03

Before Keeley and I had even made it to the parlor, I heard voices buzzing with apprehension from the room, and after a quick glance at one another, Keeley and I slowly entered through the doorway. Once inside, we glanced around—the place was a freaking meat locker; people were everywhere!

Eyes large, I gazed around, amazed. Surely everyone couldn’t be from Grandma’s coven? Could they? I mean, I knew her coven had been large. But this? This was way beyond anything I’d ever imagined. 

I leaned over toward Keeley, as peering at all the faces I whispered in awe, “Are all these people from Grandma’s coven?”

Keeley, her eyes just as large as mine, gaped at the mass before us, breathing, “I have no idea!” Then her face taking on a look of horror, she exclaimed, “Where on earth is everyone going to sleep?”

I knew Keeley’s question was rhetorical, so I didn’t bother answering. But as she continued, “Man we’re going to be assholes to elbows in this place!” I couldn’t help but smother a laugh.

Keeley was sparkling water to my tap water, she shimmered with effervescence, her feisty personality clear to see, whereas I was more like good ol’ plain water: bland and unexciting.

I hadn’t been at the academy more than a week, when Keeley had caught Michelle and her squad of nasty taunting and teasing me, and punched Michelle in the nose, rapidly putting an end to Michelle’s hurtful words. However, the action landed all of us in detention for three days. 

From that point on, and though we were already foster sisters, she became my best friend.

The four years in between losing my mom at the age of thirteen and turning seventeen had, in many ways, been trying and painful, yet I had flourished under Grandma's attention. Having Keeley around hadn’t been so bad either. But Rook? That was another thing altogether—it seemed I couldn’t do anything right in his eyes.

That fact became painfully clear, when after Grandma had forbidden me to go out on a date—having listened to some dribble Rook had fed her—I’d rebelliously decided to sneak out of the house anyway.

One of my legs had been hanging out the window, when Rook had burst into my room, and at the look on his face, I’d shouted, “I’m not a baby that needs some gorilla breathing down her neck, Rook. I mean really, never once in the last year since I started dating, has anything ever happened, now has it?” Afterward,  turning, I finished climbing out my window. 

I'd ignored his angry requests that I get my ass back in my room, and instead had jogged toward the pickup that was waiting in the drive. After climbing in the passenger side, I’d planted my butt on the seat, and turning to face Trent Calloway, I’d hissed, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” 

However, confusion had quickly washed through me when Trent had made no effort to place the pickup in gear. Instead, he’d stared past me through the passenger window. As I’d gazed at Trent, his eyes had widened and his eyebrows had climbed upward until they’d practically hidden beneath the untidy fall of his auburn hair. 

Curious what had held his attention, I’d begun turning on the seat, before a startled yelp escaped me as the passenger door had been jerked open, and a pair of hands had slid beneath my armpits, then began pulling my kicking, screaming, vile-insult-throwing ass off the bench seat and out of the pickup.

With my mane of hair flying wildly around our tussling bodies, Rook had barked over his shoulder, “Trent, I suggest you get the hell outta here!” 

Afterward, lowering his tall frame to the ground, Rook had jerked me across his knees and had begun applying stinging, open-handed blows to my backside. 

He’d managed to land four cheek-reddening blows against my rear when I’d begun screaming for Grandma.  

Seconds later, Grandma had come barrelling through the front door, only to skid to a stop just outside the entrance, her face going comical at seeing me bent over Rook’s thighs. Then, eyes swinging to the disappearing pickup and the cloud of dust it left behind, she’d shaken her head, before turning, she’d re-entered the house without a word, silently closing the door behind her.

Suddenly becoming aware the whole altercation was being observed, my cheeks had taken on a rosy hue, as Keeley and the other students attending the academy had hung out opened windows, watching the scene unfold beneath them, as hand still resting against a smarting butt-cheek, and obviously prepared to continue the punishment, Rook had asked, “You got it? Or do you need me to demonstrate some more that no, means, NO?”

With my mouth pinched into a tight line, I’d shaken my head, and as he allowed me to stand, I carried trembling fingers to my flushed cheeks, wiping at the moisture and soaked wisps of hair clinging to my face as I’d hissed, “Don’t you ever do that again.” Afterward and before he had the chance to jerk me back across his knees, I ran into the house, slamming the door shut behind me.

Running through the manors vastness, I made a beeline for the security of my bedroom and after hurtling myself through the doorway, I locked the door behind me.

~~

Several hours later, having used a little beauty magic to remove all traces of the tears that had ravaged me, I stared into the interior of the refrigerator. I’d stubbornly refused to leave my room for the rest of the evening, and as such, I’d missed supper, so now my stomach was rumbling loudly.

Minutes of searching had passed, and I couldn’t find anything in the refrigerator that even came close to something easy to prepare. With a grunt, I pushed the door shut and began pilfering through the cabinets. Finally, spying a bag of chips, I jerked them off the shelf and ripped the bag open, then, reaching into its depths, I pulled out a handful and shoved them in my mouth.

With my cheeks bulging from all the chips, I began happily crunching away as I made my way out of the kitchen. Entering the living room, at the same time cramming a few more of the salty treasures in my mouth, I heard a Rook murmur, “I take it you’re done wallowing in self-pity?”

Bits and pieces of chips went flying in every direction as I screamed. Wet, gooey globs of half-chewed chips began settling on the floor at my feet and decorating the couch and chairs within splattering distance, and Rook muttered sarcastically, “Nice.”

Embarrassed at being busted twice, behaving like a toddler, I growled, “Just leave me alone, Rook!” 

Yet, even as I snarled the words, I knew that was the last thing I really wanted.  What I truly wanted was for him to notice me as something other than a child he’d rather not have to deal with.

However, as the months passed, disappointment and frustration became my constant companion, as nothing I did made him look at me in any other manner.

On the night of my eighteenth birthday, that changed.