Page 9 of Hexes and Exes

“What?”

She waves me off. “Nothing.” Then she continues to mumble something about…farts, I think. What the hell?

I take my computer over to the couch that’s arranged in front of a row of windows. The sky is gray today, threatening snow at any moment. I pull up the email my father sent over. It was waiting for me right after he left my office earlier.

“This is a list of the specific requirements the coven has pulled together.” I angle the computer so Ava can see.

She leans into my side, her breast pressing into my arm as she reads the screen.

“Food. Drink. Decorations. The theme is dark fairytale masquerade.” Ava scans the list and groans. “Attendance is required for all coven members. Sure. Please come, have fun, even if you don’t want to.”

With Ava this close, her scent invades my space. With the hideous sweaters she wears, she looks like she would smell like mothballs and old clothing packed away in attics. Instead, the scent of sugared lemons, sweet and a little tangy, clings to herskin. She pulls the hat off her head and tosses it onto the table. The hairs stick up from static, but either she doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

I stare down at her while she reads through the email. Her lashes are long and thick. When have I ever noticed a woman’s eyelashes?

It’s none of my business and an unspoken rule to never ask, but I can’t help myself. “What’s your curse?”

Ava’s head jerks up, and she shifts away from me. “That’s kind of private. Why not ask me my bra size.”

With a will of their own, my eyes dip to her chest. Hidden beneath that atrocious sweater. She always looks like such a mess. I’ve never stopped to consider her appearance beneath the clothes. Is her skin silken? Does she have freckles? I can’t even tell the size of her breasts.

Ava clears her throat. “That wasn’t an invitation to stare at my boobs.”

“I wasn’t. I’m simply thinking.”

“About my boobs?” Ava deadpans.

She’s close enough that I see a faint scar under her eyebrow. “Do you go around giving men strange dolls all the time?”

Ava blushes, but she’s also trying not to smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You left a signed note.”

She chuckles, and it’s so light and carefree that it sends a jolt of happiness through my soul. Her shoulder lifts in a shrug. “I was just trying to brighten your day. Do you ever laugh?”

“What’s laughter? I only know how to scowl.” I scowl at her to prove my point, but have to turn away when a smile almost takes over. The dread of planning this party slowly lifts. Maybe this won’t be the worst thing I’ve ever done.

Ava nods, her smile lighting up her face. “Can confirm.”

5

BRAM

It’s barely five o’clock, but it’s already pitch dark outside. The sub-zero temperature should be enough of a deterrent to keep me inside, but ever since Ava left the hotel my skin feels too tight. I had to work off this feeling. Which is how I ended up out for a run. The darkness–my curse–is creeping back in. It’s as if someone has slowly dimmed all the lights in my soul. I run to keep the nothingness at bay. To feel something even if it’s only the strain of pushing myself.

It hasn’t snowed in a week and the ground has been packed down into a frozen layer that crunches beneath my shoes. My chest burns from the cold, shredding my lungs with each breath, but I don’t slow down. I push until my muscles scream and my lungs are on fire.

Every day, my curse gets a little bit worse. I feel it taking over my body one cell at a time. It’s not like when you look back at pictures of yourself from fifteen years earlier and you think, how was I ever so young? That catches you by surprise. This change, the crawl of my curse slowly taking over my humanity, progresses enough that each day I lose more of myself. It’s acoldness that turns off my emotions. Some days, I wonder if it’s already set in fully. I don’t laugh, I don’t feel sadness, and yet there is a perversity to the hex that makes me want others to feel this same darkness. Their pain fuels the growing rot inside me. When Ava left the hotel, it was as if the light left me too.

Our curses are passed on from one generation to the next. In the case of my mother and father, they were both the cursed ones in their families. In a twist of fucked up history, when you have a child, the curse gets passed along to the next generation. My curse kicked in when I was sixteen. I didn’t know what it would be. My father certainly didn’t enlighten me on curses that afflicted his family in the past. My mom died when I was six, so it’s not like she had the opportunity to fill me in on her family curses. Not that it would have mattered.

Through some weird blend of magical genetics, our curses are never exactly the same as those that came before us. Although I suspect there are a lot of similarities. I often wonder if my father’s curse involved the darkness that’s slowly taking over me. Even though he no longer has his own curse, he’s still a cold man. I’ve wondered if the darkness never fully left him. We don’t talk about things like that, though. So who the hell knows.

It was hundreds of years ago when the Briar Witch cursed the firstborns. It was only recently that we found out her coven had murdered her fated love and then tried to force her to marry someone else. I admire the fact that she fought back and gave them pretty much the biggest fuck you imaginable. I don’t appreciate the fact that I’m stuck paying for something that was not my mistake, though.

I jog up the steps to my temporary home and punch in the code to open the door. Technically, this is Roman’s place. Actually, that’s not even correct. Roman and I both lived in one of the villas on the resort's property. The place is owned by the Blackthorn family. Roman and I get free use of the villas. Myplace burned down, and Roman has been staying with Josephine almost every night. I’ve been squatting at his place because it was a lot easier than buying new stuff for myself. Especially when he isn’t using any of his things.

He’s rarely here, so it’s a surprise to find him in the kitchen when I walk inside. I kick off my snowy shoes but leave the rest of my clothes on. The run heated me up, but not enough to combat the cold. The doll from Ava is tucked away in the corner of the kitchen counter. A glimmer of amusement makes my mouth turn up when I spot it.

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