The Ballerina & The Devil

Forty Seven. Trapped in Her Own Hell

"This is so exciting!" Briella shrieked as she bounced around in front of us. The slight breeze from the wind causing her brown hair to fly around her face. "I love the zoo!"

"You've never been to the zoo," Aidan reminded her.

"I still love it!" She exclaimed, her huge grin never wavering. She turned her wide eyed gaze on me. "Demi, do you think we'll be able to see a real life tiger?"

I couldn't suppress my own excited grin and nodded. "We'll definitely see a real life tiger."

Briella clapped. "Yay! I love tigers. They're my favorite animal. I know everything there is to know about them."

"Really?" I giggled. "Like what?"

"Like that the tiger is the largest member of the cat family. There were once nine sub...ecies of tigers. Three of them are extinct, one is extinct in the wild, and the rest are in danger. There used to be a hundred thousand tigers, but today there are only around four thousand that exist in the wild."

I stared down at her with my jaw slacked. "Where did you learn that?"

"I read it in a book one time."

My eyes flickered to Aidan who didn't look as surprised as I felt that a five year old was able to retain all that information from a book she read one time.

"She's really good at remembering things," he explained. "I think she has a photographic memory."

Briella suddenly gasped.

"Do you think they'll let me take a tiger home?" She inquired, her eyes shining with excitement.

I slapped a hand to my mouth to stop myself from cracking up. Aidan sighed deeply and looked up at the cloudless sky as if praying for strength.

"No, Briella," he looked back down at her, lifting an eyebrow. "I highly doubt you'll be able to take one home."

"Why not?" She pouted.

"Because tigers are not house pets."

"That's not true," she planted her hands on her hips and scowled. "A lot of people have pet tigers."

"Name one person you know that does," he challenged.

"Princess Jasmine," she lifted her chin, a look of utter superiority making its way onto her features. "She has a tiger. His name is Rajah."

"Well, Princess Jasmine isn't re-"

I slapped his arm and gave him a sharp look.

"Are you trying to ruin her childhood?" I whispered in a rushed voice.

Aidan scoffed, but nonetheless didn't go on with his prior statement. He, instead, chose a different route for the conversation to do down.

"Why do you have to bring the Disney princesses into everything?"

"Because they're royalty, and I'm royalty," she shrugged. "And it only makes sense to bring up my people, right?"

My jaw dropped, and a shocked laugh burst from my lips. "Oh my god."

Aidan shook his head. "I don't know where she learns to talk like that. I really don't."

I stood on my toes and peered over the many heads lined up in front of us. We had only been waiting in line for a little over five minutes, but my patience was already waning.