12 My special talent

"This house is huge, Dylan! I will need a couple of more tours to remember my way around here." I said while sitting on the couch in the living room.

We just finished our tour of the house. It has 6 master bedrooms, around 5 guest rooms, maybe. Every room has attached bathrooms also. There is also a basement, game room, two freaking swimming pools, a huge library and two office rooms. Don't get me started with the garden and backyard.

"Don't worry, doll. It will be a pleasure to be your tour guide." He said, bowing a little. 

I giggled at this. 

I saw the room that is supposed to be mine after renovation. Dylan asked me for reference about how I want my room to be. I just shrugged my shoulders as I don't have much knowledge about rooms. Never thought about having my own room, so it's acceptable.

"So your cousins often stay over?" I asked after sometime.

"They are now your cousins also. And yeah they often stay over as we are around the same age, we like to hang out together." He said.

"Do you think they are gonna like me?" I asked him in a small voice while frowning a little.

"Though they still don't know about you, they are definitely gonna love you." He said in a promising tone.

I looked at him in confusion.

"What do you mean by they don't know?" I asked with a scowl.

"Nobody knows about your adoption apart from me, Dominic and Damon." He calmly answered while studying my reaction.

I looked at him in shock. 

"Why?!" I asked a little louder than I planned.

"Because like Damon many of them are not ready at all to accept anyone in our sister's place."

It's way more complicated than I thought. Why did they hide the matter as serious as this from their family?

"Then why in hell did you adopt me? What if they find out? What if they freak out and beat me or worst kill me for being here?" I asked and started to freak out.

After Damon's reaction last night I understood that you don't mess up with them when their sister is related.

"Grace, don't freak out. They will never beat you or kill you. Stop thinking like that. I know Dominic already explained everything to you. And I also to-.. " He tried to explain but I cut him off.

"Don't give me the bullpoops from last night! Just because we have the same eyes, same hair doesn't mean we share the same womb! The birth month, the nurse thingy doesn't prove anything." I shouted at him in the top voice of mine. 

I was angry, hurt, anxious but at the top I was feeling betrayed. I don't know from where that feeling came. 

'You went through a lot because of your family and now you are thinking yourself in the place of their sister. That's why you are feeling betrayed.' My mind suddenly spoke up.

No, I am not their sister. They are not my family. 

I was panting like I ran a marathon but I continued.

"You don't know anything! You don't understand anything! What I have been through till yesterday, what I had gone through, how much I had to go through, you don't know anything! None of you!" I yelled at him.

I was fully crying by then. Dylan tried to hug me but I showed him my palm to stop. I wasn't complete yet.

"After all those things I have been  through, you think some random foster family can come up to me and say I am their sister who was kidnapped by some blood thirst enemy and I will accept? Hell, NO! NEVER! I will never accept that after I had to mature myself at the age of having lollipop. I will never accept that after facing the cruel world instead of listening to fairy tales. NEVER!" I yelled again.

I am feeling light headed after all the screaming and rush of emotions. I am very close to passing out in a panic attack. But suddenly someone hugged me from behind. It wasn't Dylan as I have a blurry image of him sitting in front of me, looking at me worriedly.

"Shhh, princess. Calm down. It's okay. Feel my heartbeat and count it for me." It was Dominic. He placed my hands on his heart for me to count it and I tried to concentrate on counting. 

Damn! It's working! 

When I calmed down a bit he placed a glass on my lips to drink some water. I quietly drank water. When I was fully on sense, I turned around to look at him with teary eyes.

"You are right. We don't know anything about what you have gone through. Even if we know someday, we may not understand. But I promise you, gradually we will know everything, we will try our best to understand everything." He said sincerely with genuine care.

But I didn't say anything to that.

"We are not forcing you to accept that you are our sister. I know it's hard. But as I said earlier we will help you." He indirectly said that I am his sister! 

"And from now on we will not claim you as our sister till I solve the puzzle. But once I solve it, there will be no backing off." That somewhat sounded like a warning.

And I still didn't say anything.

"Remember I told you about the missing pieces? " He asked and I nodded.

He gave me a smile that made me nervous.

"I already found one of the main pieces. The most important one. And I am sure you will love to meet this piece of puzzle. But let's not talk about it now. You okay?" He asked me. 

I nodded.

"You nod your head a lot. I know it's a good exercise and all but sometimes it's good to answer verbally." He tried to crack a joke.

From serious to humour in a blink. That's some good level of bipolarity you got there, bro!

"Yes, I am good. Thank you." I nodded after wiping the remaining tears.

"That's great. It's almost lunch time. Let's have it. Then we have to get ready to welcome our guests. They will be here around 6." He said while getting up.

"And you, Dylan." He turned toward Dylan and pointed a finger at him. "No calling her doll till I say, got it?" 

"Aye aye captain!" He saluted seriously.

"And one more thing you will take her to our boutique for shopping after lunch. I have some work to finish, otherwise I would have joined." Dominic ordered Dylan and he nodded.

"I will go to my room to freshen up." I excused myself from there not interested anymore in the conversations.

 Well I have to say, I just had a major mood swing back there. Moreover all the things that Dominic said were rising tsunami in my mind. 

Huh, he thinks there's no backing out, no way out?? Sorry, Dominic, you don't have any idea about my special talent. I smirked at myself and headed into my room.

'Even if they are your real family, why is it so hard for you to accept it?' My traitor mind asked me even after knowing the answer. I know soon my foster brothers would ask this same question. 

I am not going to think about it now.

***

Everything went as Dominic said. We had lunch together. This time with Damon joined us also. 

When Dylan expressed his surprise in Damon's presence, Damon replied with something like 'Would never break the family rules for some outsiders.' 

Sometimes I feel like how fun it would be to see his face if I turned out to be his real sister. That's never gonna happen so I shook it out. 

Dominic's one look made Damon shut. 

I am telling you, that look has some real power. 

Then, we went to one of their aunt's boutique and Dylan bought a lot of garments for me. I only interrupted when he was choosing something apart from full sleeves or something that shows my legs. So basically my new closet contains everything that doesn't show much skin. He was impressed. He even praised me in front of Dominic, even though he was impressed. I wonder why.

It costs a fortune. I tried to deny but it's like he went deaf every time I denied. So I gave up at the end.

So, here I am now standing at the door wearing a beautiful expensive full sleeves knee length frock with jeans, yeah with jeans. I have my reasons. We were waiting to welcome the guests. All of them are here. Apparently, it's some family rules to welcome the guests together. Though they asked me it's not necessary for me to follow if I am not comfortable. Damon was against my presence here, no surprise there. So you can say I am here to irritate him a little bit, apart from that I am genuinely interested in following the rules.

Soon, the door was knocked and I stood straight, and came out of my thinking zone to welcome the guests with a polite smile. 

Dominic opened the door. Damn!  There are a lot of people. Around 14 or 16! Before I could examine their faces I heard some familiar voices calling my name.

"Grace? Is it you?" 

Before I could remember where I heard those voices, I was tackled by the owners of the voices into a bone crushing hug, shocking everyone present in the room, including me.