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“She built it for night gym sessions. You can see the stars some nights.”
I jump off, heading for my water bottle.
“Look, I don’t mean to pry, but we can all feel your energy and it’s setting Frankie off more than usual.”
“Setting her off?” I ask, leaning against a punching bag while tossing my towel around my neck. “How?”
Ophelia starts up her treadmill and begins a steady walk. “Well, for one, we are all sisters. Empaths on crack. The granddaughters of infamous witches that they forgot to burn, or in our case, hang. Or something like that. I read it in a quote and it’s so accurate.”
I stifle a laugh. My face almost cracks from the half-smile; it has been so long since I’ve felt like smiling. “I am in a bad mood. I agree,” I say, moving back to where the treadmills are lined, taking a seat on a wooden bench that’s built into the glass.
“Talk to Ophelia. Ophelia is a vault.”
I sigh, resting my head against the glass as the sweat continues to drip down my sternum. I remove my tank and toss it on top of my towel. “It’s Brantley. I’m not dealing well with the betrayal.”
“Ah,” Ophelia murmurs. She lifts her eyes to me. “Why did he do it?”
“Does that always have to matter?”
She turns the speed down on her treadmill before flicking it off. “I’m done for my exercise for this week.”
I chuckle again as she sits beside me. “Look, betrayal is hard, especially if you trusted someone as fiercely as I’m guessing you did him. But sometimes, especially in the world we live in and the world I’m guessing he lives in, things aren’t as simple as black and white. You have to allow some color.”
“He said he did it to protect me.”
“Then maybe take that for now. After you find out the whole story, then you can decide whether you’re going to be angry or not. Control your emotions now, you’ll have control forever.”
“And I’m cranky because I miss my brother and my pets.”
“Well,” Ophelia nudges me with her arm, “we can keep you distracted.”
I pick up my towel and throw it over my shoulder as we make our way out of the gym. Distraction could work; only, I’m still running on fumes of anger.
Round and round the mulberry bush…
I smirked from the dark corner, hidden from her in plain sight. “Ah, this time it’s different, isn’t it?” I stood to my full height, making my way toward her slowly. It wasn’t until I was beneath the hanging single light bulb that she looked up at me, her eyes scrunched tightly.
I tapped the bulb. “Count to ten and you’ll wake.”
She didn’t look up at me. She refused. Curled in the corner with her knees pulled to her chest.
“Are you going to start counting?” Her hair was so white, it was unreal. She had always been spectacular. Like a rogue angel begging to be violated. Slowly, she tipped her head up to look at me, her lips quivered and her eyes quickly diverted back down to the ground. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Well,” I said, moving toward her. I bent down, grazing the backs of my knuckles against her soft cheeks. “Because he simply can’t kill me here.”
Brantley
My mind feels like a blank canvas. If there was a picture to be painted on it, it’d be filled with smoke shadows and long, ugly trees that don’t produce leaves. That’s it. That’s fucking it. My fists clench, my eyes remaining zoned in on the clock that hangs behind Bishop in his office.
Tick tock, tick tock.
“Brantley?” Bishop snaps me out of the slumber my mind is more comfortable in these days. “How was Saint last night?” Nate is beside me, Eli next to him. Since the ceremony last week, all of the other Kings have taken their respective positions, which leaves just Bishop, Nate, Eli, and me to hold shit down.
“Mad.”
“That’s cute.” Eli chuckles. “I’d love to see her mad…”
Turning my head slowly, I glare at Eli from the other side of Nate. “I would really be careful with that mouth. You’ll need it when you go on tour.”
He smirks his famous Cheshire cat grin. “Stop being jealous.”
Ignoring him, I look back at Bishop. “She’s mad mad.”
“How mad?” Eli teases again, a toothpick rolling between his lips.
“She punched me in the face.”
Bishop coughs back a laugh while Eli straight-up barks out his. I flip him off. “Besides that, I could snap the tension in the room that she was radiating.”
“She’s feeling betrayed…” Bishop murmurs, leaning back in his chair. “If she’s anything like me—”
“—she’s everything like you. Precisely the problem.” I kick out my leg just as there’s a knock on the door.
Bishop calls out, “Come in.”
“Listen, I get that this is serious and I feel like a snitch for even coming in here, but Nate—” Madison growls, and I turn in my chair slightly to take in what she could possibly want. “Tillie is not doing well with not knowing what is happening with Saint.”