"Sometimes your mind is the worst place to be."
"Mommy!" My baby Nikolai yells as he wiggles out of Alessandro's arms to get to me. I see Cris and Nic's eyes widen, I know they'll remember to question me about it later. When the time comes, I'll tell them enough information, but not the whole truth.
"Hi mamá's baby!" I say with the same amount of enthusiasm, returning his big hug. "¿Eras un buen chico para el abuelo?" I ask staring him in the eyes. That always gets him to fess up.
(Spanish: We're you a good boy for grandpa?)
"Sí, pero le hice una broma." He giggled.
(Yes, but I did pull a prank on him.)
"That's my boy." I give him a fist bump and look up to see Alessandro giving a disapproving look to which I smiled. "Oh don't act like you don't love him. He keeps you on your toes." I tell him, going in for a hug.
"He's going to be the death of me one day." He mutters pulling me in and hugging me. "Now introduce me to our guests." He say breaking the hug and looking around.
"These are my brothers, Cristiano, Niccolo, and the littlest one, Pedro." I introduce. Cris and Nic give friendly waves, though they're a bit skeptical of him, and Pedro hides behind Nic's legs. It's not my place to mention that he's actually my nephew, even though it's pretty cool to be an aunt.
I'm getting attached to these people too fast.
My quints go in for a hug with Alessandro while I head over to Pedro. "Come on, buddy, you want to meet your new friend?" He smiles at my question and takes my hand. I lead him back to Nikolai who's face beams when he sees Pedro.
"Hi, I'm Niki, you wanna play cars?"
"Yes!" Pedro says, and they run back off to his room to play. Kids are so easy.
"Where the hell are they?" I hear a very distinct voice yell before they walk through to where all of us are.
"Hey Maria." I say, but she doesn't give me the time of day. Her only focus was her husband.
"Why didn't you tell me they were here?" She smacks him in the back of the head. "I would've prepared food." She smacks him again.
"Ouch, did you have to hit that hard?" Alessandro whines. The all feared mafia leader.... whining. Everyone coughed and cleared their throats trying to cover up their laughs.
"Oh don't be such a baby. Now come, come, I'll show you to your rooms." She grabs Cris and Nic's hands by surprise, dragging them behind her as she shows them upstairs.
"Where's Ares?" Is the first thing Ales questions when Maria and the twins disappeared. At the mention of his name Percy's breathing stills. We've done good at not mentioning Ares around him because we know he's on the verge of freaking out.
"Well explain when everyone is here, but a lot of stuff happened back at the house recently, hence why we asked you to come back and if it was okay to bring our brothers."
"That still doesn't explain Ares." He states looking at me for the answer though the rest of my quints are right next to me.
"What happened triggered him. He's angry right now, and I have no choice but to let him be. He'll call when he's ready."
"Okay. You tell me immediately when he calls you."
"Of course."
Maria brings the twins back downstairs and into the living room where we all were. A serious talk had to be had between all of us. Maria and Ales are sitting next to each other while me and my siblings are scattered on couches throughout the room.
"What happened?" Maria was the first to break the silence. Everyone stayed quiet for a while, letting the question ring through their ears. What had happened?
In the span of two days everyone's life had been flipped around. Nic and Cris ultimately lost their family in a sense, Ares was off doing god knows what; after escaping a lifetime of abuse, Percy had to go through more of it, the hand print on his face can attest to that. I have an arranged marriage to someone I barely even know.
What didn't happen, is the real question.
"Our sperm donor is an ass, that's what happened." Percy grumbled. "As you can see from the side of my face."
"Oh dios mío." Maria mutters going over to Percy and pulling him into a hug.
(Spanish: Oh my god.)
"He lied to me. A huge lie. Then bribed the girl I loved to leave me and our baby." Nic stared blankly not realizing what he said, then covered his mouth when he thought he said too much.
"That's despicable. What kind of man would do that?" Ales rolled his eyes, his anger at Francisco becoming abundantly clear.
"The same man who gave me bruised ribs when I was nine." Cris said, shaking his head.
Well since this is a confession circle now...
"The same man who arranged for me to be married on my eighteenth birthday before he even got to hold me in his arms, before he even knew my fucking name."
"Is he out of his fucking mind?" Ales explodes.
"What the fuck?" The twins both exclaim in unison as they look to each other and back at me.
"To who?" Maria asked. Oh she's gonna have a lot to say about this one.
"Ryker Thomas, American Mafia heir." In 3... 2...1-
"Oh may Jesus save your soul. Wasn't he that one night stand you told me about where he s—"
"La la la la la. I don't want to hear about my sisters sex life." Cris says covering his ears. Nic was staring with wide eyes and my quints were already used to hearing about my nights out from me so they didn't care too much.
"Nor do I want to hear about it." Ales shivers at the thought making me laugh.
"The point is that Francisco is literally psychotic. I don't know how else to put it. We just couldn't live there anymore." Atlas explains, emphasizing with his hands.
"You guys were only there a day." Ales says.
"Yea and in that one day he ruined a every relationship he had in that house, not that we liked him to begin with, but still." I told him.
"I'm done talking about this ridiculous man. I won't allow him to come near any of you again. You guys are welcome to stay here as long as you'd like."
"Thank you. We appreciate that." Nic speaks for him and his twin.
"Your welcome. Another thing since all of you guys are now living with us, you will be attending school." Ales says to which the twins nodded their heads.
"But we've already finished." Atlas whines.
"Sure you have, but you have no outside experience. You guys need to know what it's like to physically go to school with other people your age."
"But we hate people our age." I complain.
We really do.
"Just go to school for the year, make friends, join clubs, do whatever the hell teenagers do. After all you've been through you are in desperate need of normalcy. You aren't arguing your way out of this one." He explains looking at me as he said his last sentence. Ales was right.
I hate when he's right.
All this complaining I do about wishing we had a normal life with normal friends and family, and that we hadn't been taken to Russia. Now we're being given the chance to experience normal teenage things and we don't.
We agreed to his terms about school, not that he was really giving us a choice. After our dysfunctional family meeting, which lasted three fucking hours, the maids served us dinner, which was delicious to say the least. Niki had seconds which is rare. He's a very picky eater so I love when he finds things he likes.
Nic and I put both of the boys to bed a little while after dinner. They insisted on sleeping in the same room because they wanted to know if they would have the same dream as each other if they did. So of course we let them. As of right now the rest of us are sitting in the living room playing monopoly and let's just say it's intense.
"Pay up bitch, that's my property." Atlas sticks his hand out to Ocean to give him the money. Ocean huffs as he slaps the money into his hand.
"You do not call your brother names!" Maria exclaims, flicking Atlas in the back of his head.
"Owieeee. That hurt."
"Good." she replies. I smirk at her response.
"Oh wipe that shit eating grin off your face." He rolls his eyes at me.
"Sorry Mr.Grumpypants. Does someone need a nap." I retorted.
"Your going to be taking a long nap after I punch you in your face." he threatened.
"Oh cause I'm so scared. Do you actually want a fight cause I'll give you one." I challenge. Atlas widens his eyes and shakes his head frantically.
"Nope."
"That's what the fuck I thought."
By now almost everyone was trying to hide their amused expressions from our banter.
"C-can I be excused. I - um, I don't feel well." Percy stutters as he starts to get up.
"Of course." Alessandro barely got to finish his reply before Percy was rushing out of the room. I heard as his footsteps disappeared as he ran upstairs.
"Is he alright?" Cris asked, genuinely concerned. I'm surprised he asked.
"Yea he's probably just tired. I'm gonna go check on him." I reply, getting up from my spot next to Ocean who gave me a knowing look. 'I'll make sure he's okay' I sign to Ocean since he's still not comfortable speaking.
'I'm worried.' he signs back with concern etched onto his face.
'Do you want to come with me?'
'No. He'll feel like he's being smothered. Just let me know that he's ok.'
'I will.'
Fuck.
I run upstairs back to my room not bothering to close the door. I rush into the bathroom locking the door behind me. I know one of my quints will follow and I don't want them to see me like this.
I splash water on my face, hoping that it'll snap me out of this, but it only makes it worse. It makes me feel like I'm drowning. It's as if someone is squeezing the life out of my lungs, like I'm suffocating.
My hands are gripping the ends of the sink so tightly my knuckles are turning white. My breathing is constricted to the point that I'm hyperventilating. My eyes start to water as thoughts of Ares flood my mind. Images of him covered in blood, images of him beaten and bruised. Images of him dead.
I know he runs off sometimes and I know that he can take care of himself, but there's so much uncertainty. What if he got kidnapped and is being taken back to Russia? What if he's in a warehouse somewhere being tortured? What if he started taking pills again and overdosed? What if he's dead in a ditch somewhere no one will find him? My tears fall rapidly as all of these thoughts come to mind.
What the hell is wrong with me? Why is it so hard for me to be away from any of my siblings for more then a few hours? I was taught to be stronger than this. I was taught to be better than this.
The feeling of hands wrapped around my throat, constricting the rest of the air around me, making it extremely hard to breathe. The phantom hands are back. I haven't felt them in months, but now it feels like they're bruising me.
Ever since we left Russia I've always had them. Anytime I had anxiety or something stressful was gnawing at me, they always appeared. Always hovering over my throat, ready to squeeze when everything got too much.
My separation anxiety only makes the phantom hands worse.
I hate myself for it.
Just add this to the long list of problems that's wrong with me.
"Percy?... You alright?" I hear Aphrodite knock on the door. I try to respond. I try to speak, wanting to convince her I've got it under control, but my words are caught in my throat. The phantoms hands won't let me speak.
"Percy can you open the door please? I can't let you freak out by yourself." When I try to speak, all that comes out is a whimper. "Percy I won't hesitate to break this door down." She threatens.
I wish I was more like her. Shes always so sure of herself, always confident, shes always calm in stressful situations, and she's always strong no matter what. While the rest of us fumble all over the place with all of our problems, she's always there to help pick up the pieces. With the exception of her always trying to punish herself, she never lets her problems get in the way of anything.
I shuffle over to the door and open it wide, letting her see the mess that is me. "Come on." She grabs my hand taking me back to my bed and sitting me down. She stands in front of me, pulling me into her chest. "You're gonna be okay, just listen to my heartbeat and try to slow your breathing." I do what she says as she strokes my hair. My tears stain her shirt as I lean into her, but she doesn't say anything.
My breathing slows as I listen and my chest no longer feels like it's on fire. The phantom hands release their grip from around my neck, almost disappearing completely.
"Do you feel a little better?" She asks, noticing that my breathing has slowed.
"A little bit. I'm still worried. I can't get him out of my head." I speak in a low voice.
"Do you want to have sibling sleepover?" I give a small smile to her, but I don't want to make my quints feel like they have to.
"N-no, it's okay."
"Well that's too bad because we're doing it anyway. I'm not going to leave you alone. Ever."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. I'm going to paint your nails." She gives me her evil smile.
"You know what I think I'm good on sibling sle-"
"Too late!" She ran out of my room, leaving no time for me to protest.