color hair and the same green eyes."Nice to meet you Nia." He runs a hand through his shaggy hair as he sets his phone down on the table. "So you're new here?""Yeah my brother and I just moved here," I tell him. Dário and I talked and decided that if anyone asked, we would say he is my brother, I mean we look like we could be siblings even though we aren't related at all."What about your parents?" Cami asked."Um, my father died, and I don't know about my mother." It's not a lie. I don't know if my mom is dead or alive. I have no clue what happened to her after she made me run. Just as Cami is about to say something, my phone starts ringing. Dário is calling me."Dário. O que você quer? (What do you want?)" I ask, defaulting back to Portuguese."English Nia." Dário's voice says through the phone."Desculpa (sorry)." I sigh, still speaking Portuguese. "What do you need?" I ask in English."You're at lunch now right? Is everything going okay?""Sim (yes), Rio. Estou bem. I'm fine." I switch back to English before he can lecture me again. "I have to go, I'm eating lunch with my new friends.""Nia, be careful.""Okay bye Dário!" I say, quickly hanging up the phone. "Sorry," I say turning back to Cami and Alex. "My brother is a little overprotective sometimes.""It's cool," Cami says. "It's kinda cool hearing you speak Portuguese. Can you teach me to speak it?" She asks, her eyes shining. I laugh."If you really want to learn I'm sure I can." I say."So Nia, where are you from?" Alex asks."A small country in the Atlantic, between Brazil and South Africa. It's so small that it doesn't show up on most maps, so I doubt you've heard of it." I shrug."Nia said I could go spend winter with her there sometime because it never gets below 70!" Cami says, bouncing in her seat. Alex and I both laugh at her. "Oh and only I can call her Nia, Alex. Only her friends get to call her that and I don't think she said you were friends." "Alex, don't listen to your sister. You can call me Nia too. After all, Apolônia is kinda long and hard to say," I shake my head at Cami. "Plus as far as I'm concerned he's my friend now.""Apolonia?""Apol-O-nia. Not Apolo-Nia." I say, correcting his pronunciation. "Apolônia."