The familiar scent of lavender and the subtle purple lighting of the cabin 16 greeted us as we entered back into it.
"Wow" Camilla let out as she walked in and turned in an anticlockwise swirl.
I was actually a bit surprised to see her turn around in adoration of the room, I guess it's simply because I am too used to the colors and arrangement already.
"Your space is nice, Jerry" Camilla said as she help unto one of my arms.
The motion was a bit strange and for some reason I found myself looking at jasmine by the corner of my eye
She seemed unperturbed as I slowly pulled myself out of her grip.
We all sat in the living room and tried to make ourselves comfortable on the furniture that we had.
"I'll go get the drinks" Eva said as she sprung to her feet from the settee. She walked over to the kitchen and tappped Danny on his shoulder as she was going.
The usual response would be Danny standing up to his feet and joining her to serve, but for some reason, he didn't.
"I think I'll sit this one out, my knee hurts" he said rubbing one of his knees.
Somehow I doubted what he said
"Let me join you instead!" jasmine suggested before standing up and meeting her in the kitchen.
Camilla looked around at the living room and for some reason, she decided to do a little renovation.
She moved the center table aside and turns each other piece of furniture to face the space once occupied by the center table.
I and my brother watched in perfect silence, allowing the movement of the furniture to do all the noise making.
Danny spoke up first.
"so...you are the highly esteemed and most talked about miss Camilla" Danny asked, leaning back and crossing his legs in the process.
He seemed to give off the air and voice of some kobd of british business man or royalty of some sort. I wondered if it was necessary.
"indeed I am" she answered back. She had her shoulders raised high and she used the same fake British accent to answer him.
It seems to me that these two had the same fondness for flattery and gimmicks. This didn'seem like one of those conversations that I would understand so I did n't bother trying to.
"legend has it that you have been our neighbor for centuries!" he continued.
"preposterous" she exclaimed in a low tone with a hand on her chest as though she were in serious shock or something.
To me these kids were were wasted in sciences, they should just have pushed for an acting career. I'm pretty sure that they would get it without even trying.
"how long has it been then?" he asked.
"4 years" she replied.
"Wow" I thought. So this girl has been our next door neighbor for 4 years and we didn't even know that she existed.
How is that even possible?
I looked over at Danny and apparently he had that same question inscribed on his face. It even took him two minutes to recover or probably process that information.
"So you mean to tell me that, you have been my neighbor for 4 years and yet we had no idea?" I asked utterly surprised
The question was met with silence as she just stared at us one by one.
"Here we are!" Eva tooted as she entered the living room with jasmine and our snacks.
They seemed to have gathered quite the stockpile. They had chips, pop corn, biscuits and other edibles, all accompanied by various soft drinks on ice.
"Wow, are we planning a feast that I wasn't informed about?" I asked with a puzzled look on my face.
The truth was that I was wondering how it was possibly to spare that much amount of snacks with the journey we had planned. I felt we should be more conservative.
It seems Eva had other plans.
"Oh this? It's just so we can keep our mouths busy during the game" she said all high as usual.
I stole a glance at jasmine and it was clearly etched on her face that she was against the idea as well but we can't start rebuking her now because we would risk letting this girl know if our plan.
And she's the daughter of the man we are avoiding so, no thanks.
"So what kind of game are we playing?" Danny asked leaning forward to grab a cold can of coke before sinking back into the beanbag.
"Truth or dare...isn't that obvious?" Eva retorted as she opened a bag of chips into a bowl.
"That's obvious, but what kind of truth or dare or in short what are the rules around it?" He asked rather cooly.
The question was reasonable.
"Alright, let's talk about rules" Camilla said. She was seated on the floor unlike the rest of us that were seated on a furniture of sorts.
The girls occupied the couch while I and my brother occupied the two bean bags. The center table acted as the ark of snacks but even it was no longer at the center of the parlor, Camille had moved it to the side in such a way that the center of the parlor was free and had nothing in it.
"The game will be the basic bottle spin truth or dare..." she started as she grabbed a glass bottle of sprite and gulped down it's content.
"....and this will be our spinning bottle" she said. She sounded like she was on the edge of belching. I guess it was unavoidable when you take down a cold bottle of carbonated drink in a hurry.
"I object" Danny said, his can still in his hand.
"And why is that" she asked him.
"It's simple, though the bottle spin is more random, I feel like it might not go round evenly"
"It's true" I commented before sealing my mouth with my drink again.
"Alright,let the questioning travel in a clockwise manner so that it is even." She concluded with a clap of her hand.
"Nice... so how many truths do we have?" Eva asked ecstatically. I think she was the most happy to play this game right now.
"That's actually a good question, how many truths do we get?" Jasmine asked looking at Camilla from the couch where she was seated with her bowl of popcorn.
"Let's all vote, how many truths should we have?" She asked us in return.
"I vote three" Danny said.
"But the first question all round must be truth" he said, he had his index pointed at Camilla and the rest of his fingers holding on to his drink firmly. I couldn't tell from where I was but it seemed to me like the drink was already finished.
Pushing that aside, his request was a strange one, a very strange one actually. It may not seem like it but I have seen Danny play this game multiple times and I know he dreads it when someone picks truth too much.
Infact he dreads truth, so why was he making it compulsory as the first question that everyone would answer?
I couldn't quite place my finger on it but I could tell that this guy was on to something. He had that same look he had a when he had a suspicion and he was closing in.
A smirk tending towards the left of his face and his fingers drumming on his left lap with an eyebrow raised. That was the look he had on and that is the same look that he has on when he is about to pull out a trick that someone was playing.
Whatever it was that he had discovered or that he was about to discover, I reasoned it would be on the best interest of the rest of the crew and so I felt I just needed to make sure that his idea went through.
"Why would you want to make truth compulsory?" Camilla asked puzzled.
"I guess it would be useful for loosening the tension of the game, you know?" I said swiftly. The speeed was almost awkward.
"You know that we would need time to soften to the dates or to open up our minds to doing it" I emphasized trying my best to sell the idea to the rest of the guys.
Imagine me trying my very best for an idea that I don't even know the basis of or the main idea behind it.
"Sounds okay to me" Jasmine commented amidst chewing on her popcorn.
"I guess it's cool" Eva commented. Her eyes swayed between jasmine and Danny. My best guess is that she was flowing with the wind.
"Alright then" Camilla conceded.
Victory!!
"Since you are the one with all the bright ideas, Mr smarty pants, why don't you do us the honor of opening up the game or throwing the first question?" Camilla asked Danny.
I guess that was her own way of payback but from the expression on Danny's face I could tell, this was exactly what he wanted her to do.
He stood up and let out an awkward yawn while stretching to full length.
He walked over to the glass through which we checked on Mr Monroe to know how far the chat had gone.
"Camilla, this question is yours?" He said without looking back.
"Okay shoot" she replied confidently.
He stared for a while as though he was getting the question from the outside.
"Do you know what is a Venator?"
The expression on her face changed as Danny looked at her from over his shoulder.
What was this guy up to.