Page 87 of Firestorm
“Yes! God, yes. My mom has always included Wyatt. She’s always invited him to events and parties. Always gives him gifts. He stopped coming over when he was a teenager, since my father fucking ignores him. But we reconnected when he started going to school here, and I even came here to visit him a few times.”
“That’s a lot.” I mumbled.
“It’s stupid, too.” Willow said with a huff. “I mean, even if Mia weren’t my Link…I love her. I would have included her in my Chain, whether or not ‘fate’ said she was supposed to be there.”
Mia looked at Willow lovingly, and the ache in my chest grew again. I sucked in pained breath after pained breath while the two kissed sweetly.
“It’s true.” Mia said. “A lot of Chains these days include members that aren’t Links. There’s a lot of rumors, but think about it. The Key is at the center regardless of whether or not the other Links get along. If the Key chooses to add someone, who are the other Links to object? Especially if they’re in love?”
“Well, that’s simple.” Willow said sadly. “Richard wasn’t in love with Noemí. Sometimes I’m not even sure he’s in love with my mom. Sometimes I think he just wanted his power-up from connecting and she got pregnant on the first go.”
Mia snickered.
I blanched. “Wait, is that common?”
“Oh, yeah. True Chains rarely experience infertility. If you don’t have birth control yet, you better get some, otherwise you’ll be pregnant the first time you fuck one of your Links. I mean, if you even want to get your testing done. Or if you even want to hookup with someone. I mean, I’m not judging, obviously. Mia and I were definitely spending the night after knowing each other for a few hours. But we’re girls, so things are different. If you end up with a dude–”
“Willow,” Mia choked out. Willow cackled and threw her arms around Mia.
I gulped.
It was a good thing birth control wasn’t something I needed to worry about. But what if one of my Links had, like…super sperm?I shivered, forcing myself to think back over the conversation to something other than fuckingsperm.
“Is that common for a Chain to form and cut out someone’s lover?” I asked, feeling sad for Wyatt’s mom. Based on how they described her, she seemed great, and definitely not like she deserved to be abandoned so carelessly, especially if she and Lauren got along well enough.
“It’s becoming more and more common,” Mia said with a shrug. “People these days think certain affinities are disappearing because of out-of-Chain couplings. It’s fucking deranged.”
“And outdated as fuck,” Willow chimed in. “My dad may be good to me, but he’s not good to Wyatt, and because of that…I can’t respect him. Losing respect for one of your parents has to be one of the worst parts of growing up.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Mia said. “My parents would die for me.”
She’d said it casually, but for some reason, the words resonated deep inside me, in a place I didn’t want to be. I shivered, quickly wiping away the tears that spilled down my cheeks while I did everything in my power not to remember the color of my mother’s coat flapping in the wind.
I dropped my head, my eyes catching on my sheets.
My bedspread was the color of her coat.
Practically everything I owned was the exact pale shade of blue she loved, and somehow I was realizing that while trying to hide my emotions from the only two friends I’d ever had.
“Are you okay, Skye? What did I say?” Mia asked, genuine worry in her voice.
I almost laughed.
Mia hadn’t said anything wrong.
My parents would have died for me, too. Levi especially.
“Skye? Were…were your parents good people?” Willow asked softly, running her hand down my back.
“Yeah,” I breathed, then dropped my head between my legs again.
The box of memories and feelings that I’d so carefully put away inmy mind burst open. I was assaulted with memories of the day my life had changed forever.
Cold wind whipped across my cheeks, my tears stinging the raw skin. My mom’s pretty blue coat flapped in the breeze, impaled on a wrought-iron spike. Ben nowhere to be found. People screaming, crying, wailing.
Not a single scratch on my arms as I looked them over.
Blood dripping down my neck from my ears.
