Have I mentioned that I’m not a fan? I’m not.
Chaos likes her rocker, and I let it go. When Sari had Mayhem visit that place, he was careful not to get infested. I don’t want her tentacles in anyone else I care about, especially not him. We’re not two pieces of a whole—we are a whole. The idiots here don’t get it, except for the coyote and family.
Maybe the newbie she’s brought along will, but I don’t know if that girl’s trustworthy. That nit of hers is deep into the pool of suck with the cat and still is, but Sari insists it’s a gambit.
I don’t know if I believe that either. I think he’s sunk in the quicksand, and she doesn’t want to believe it. Whatever.
“Bottles and blood, circles and crowns, the sun must touch the land once more. Weak will fall, strong survive; there is more than one to fight the czar.”
Ugh, she’s full-on looney tunes tonight with the metaphors.
Droid or not, the kid and her family gave her the sight, and she makes no more sense than her imprint did. “Chaos, findMayhem, and see if he has any idea what you’re trying to tell me. I’ve got to meet with the ladies about our plans. He can come to find me if you’ve got anything.”
“The future begins now. Each raindrop adds to the flood. Tiptoe away from the garden of the snake. Fading, fading.”
“Right. Go find your brother and let him decrypt the code.”
“Ding dong farewell,” she sings, and I shake my head, watching her dance off.
She means ‘goodbye, Belle’ but her mind just never works in that kind of lucid, linear thought, hence her name. However, she has a gift that I respect, and once Mayhem figures out if she’s talking about now, the past, or some far distant future, I’ll test from there.
It takes patience and skill to narrow down Chaos’ ramblings, and Mayhem has it in spades for his sister, just not for anyone else.
Now I’m going to put all this crap away and get to my meetings. I’ve been waiting for that bitch to get her just desserts for an awfully long time, and I’m not about to let the chance pass us by.
If this doesn’t work, I’ve got my plan to shave off one of her nine lives that I’ll put into play.
Just you wait…
The Newbie Makes A Deal With The Devils
AMANDA
“It has to be timed right,” Belle says, slapping her palm on the table with a sound that reverberates through the ceramic mugs and the meticulously polished silver scattered across the dining room. The tablecloth jumps. “We have to wait until most people are there and the ‘grand entrances’ have been made by the hosts. Otherwise, it will get lost in the flood of welcomes and preening of everyone showing up in their costumes.”
She draws out this last word, as if it’s ridiculous that anyone would consider an opposite opinion is ridiculous. I don’t know if I agree with her, but I am sure that voicing it will not be welcome.
“Agreed. I want everyone to see their faces” Sari says, not even looking up from her phone, where she’s scrolling through some list—perhaps the final RSVP roster, or maybe a feed of all the invitees’ social posts, checking for weaknesses or likely alliances. She’s wearing a pair of narrow wireframe glasses today that make her look like an assassin in a college seminar, and hervoice is as calm as the hiss of an adder in the grass. “If it’s not public, there’s no point.”
Belle leans forward, elbows digging into the wood so that her knuckles stand out, white and sharp. “It’s not about spite,” she says, though the fact that she says it first and hardest makes me wonder if it is. “It’s about not letting them get away with acting like he didn’t matter.”
I look between her and Sari, not sure what I’ve gotten myself into, but certain that I want to be included. It’s the kind of group that makes you feel small if you’re left out, even if you don’t always like the things that happen when you’re in. Sometimes, I’m not sure if this is the most productive group to be a part of as they fixate on things I don’t feel like they can change and shouldn’t want to.
After all, even if revenge is sweet, it rarely leaves you feeling clean.
I’m not like them, and that difference makes me want to prove something, if only to myself. I can keep up, be the kind of person who acts, and can be trusted. They should include me and make me part of their cabal—once they do, I won’t be out on my own with Constantine like now.
Outside the window, the afternoon is sliding toward golden hour; the world is catapulting forward into the next season. Belle’s house is on the land on the other side of the Rift, overlooking a lake, and from this height you can see the water flashing like broken glass between the trees. Sari finished her latte twenty minutes ago and has been picking at the remains of a lemon scone with surgical precision. Belle’s hands are moving constantly, never settled, as if the only way to keep from acting on her impulses is to turn them into kinetic energy.
I see why she refuses to live in The Rift like the rest of us—she’s too paranoid about anyone who isn’t Sari.
I open my mouth, then close it again. I want to say something that will make them pause, and consider a world where everyone isn’t always plotting against each other. But I know they’ll laugh, or worse, roll their eyes and smile at me like I’m a child who doesn’t know how anything works. So I say nothing.
They go on hammering out their plan. The confrontation will happen once the party is in full swing, when everyone is present but still sober enough to remember every word. Sari has a speech written—four sentences, which she’s practiced to sound spontaneous and uncaring, as if it came to her in the heat of the moment. Belle will back her up, then feign surprise when Wilde arrives. They have considered the angles, the likely responses, and the counter-moves. It’s chess, but with people as the pieces and humiliation as the aim.
I probably shouldn’t be doing this, but I just… I can’t take being left out anymore.
“Amanda, what do you think?” Sari asks, looking over at me for the first time since we’ve been ‘discussing’ the plans. It’s always a little terrifying to be on the receiving end of her full attention.
