“Come again?”
“I mean, yes. Yes, sir.” Somehow, despite the familiar surge of resentment rising within, I manage to keep my voice level. “I’ll make sure she stays in line.” In the beat that follows, I can imagine my father standing by his office window, glaring through his reflection at the pool beyond. Ghosts of the past no doubt filter through his vision before he grunts and the whoosh of the curtain shut confirms my suspicions.
“Make sure you do.” He hangs up on me, not that I’m remotely interested in his intimidation tactics. Suddenly, my laptop blinks back to life, and I scoot my chair closer. However, it’s not my usual home screen that appears, but an image of some kind of game.
Ripped straight out of a high-fantasy fever dream, shadowed stonework and molten-gold light stare back at me. A towering citadel rises against a violet sky, banners snapping in an unseen wind. In the foreground, a character stands frozen mid-stance, wearing armor etched with runes. Dark curls that are cropped short at the sides, cover the top of his head, strong blue eyes gazing out of tanned skin and a weird, animated smile on his face. I watch with wide eyes, beyond confused until the character speaks.
You made the mistake of thinking you’re the only one who is watching over Meg.
I almost choke on my own breath. The voice is a real one, not robotic or animated, yet not one I recognize. The character lifts his muscled arm, he points two fingers towards his eyes and then jabs his index finger towards the screen. My eyebrows touch my hairline.
Remember that I am also watching you, Captain Sparkle.
After flipping me off and turning away, the knight’s cape billows as he strides down the stone path towards the citadel. I merely watch, perplexed and hardly breathing until he disappears from sight and my usual home-screen flickers back to life. I wait long enough to make sure the fantastical world isn’t coming back before reaching forward and slamming my laptop closed.
Around me, the room is silent, other than the low roaring in my ears, and the shadows that seem to press in closer. Tentatively, I lean back in the chair, skin prickling.
“What the fuck was that?” I mutter to myself, more dazed than scared. My fingers drum against the arm of my chair, a few sprinkles of glitter falling in front of my face.
Tracking the sparkles, a slow smile grows on my face. So, it wasn’t Meg behind the glitter bomb after all, and now I’m thinking with a clear head, she isn’t petty enough to tamper with my calendar. Hell, she isn’t even interested in me enough for stupid pranks, but apparently someone is. Someone with far too much time on their hands. Someone who’s willing to challenge me in her honor. It seems this little co-captain arrangement is going to be a lot more interesting than I’d planned.
Chapter Fourteen
My head sinks into the pillow, the promise of sleep drifting closer as my entire mattress suddenly explodes in a burst of tremors. I gasp, instinctively reaching for the phone I’d dropped at some point in the early hours. Blindly smacking the screen, I somehow manage to silence it and flop back onto my stomach, groaning loudly.
“Well, good morning to you too, Amorzinha,” a voice sounds and I flinch again. Pushing up on my forearms, I shove my hair out of my face and squint at the screen lighting up my dark room. Thiago’s name flashes across the display. Leaning forward, I headbutt the phone.
“Tell me this is an emergency,” I mumble, pressing the phone to my ear and burying half my face into the pillow.
“Ahh, you’re alive,” Thiago declares in a tone that is far too cheery for my mere few hours of disturbed sleep. “Excellent. Step one is complete.”
“What's step two? I reach through the phone and wring your neck?” Thi laughs, a sound that is unfairly energetic, and I can picture him already sitting upright at his computer desk with a coffee in hand.
“Now, that’s not the right attitude for your first day of classes, that you are absolutely going to attend.” I groan again. He’s right, of course. I can’t skip classes again, no matter how much I want to bury my head in a hole. Huffing, I crack one eye open to find the room is swimming slightly. The time on my phone reads 7:06 a.m., which feels like both a crime and a personal attack.
“For the record, I’m not a morning person.” I tap the speaker button and stretch, the oversized T-shirt I slept in shifting against my aching body. I’m stiff, my shoulders popping and calves still recovering from when I foolishly tried to take Everest one-on-one the other day. All things that a decent night’s sleep could have helped with, but the asshole next door had other ideas. Every time I drifted off, the bass-heavy EDM or angry guitar riffs rattled through my walls like he was trying to shake off the plaster.
By four a.m. I’d given up pretending and just lay there staring at the ceiling, jaw clenched, replaying what happened in Everest’s study. His hands, his voice, the way my body betrayed me before my brain could catch up. I thought the past was firmly behind us, but being in that room, having him pressed against me, it was like being dragged backwards through time. I quickly clamped down those thoughts and took to doom-scrolling until the music hammering into my skull finally let up.
“Noted,” Thiago comments, slamming me back to the present. Lowering my arms, I toy with the idea of snuggling back into the covers for another half an hour, but Thiago doesn’t have a snooze button. “Now, get up. There’s a present at your door for you.” Freezing, a lazy smile grows across my face.
“You should have started with that!” Tumbling out of bed, I throw on some pants with no consideration for matching the leggings to my tee. Thiago chuckles and waits patiently as I open my door, my heart melting at the sight waiting for me.
Contained in the safety of a cardboard box, a brown paper bag, a steaming takeaway cup and a huge bunch of flowers awaits. The spring-filled fragrance overpowers the smell of coffee as I lift the box, retreat into my room and place it on the desk. An array of shapes and colors look back, a closed lily beside a singular red rose, an oversized daisy next to a sun-bright gerbera, a pink tulip, a huge sunflower. The stems crisscross at odd angles, with tiny purple statice tangled in between. My nose lowers to smell them individually, my mind going blissfully blank.
“I, uh,” Thiago says from my speaker phone, reminding me that he’s waiting. “I didn’t know what your favorite flower was, so I got you one of each.” I’m glad he can’t see my responding smile, because it’s stupid, giddy and full of teary emotion that I wouldn’t want anyone to know I’m capable of. Clearing my throat, I pick up the paper bag, if only to fill the receiver with a rustling instead of whatever whimpery noise might leave me.
“Holy crap, this croissant is the size of my arm,” I blurt out instead, ignoring the heat in my cheeks. Thiago laughs, equally as eager to get back to our usual dynamics.
“Well, make sure you eat all of it. I don’t want to hear any excuses for not attending classes today.” Doing as I’m told, for once, I lower into my desk chair and tear my teeth into the pastry. Flakes dust the front of my T-shirt, which I chase downwith my fingertip. “And in that vein, just know that I’ve disabled your character on Runeborn for the day. Just so there’s nothing waiting back in your room except those flowers.” I freeze mid-chew, eyes narrowing at the travel cup I’ve just lifted from the cardboard box.
“You better not have lost any of my loot. I’ve only just acquired the obsidian thornblade.”
“What kind of hacker do you take me for?” Thiago instantly scoffs. I can practically hear him bolting upright and rolling his eyes. “Of course you haven’t lost your thornblade, and even if you had, I’d have spent all day trolling through dungeons until it was back in your inventory.”
Nodding to myself, because yeah I do know that, I lift the takeaway cup and sip the coffee he’s gifted me. I don’t know how or who Thiago convinced to deliver all of this to my doorstep on a random Tuesday morning, but I’m deeply appreciative of it. He continues to keep surprising me, to keep taking care of me for whatever reason. A comfortable silence follows until I’ve finished my breakfast and shaken myself free of crumbs.
“Okay. On the topic of today, what are you actually going to do with your time?”
