“They will survive a couple hours without you, Gedeon,” Damia said, twisting the handle to raise the window. “Now get in or we’ll leave you here standing like a dumbass.”
Shaking my head at her theatrics, I climbed into the backseat. The brown seats gleamed in the sunlight, the leather obviously recently conditioned, but at least the car was comfortable. Which could not be said about the majority of vehicles in Conall’s past. You had to leave it to him to find the shiniest instead of the most practical car possible.
His obsession with shiny objects might have also inspired me, Damia, and Zion to cause a string of incidents with sparkly confetti bombs over the years.
One in each car Conall has ever owned, to be precise.
“What’s that?” Turned in his seat, Conall jerked his chin at the giant bag I had hauled in with me.
The paper crinkled as I plucked out the ridiculously large jar and placed it on his lap. “Your wedding present.” I knocked on the glass, but the tightly packed gold, purple, pink, green, and blue flakes didn’t swirl. “To upgrade your car.”
Horror leached all blood from his already pale complexion. “No.” He shut his jaw as though his whisper could detonate the container. “Please, gods, no. I finished restoring this car, like,two months ago.”
Damia threw her head back, cackling. “You should’ve told me. I still have like three cans of those tiny red stars from the last time.”
“Keep them for his next purchase.” I patted Damia’s shoulder, the knitted pattern in her sweater as twisted as Conall’s features. “If this explodes—and it just might—we will likely need to dip into your storage to resupply.”
It had taken me three days to procure enough confetti to fill the five-gallon jar. A feat that would have been impossible without Jayla’s and Tarri’s help. Where they had hoarded this many sparkles, I had no clue, but them sacrificing their treasure had put me in their debt.
Almost thirteen years leading this compound, yet their sinister plans scared me more than facing Ilasall.
“By the way, thanks for the coffee beans.” Smuggling coffee out of Ilasall was a struggle, and if not for Conall’s contacts working in a warehouse in Coriattus, I likely would not be able to pamper Kali and Zion with the sickeningly sweet concoction of coffee and milk and sugar they loved so much.
“No worries,” Conall mumbled, side-eyeing the jar. Trepidation undeniably kept the realization that this was a regular jar and not one rigged to burst the instant he pressed the speed pedal at bay.
“It’s aglassjar, Conall,” I explained as I secured my seat belt. Death by a fear-of-confetti-induced car crash was not how I wished to leave this world. “If you don’t hit anything on our way, the sparkles will remain inside it.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe you.” He opened his door?—
“Na-ah.” Damia rested a palm on the jar’s lid. “If you leave this car, I will personally oversee that all five gallons of sparkles coatevery single inchof your car.”
Positioning the container between Damia’s feet in the front passenger seat, Conall groused, “I hate you both. This is the worst wedding present in history.”
She patted his cheek. “We love you too.”
Sighing, he shifted the gears, and we flew down the dead-end street. A dozen one-story houses stretched on both sides like blocks of sky blue, brick red, and snow white.
As we navigated the roads in Conall’s compound, the concrete apartment buildings eerily similar to those in the cities, I asked, “So what is this about?”
All I had to go on was a special task I had evidently been assigned. One that required Kali and Zion to be picked up by Conall’s security team later on.
Damia swiveled to me. “We’re kidnapping you.”
Conall’s reflection in the rear-view mirror grinned at me. “You know, like you did with Kali.”
I licked my upper teeth. “That’s different.”
“Yup,” Damia said. “You’re coming with uswillingly.”
“And conscious,” Conall added.
I rubbed at my face, but it only fueled their snickers.
“Okay, okay, we’ll be nice.” Damia rolled the window open halfway, and crisp spring air invaded my lungs. “Conall will tell you what’s happening if you explain yourself.”
I swept away the hair tickling my forehead. “Explain myself?”
The leather seat squeaked as Damia swiveled toward me. “This.” She motioned up and down my torso. “Yesterday, it was blue. Today, white.”
