Page 42 of The Invite
Checking my phone, I smirk when there’s no response from her. I’m about to type out another text when my bedroom door flies open and in storms Scarlett.
“What the fuck is this, Augustus?” she demands, slapping two black envelopes on my bed. Her heeled shoe taps away on the floor as I ignore whatever it is she dumped on my bed and instead observe her.
“Where did you come from?”
“A party,” comes her clipped answer.
“I can see that.” She’s dressed in a short black dress, herhair curled, while the scent of alcohol and weed wafts from her. I have a sneaking suspicion of where she went. “Whose?”
My casual tone doesn’t deceive her.
If there was a party tonight and I wasn’t aware of it, it can only mean one thing. It was on the other side of town, where I told her never to step foot in because the rules of surviving there are different.
I don’t understand her fascination with slumming it in those parts. She can’t tolerate those boys in school, yet she goes to their parties on the weekends.
Therein lies the difference between my sister and me.
If I dislike someone or want nothing to do with them, I ignore their pathetic existence. My circle consists of a few people, and that’s the way I like it.
While Scarlett faces them head-on and doesn’t hide her displeasure. It comes from her need to be fierce.
“Kaid’s,” she replies breezily, looking at her nails.
A while ago the shit that comes attached with the likes of Kaid Hunt wouldn’t have touched us, but after the school decided to invite evil spawns like him into our school with open arms, it couldn’t be avoided. The board members hoped it would eliminate the differences between the two parts of the town.
Oneis dripping with wealth and the other with poverty.
But both areequally corrupted.
The board's good intentions only widened the gap between us because our worlds are as different as day and night. Out of the six scholarship students that came, only three have remained. Two of them happen to be Scarlett’s nemeses.
“Did he invite you?”
Contrary to what everyonebelieves in and outside of school, Scarlett isn’t a spoiled and pampered princess. If she ever let people see beneath the surface, they’d know. However, it’s never happening. Her naivety was shattered years ago.
Our mother isn’t affectionate and is stricter than the toughest of fathers.
After our dad died, she became even more frigid and unfeeling, burdening me with caring for my sister. I’m like my mother, incapable of any kind of emotions. For Scarlett, I had to learn so she didn’t turn into me.
On rare occasions, I know I failed.
“I don’t need an invitation.” Looking me square in the eye with a sharp glint and a sly smile, she confesses, “Besides, I wasn’t there to attend their cheap party.”
She went to cause trouble. “What did you do, Scarlett?”
“As a good citizen of this town, I tipped the cops off before it got out of hand.”
“Stirring shit with Kaid and Wolf in school is one thing. But in their territory, it’s reckless and dangerous, Scarlett.”
Hearing the seriousness in my tone, she knows I mean business. I’m protective of my sister like any brother, but I don’t interfere with her life unless absolutely necessary.
I don’t believe that just because she’s a girl, she shouldn’t have the same freedom as I do. It’s why I cover for her in front of our mother, who expects the opposite.
I’m all for Scarlett causing chaos but, unlike me, she’s rash and is ruled by her emotion. Kaid and Wolf bring out the worst in her. Even perilous, they know it too and take full advantage ofit.
They wouldn’t even need to look for the person who closed their party tonight because my sister would have made sure they knew it was her.
They are going to be plotting a retaliation.
