Page 17 of Payne's Envy

They were my family. Why was I behaving that way?

My shoulders drooped. I couldn’t meet their eyes as I shook. Raising my arm, I twisted my hands in the air, inspecting them, and exhaled.

My nails werenormal.They were the last color I painted them. Pink.

Tear welled in my eyes. “Hades, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I looked toward my sister and mother, but my vision was so distorted, they blurred together. “Melinda said if I took care of the heat, it would go away, but what is it? I’m not this person… I’m notanger.” I wasn’t wrath. Nor lust. I was envy. Envious of love, and people succeeding when they reached out for the person they loved and got accepted.

“Joy…” Mom raised her hand.

The hairs on the nape of my neck prickled. “Mom, please stop,” I begged. “It’s making me…”

“What’s making you upset?” Mom hovered too close, and I kept eyeballing her outstretched arm, hoping she didn’t plan to put it on me.

“Don’t,” I whispered. “You’ll get burned.”

She lowered her hand quickly. “I understand. I can scan you with my power instead,” Mom said right before she began to hum. A sound she soothed us with plenty of times before, but I didn’t feel like the softhearted girl or the woman I always thought myself to be when she did. Her humming stopped abruptly. “Joy, you’re ovulating. You stopped suppressing your cycles… Why?”

“I never stopped… You must be wrong.” Placing my palm against my stomach, I sent my power through me to check. My lips parted as I met Mom’s eyes. “I never stopped.”

“That’s not all… You’re nearly fifteen degrees past normal temp!” Mom shrieked.

My eyes widened along with Maureen’s.

“Are you serious?” Maureen asked, her eyes roving over me.

“Don’t you even think about touching me,” I warned as her arm lifted.

“Don’t Maureen,” Mom said, tapping her index finger against her chin. “Something’s very wrong. It’s like…”

When I realized she wouldn’t finish, I said, “It’s like what?”

“Nothing,” she blurted. “I need to speak with your father.”

“You can’t tell Dad,” I muttered. “It’s fine. I know what I have to do to make it go away.”

But ovulating? I had to take care of that first. As I placed the blocker on my ovaries, Maureen said, “And what is that?”

“Sleep with Payne.”

Mom’s jaw dropped and Maureen burst into laughter. “Yeah, okay. Like that’s going to happen.”

Everyone was aware of Payne's past behavior, but Maureen's laughter at the thought of him wanting me made my anger boil.I swore I was becoming the emotion more and more. My limbs shook as I glared at Maureen.

Mom grabbed Maureen’s arm quickly, pulling herawayfrom me to scowl. “Enough. You knownothing.” Maureen stopped giggling and narrowed her eyes at Mom. “None of us do. This… I think, I’m not sure what I think, but I see the connection now.”

“Connection?” I asked.

“It’s…” Mom rubbed her forehead. “In the past. It’s nothing you would remember.”

“You won’t tell Dad,” I told her, then looked at Maureen. “I’m fine.”

“He worries, Joy.”

“The biggest priority is…” I trailed off as a sudden emptiness smacked me square in the chest. As I placed my hand there, I noticed Maureen and Mom doing the same. As quick as the bleakness inside me hit, it vanished even faster. Unease churned my stomach. “What was that?”

Mom said, “I think we should check the human world. Maybe it was a glimpse of something about to happen.”

“We saw nothing, though,” Maureen replied. “But I felt…”

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