Page 53 of Scattered Glitter

I grimace, unsure if it’s the trance or the memory, but I feel raw. No matter how hard I try to shove those feelings down, I know my face is anything but neutral.

“Which says more about you being open like a fucking book than him being that good,” Levi teases, his eyes twinkling with mischief, somehow reading my immediate thoughts.

I hate that he’s right. Ihatethat I’m so easily pulledunder and let Koen have that kind of control over me. I bite the inside of my cheek, resisting the urge to rage.

“Maybe he’s just a fucking supernatural,” I quip snidely in a vain attempt to regain some control over the situation that has been out of my grasp from the start. “Ever thought about that?”

Koen bites his lips, and the way he looks at me as if he knows something I don’t only makes me angrier. “I’m as human as you are. It’s a skill, not a gift. There are things I’ve picked up that help. Reading a room, people’s body language…”

I can read people, too, but I’ve never put anyone into a trance because of it.

I want to scoff, but I hold it back. Koen’s eyes are on me, studying me. He’s dissecting me without even touching me. I want to give him nothing, so I cross my arms, trying to look unimpressed. “Body language? That’s all?”

He tilts his head, his gaze narrowing as if he’s already in my head. “Not exactly. Micro-expressions show a lot more than you think. They reveal what someone’s feeling, even when they’re trying to hide it. For example…” He steps closer, and I stiffen, but I don’t move back. He lifts his hand, lightly brushing his finger against the corner of my mouth. “Right here,” he murmurs. “That slight twitch… you’re intrigued but defensive right now. You’re competitive, unfiltered, and proud…” He pauses, his eyes searching mine. “But you’re also insecure. And lonely.” His eyes bore into mine, and my stomach clenches. “And you hate that I know that.”

He says it so matter-of-factly, as if it’s a truth he’s always known about me, but he hasn’t. He just peeled away everything I’ve always tried to hide.

And yes, I hate it.

“Fuck you,” I spit out, unable to stop myself. “I’m nothing like that.”

“Lie,” he says accusingly as his eyes drop to my lips. “You need to learn to lie better if you want to fool me, Little Thief.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Koen

“Oh, shut up,” she snaps, her voice dripping with venom.

She’s all fire and sharp edges.

The hostility is almost reflexive, striking before anyone gets close enough to hurt her. A defense mechanism polished to perfection. And yet, it doesn’t feel personal. It’s not about me. I’m simply the unlucky recipient of whatever ghosts she’s still fighting.

Still, it puts me on edge.

I cross my arms, studying her, cataloging and categorizing every shift in her expression. The feistiness, the defiance, it’s all a show, a layer of armor as bright and distracting as her name and all the damn glitter—a front. I’ve seen it a hundred times. People hiding behind loud voices and sharp words because silence is too dangerous and might let the truth slip out.

But her? She’s different. She’s not just hiding. She’s actively guarding something, and the more I watch, the more I feel it. This undercurrent of tension, of something coiled tight and ready to spring.

Is it fear? Pain? Or something more dangerous that could burn us all if we’re not careful?

Whatever the reason, I don’t like it.

She’s an anomaly, and I don’t like not knowing what I’m dealing with. People are supposed to be predictable. Easy to understand. Patterns. But her? Every time I think I’ve got her figured out, she throws a curveball—like now.

And if I’m honest, part of me hates how much it bothers me. How much I want to pull back the layers and see what’s underneath. She’s chaos, and I’ve spent my life avoiding chaos. Predictability keeps us alive. Chaos will get us killed.

How would Uncle Oscar handle this?

Much better, for sure. And probably much gentler too. Oscar had this way of seeing through people without breaking them apart. He’d pull the truth out like a magician pulling a coin from behind your ear, leaving you wondering how the hell he did it. And he’d leave you better for it, somehow lighter, even if you didn’t deserve it.

I’m not Oscar, though. Not even close. I’m too blunt, too impatient, and definitely too cynical. But he taught me what I know, and I owe it to him to try.

I shift my stance, leaning into the tension between us, pressing just enough to see how she’ll react. Maybe I’ll get a clue. Maybe she’ll crack. Or maybe I’m trying to convince myself I’m still the one in control here.

“Know how lie detectors work?” I ask, letting a teasing edge slip into my voice. “They ask questions and make you tell the truth first, to see how your body reacts. That’s what I do. I pick up on how you act when you’re telling the truth. Then I watch how you change when you lie. It’s all about patterns.”

It’s a half-truth. Sure, patterns are part of it, but there’s something else, something unexplainable that lets me see through her.

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