Page 18 of Forsaken Oath

But I already know it’s too late.

She’s gone.

8

ELOISE

TWO MONTHS LATER

My sisters bargeinto the house in a cloud of chaos.

Margot plants her hands on her hips, eyebrow cocked and lips pursed. “Louie, tell our sister that she simply cannot stay home from school because some asshole middle schooler was talking shit about where we live.”

I tear my gaze away from my laptop, hitting pause on my favorite baking competition show. “What’s going on, Vivie? Should I call Principal Heyward?”

“Oh my god,no. Don’t call her. That would make everything worse. God, you guys don’t understand anything,” Vivie says. She turns on her heel and stomps toward their bedroom at the end of the hall.

The incredulous sass she’s tossing out isn’t for the faint of heart. Some days, I honestly don’t understand where she’s learning half this shit. But then Margot scoffs under her breath, and I’m not confused anymore.

“Don’t even think about slamming that door, Vivienne,” I warn, pitching my voice so she can hear it over her purposely loud footfalls.

“Ugh,” she groans. But she doesn't slam her door, so I’m taking it as a win.

I close the lid on my laptop and cross the living room, meeting Margot in the adjacent kitchen. “What’s going on? Should we be worried?”

Margot pops her head out of the fridge, a can of caffeinated water in her grip. “That the next generation of boys are going to grow into a crop of pigtail-pulling entitled douchebags? Uh, yeah, Louie, we should all be worried about that.”

“Okay,” I drag the word out, shaking my head a little. I don’t know why I continue to be surprised by the shit that comes out of her mouth, but I am. “Not that I disagree, but I meant about Vivie. What happened?”

She pulls the tab; the carbonation fizzing loud enough I can hear it across the kitchen. “I already took care of it. Told that little punk if he doesn’t leave her alone, I’m going to go to his house and fill his bed with centipedes.”

My mouth falls open, shock stealing all of my words.

She tips her drink toward me. “Yeah, that’s kind of the expression he made too.”

“Margot. What the fuck?” My brows cave in, and I stare at my sister with that familiar feeling of parental concern. “Did you threaten a seventh grader, bro? Because one phone call can send Vivie back to whatever shithole Ma is camping out in. We stay on the right side of the law, remember?”

She rolls her eyes and takes a long sip of her drink. “You literally get dirt on people for a living. I highly doubt that shit’s legal, but whatever. I’m not going to apologize for setting that punk on the straight and narrow when it comes to Vivie.”

I lean my ass against the counter behind me, folding my arms across my chest. “You should’ve let me handle it. Principal Heyward would’ve taken care of it.”

Margot shrugs, the picture of unaffected. “Her hands are tied. She’d never go against a trust fund kid, and definitely not for a voucher one.”

I sigh. “C’mon, Margot. Don’t start that again, yeah? You know she’s on a partial scholarship at Hartford Prep.” And I still pay almost twelve hundred dollars a month. It’s the most prestigious k-through-eight school within three counties, and thank god, it’s only thirty minutes from our house.

“Yeah, well, those kids are fucking assholes. You wouldn’t know.”

Her words aren’t intended to slice, but they do. I barely graduated high school, and that’s only because my counselor pulled a few favors with some teachers and let me make up some work. I never really did well in school anyway, always acutely aware of the money I could be making if I was working for those seven hours instead of sitting in a cold classroom, listening to someone talk at me.

“And look where you are now.” I lift both of my brows at her as if to say,look what that school did for you.

“Yeah, well, half those Hartford fucks are at Stanton Hill.” She waves her hand in the air, like she’s waving away this conversation. “But I don’t care. I can handle all of ’em, but Vivie? She’s not like me, and she’s not like you.”

Most people would bristle at that kind of comparison, but not me. It’s a fucking good thing that she’s not like me or Margot. Margot was old enough to remember how bad shit got with Ma, not all the details, but enough to know how things were. But Vivie wasn’t. And I thank the universe for that every day.

I’ve done my best to give her the most normal, boring life possible.

We blast Taylor Swift in the kitchen because we want to sing and dance, not because we’re trying to cover up the sounds of Ma and her friend getting fucked up in the other room.

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