Page 26 of Her Wicked Knights
"No." She answers fast, shaking her head.
"You're bleeding." I remind her, gesturing to the wound on her shoulder. It's clearly not life-threatening, but it's still dripping very slowly down her skin, the sliver of cleavage on her bodice, before splashing against the fabric.
Marley almost looks surprised when she glances down to see what I'm talking about.
"It's fine." She says after a minute, turning her attention back to me. "I'm okay."
"You could have been killed." Tripp's voice is harder than I think I've ever heard from him, and when I find his eyes, they're burning with his anger.
"No." Marley shakes her head. "He said something about my blood being tainted, but when he cut me, he was... surprised."
"Why?" I venture, earning a glare from Tripp.
"Because he's crazy."
I nod in agreement, letting Tripp know there's no need to fight me. I make love, not war.
"It's the air." I sigh, glancing out the window to where the full moon hangs bright and low in the sky. It's so dark it's nearly orange.
It's quiet a minute until I feel their eyes on the back of my neck. The sensation makes me shudder, but I do my best to suppress it, turning to see them both watching me expectantly.
"The air?" Marley asks.
"Hmm." I agree. "Can't you feel it? It's almost Halloween. The veil between worlds is thin, and that puts some people on edge."
Tripp stares at me like I lost my damn mind, but Marley nods like that makes sense. To be fair, with her mother being the town hippie, she's far more open minded than most.
"That's ridiculous." Tripp says firmly. "It was just a drunk with obvious mental issues who saw a girl all alone and thought he'd get his kicks."
I don't doubt that Tripp's right, that the man is suffering from some kind of issues that certainly aren't helped by his alcohol use.
But I'm right too. It's always been this way around here. It's as though we get halfway through the month of September, and then all of a sudden, the days start to change. The air fills with a different sort of static, and the impossible feels inevitable. It's not something I've ever been able to explain to myself, much less others, so I don't even try. I only shrug.
Honestly, if magic is real, there's no one else I'd expect to be capable of it than the girl sitting between my best friend and I. If being magic makes her a witch, then maybe that drunk isn't as crazy as we thought.
Because something about Marley Lavigneismagic... I've known that from the first time I met her.
14
Tripp
Myhearthasalwaysbelonged to her. She doesn’t realize it, of course, which makes for a really shitty predicament. I don’t know where she keeps it— tucked in the pages of a book like a pressed flower she’s forgotten but finds beauty in when she rediscovers it? Shoved in a box in the back of her closet, buried under old clothes meant for the donation bin? Or perhaps she keeps it under her pillow, so that it’s close to her when she’s at her most vulnerable. I doubt that any of those are true, honestly. It’s more likely that she accidentally left it to shrivel up in some dark corner, forgetting all about its presence until the day she inevitably stumbles across it only to realize it doesn’t even faintly resemble what it used to be.
We’ve both changed in our own ways, but I don’t think she’s suffering as greatly as I. They say the fool who loves more has more to lose, and they’re not wrong. Before her new best friend came along and stole her away from me, I loved her harder in every possible way. Of course, I did a good job hiding it… at least from her. I am pretty sure Marley Lavigne is the only person in town whohasn’trealized that I am hopelessly in love with her.
How could I not be? She was my best friend. When the other boys in the neighborhood inevitably paired off and she was left standing alone, I was more than happy to have the time with her to myself. They didn’t realize back then how funny she was, how kind, how smart. Just sitting next to her talking about what we would do if we were sucked into the middle of a fairy tale with dragons and sorcerers could entertain us for hours.
I canstillbe entertained for hours, just watching her. And I am aware of how that sounds… crazy, obsessive, pathetic. I may be all of the above. She makes me that way.
But I can’t watch her when she’s with Audrey. I can’t watch her pretend to be someone she’s not, as if the persona that her new best friend makes her adopt is somehow better than the multi-faceted girl she’s always been. It’s not, which is why I can’t sit here any longer. I stand to go, pushing my beer across the table for whoever wants to finish it off. Rev’s eyes lock with mine, and in that way he has about him, he seems to understand exactly what I’m thinking.
“Don’t go already.” He calls over the throngs of people, walking toward me with a grin. Rev’s always lighthearted, like the world is one big joke. Maybe it is.
“I need something stronger than what they’ve got here.” I tell him, gesturing to the kitchen with the keg set up on the counter. It’s also where Marley is standing next to Jake and Audrey.
She’s got her hair back in a ponytail, the curls cascading down her back as she laughs at something that one of them said. The three of them often exist in their own bubble, gravitating toward one another even when they’re with the rest of us. It’s weird, truly, how much Jake is there with them and vice versa. To an outsider, it probably looks like they’re all in a relationship with one another, given that the lines sometimes look blurry.
“Hmm.” Rev’s jaw tightens as he takes them in, and then he turns back to me, grinning again. “I have something stronger.”
