Page 73 of Cursed to Be Mine
So I followed my girl home for the summer. My visitsturned more frequent. Nearly nightly unless I was on a job. Yet, I still convinced myself she meant nothing. That she wasn’t mine. Just a puzzle to figure out.
I went through all her belongings, first started reading her journal. But the more I discovered about her, the more I lingered.
Until one day, Varius nearly died because I was there watching her instead of him, instead of protecting him from those who wanted him dead simply because he was an ‘abomination’ without magic.
As my brother lay recovering in a bed for a week, his body incapable of healing like ours, Mom used her powerto save him, and I vowed to stay away from her.
A reaper’s control is unmatched.
For over a year, I avoided her.
But then three months ago,Inearly died. An uncle who’d taught me how to be reaper had tried to assassinate Varius and put his own son on the throne. After I tracked the two of them down, the fight was long and bloody. I passed out from blood loss, woke up in my bedroom at Mother’s, and the only face I was desperate to see was Scarlett’s.
I was back in her room that night, burying my head between her thighs for the first time. I nearly came all in my pants, watching her finish herself on her fingers. The next morning, there was a sudden sale of the house next door, its occupants getting paid a handsome sum to move across the country.
“Yes, it’s her,” I say as I turn right off Highway One.
“Fucking finally.”
My lips twitch with a smile. Despite his words, he still doesn’t sound happy. But then, he keeps everything close to his chest; too many friends and family have tried to kill him over the years, not liking that the head of the Familyis magicless. An abomination.
Many want to support Leno, the second eldest. Many want to support their own sons. I kill them, but Varius has to live with their hatred. With knowing that every word they ever uttered, every smile and laugh they ever shared with him was a lie.
He is an island in a tumultuous ocean.
“Come here for a debriefing,” he says, then hangs up the phone before I can answer. It was an order. There’s only one answer I could have given anyway.
I pull onto my road. Traffic gets heavier before coming to a standstill. The front of Hannah’s house is barricaded by the police and further blocked by news vans. Tapes are already rolling when I step out of the car. An officer in uniform moves towards me as the reporters recognize the car en masse. Cameras swing towards me, but I don’t bother ducking my head, which is what I normally did in case Antonio Garcia was watching. But it doesn’t matter if he knows where this house is. I bought it to watch over Scarlett, and now it’s no longer needed. It’ll be put on sale tonight.
Questions are thrown at me about why I’m driving her car, if I can confirm her death, if I heard anything in the night, saw anything. I move silently beneath their gazes, pretending to be too flustered and scared to speak.
The officer leaves me at my door, and I head in to pack my belongings. Everything fits into one bag, most of it clothes. The furniture will all be donated. They were only purchased so those looking in through the windows would see a furnished house.
Slinging the bag over my shoulder, I grab my keys off the table by the door, and head out to my car. The officer parts the crowd of cameras and questions. I get into my blue Buick and drive off, heading to Mother’s.
Twenty-One
HIM
I park the car and step out onto the L-shaped paved drive. A four-car garage is full in front of me, and three other cars fill the adjacent stretch of concrete. Mom’s and Micha’s (Varius’ fiance’s) are most likely in the garage attached to the house.
Thirty acres of private land surrounds the two-story building, but the biggest stretch one can see is the seven acres across the lake in front of the front porch. The rest of the land is thick with plants Leno uses for his magic.
We all have two innate abilities: the genetic power that binds the family (magic that allows my brothers and I to shift into shadows) and the one magic bestows on us individually after it courses through our system during our ascensions (a sup’s puberty), judging us to see how it wishes to fit within our bodies.
Mine allows me to manipulate soul dolls. Leno, the second eldest, controls plants, both their physical shapesand interior properties. He can kill an entire family with a single almond stirred into their dinner. All my childhood, I woke up covered in vines strapping me to the bed as a Venus flytrap tried to consume my toes. It did manage to eat my left pinkie at one stage. Regrowing that had been a bitch.
“Your poor ma.”My girl’s earlier words come back to me, and I smile.
Perhaps we were a bit of a handful growing up.
I open the door beside the garage and make my way into the kitchen. The family is already inside it, Mother at the stove, this time with Micha. They’re chopping up meat and vegetables for a big lunch as my brothers sit around the table, discussing something I don’t catch before they all stop and turn to look at me.
Maddox grins wide. “Nice job with Ms. Davis.”
Although the WALL are nothing but annoying gnats, the legislation Hannah planned to bring in today would have disrupted our business. Joe Kennedy, the most likely replacement for her in the republican party, and Mark Reynolds, the democrat running, might both understand how the power system in St. Augustine works, but it’s only a matter of time before another Hannah comes along and is actually successful in creating a task force that will bring ‘order’ to our criminal streets.
Settling into the empty chair at the other end of the table from Varius, I look at Rudy sitting on my left. His hands move in front of him as he signs, “Lovely marks on your neck, Kali. Finally break your years of celibacy?”
