Page 8 of Vying Girls (Girls of Hazelhurst #2)

Tilda

I can play it off as a hangover, this daze I’m in.

The others had still been asleep when I crept in, enabling me to fall into bed with the curtains still drawn tight, ignoring the magnificent Hazelhurst morning.

Dawn was breaking when I woke earlier, the sky painted with blood red stripes leaching into the sea below. Shepherd’s warning.

Waking with no clothes on but my knickers had been a shock, more so with my limited memory and Nic staring at me almost regretfully from where she stood at the window.

For a moment, I’d thought…well, doesn’t matter because it was exactly then that it all came flooding back. Not just the previous hours, but twelve years ago too.

Nicole. The girl with the round face and long hair. Who was quiet and attentive and always considerate. Who was never mean or angry or full of vengeance.

Under the covers, my face creases.

How can they be the same? Is she even? She’s been out to get me since day one, maybe she’s upped her attacks. Found out about my broken past and weaponised it.

Yeah, and grew an identical birth mark too.

I remember asking her what happened. Why the hate, why the fury, why this. Deep in shock, it was the only thing I could think to say.

‘You happened,’ she all but spat.

Wouldn’t elaborate after that. Or had she? I hit my head with my palm. I can’t fucking remember. I swallow, still feeling queasy from the night.

We hadn’t much time between waking up and boarding the ferry. The choppy water, combined with my hangover, resigned me to the deck, the cold wind slapping my face and combing my hair. Nic stayed inside. Away from my eyes. Away from questions.

She pissed off as soon as we disembarked. Off to her tent or the hall for breakfast. Just somewhere—anywhere—away from me.

I think of the bottle of water on my nightstand. She’d thrust it into my hands upon me waking, with no words, just that gritted-teeth look of hers. Like that small kindness truly killed her.

But she still does them, these random favours. Like she just can’t help herself. It confused me before, but now…

Was she remembering how we were? How close, how connected? Two lonely, neglected kids finding solace in one another. Creating magic and worlds and little pockets of escape only big enough for two.

I bite my lip, fighting tears.

Finding my phone, I toss her a desperate, Please, Nic.

Please talk to me. Please tell me why.

Because I can’t go there. My mind shuts off that last day. It’s a habit, a defence mechanism. It was so fucking awful.

So her dad’s dead? That hadn’t meant much to me yesterday beyond a shallow sympathy. But now…well, good fucking riddance is all I can say. How can Nic be mourning him after everything he did? Everything he was?

I scrub at my face just as my door opens.

‘You in here, little mouse?’ Haz asks, voice soft as it is taunting.

‘I’m here.’

I lie still as she climbs on up, spooning her bulk into me.

I’m assuming they don’t know. They’d have told me, surely. Haz couldn’t keep a secret for shit.

It’s all I can focus on, but I can’t confide in them yet. Not until I’ve spoken with Nic. I’m still not sure my mind believes it. My heart certainly doesn’t.

‘You made it back then?’

‘Seems so.’

Haz finds my stomach and strokes it. ‘Thought we’d find you murdered somewhere.’ She snorts. ‘Or Nic. You were out for fucking blood last night.’

‘Went a bit too hard.’

‘Just a bit?’ Her voice is teasing. ‘Do you remember telling me I made your night shit? Shit because you couldn’t have your wicked way with me.’ She slaps me lightly. ‘You’re shaping up to be a bit of a brat. Do you know what I do with brats, princess?’

‘Take them underground and deepthroat them?’

She chuckles, a rich sound that finally makes me smile. ‘Pretty much.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I’m such a fuck.’

‘Next time I’m putting you over my shoulder. Or punching Nic one. You two need to sort your shit out for real.’

‘You’re not wrong,’ I reply quietly, mind ticking over with ways to trap her. She won’t seek me out. She’s closed up tighter than a tomb. I’ll have to find her tent, if she’s not moved it, or visit her at the Vaults when she’s more amenable, either coked up or fucked up.

Not really how I’d envisioned us meeting again, something I used to beg the moon for. Even went through an obsessive lucid dreaming phase. Anything to see her again, to heal the hole she left. Never works how you expect it to, does it? That’s spellwork 101. Be careful what you wish for.

I feel Haz stir, then the sensation of her breath on my neck when she kisses there. ‘Empty in my bed without you.’

‘Cutie-pie.’

She huffs. ‘Hardly. Just know where you belong.’

I’m glad I brushed my teeth when she grasps my throat and pulls my face around to hers. Her kiss is a little punishing, dripping with meaning. Don’t do that again. Remember whose you are.

It’s a welcome distraction, the perfect tonic. Her tongue licks the underside of my lips, making them tickle. She’s dressed in her Sunday comfies, but I still feel the firm ridge of her strap when she pushes into me.

‘If you’re not gonna use that thing, quit teasing me with it.’

Her hand tightens on my throat. ‘Remember what I said about brats.’

‘Trembling.’

‘Oh, you will be. Your legs in particular.’

There’s a light knock at the door. ‘Ay up,’ Elly says. ‘Beaten to the post, I see.’

‘Always first loser,’ Haz snarks.

‘Room for me there?’ Elly nods to my prone body. ‘Surprised you’re up for anything like that. State you were in last night.’

I roll my eyes weakly. ‘My god, sorry mums.’

Haz nudges me. ‘That’s Daddy to you.’

I shift into the middle of the bed, welcoming their weights from both sides. It’s anchoring.

‘How was the rest of your night?’ Elly asks.

‘Fine. Don’t remember much, to be honest.’

It’s something of a lie, but a believable one. One I don’t feel guilty in telling. Me and Nic…that’s a history that belongs to us. A relic of the past, to be kept where it was found. Maybe we’re cursed now, poking that mythical bear.

‘Glad Nic kept you safe.’

Yeah.

I close my eyes to all of it, willing myself to the moment. These two girls next to me, smothering any space between us. It heats my body. Every time they shift, each brush of their fingers over my skin.

Elly’s hand finds its way under my top, fingertips teasing the underside of my boobs. She does this a lot when Haz is around. Touches me in secret. I think she gets off on it.

She works her way up, inching towards my nipple where she rolls it between her fingers, making my breath catch.

I turn my head towards her, her lips instantly seeking mine. She keeps on tweaking my nipple until my hips are moving, seeking friction on the seam of my bed shorts.

‘Sharing is caring,’ Haz rumbles from my other side.

I take her hand and place it on my inner thigh. Tensing, I wait to see what she’ll do with it. She palms my leg, squeezing my flesh, wrist just grazing where I need her to be. Her face nuzzles the back of my neck, and I’m trapped, suffocated between them.

It would be a lie to say I haven’t thought about it, what it would feel like to be taken by the two of them. It’s like some inevitability we’re careening towards. We’re all aware of it. They’re seeking me out more and more, beyond the nights I share with them alone.

And I want it. Fuck, do I want it. I want Elly’s gentle dominance and Haz’s…not so gentle dominance. I want them fighting over who gets to touch me, how they get to touch me. I want to be a limp puppet beneath them both, the carrion between two vultures.

But not this morning.

This morning, Elly breaks the kiss and Haz caresses my leg instead of squeezing it. And I still feel like I might vomit. Again. Shit, forgot I did that last night too. With Nic’s face hovering above me as I sat on the toilet floor shivering.

No, this definitely wasn’t what I begged the moon for.

Nic

My God. Nic, I—shit, you look so different.

I throw my hand into the tree, banishing the complicated wonder in her face.

I thought of you so much. Wondered what happened to you.

Shaking my head, I add a little twist this time. The bark splits my knuckles, the pain so sharp I forget for a second.

It’s not enough. How can it be enough? She’s swimming inside me. I still feel her fingers on my leg, my shifting them to get rid of the tingles. So suddenly aware of our tangled, half-clad bodies.

She threw on the light in the end, duvet pressed to her bare chest. She looked at me, raking those smeared eyes over every inch of my body. She was trying to see her, but she died. Nothing of her left. Just memories.

‘Turn off the fucking light.’

Our cheeks pressed together as I reared up for the switch. Even with it off, her face still swam before me like retinal bleaching. I closed my eyes, rubbing them hard.

Next time I opened them, I was alone in the bed. Tilda was retching in the toilet. I made my way in the dark to where she was, sat on the floor hugging herself. I pulled the hand towel down and handed it to her. She pressed it to her chest, staring at me warily.

I remember damning myself in that moment. For all the fucking times to do that…

‘I think we should sleep now.’

‘Feel like I already am,’ she replied weakly.

I smiled thinly, hauling her by her arm. ‘This is no dream. A nightmare, maybe.’

Back in bed, she laid there watching me. Shivering again. Just fucking wretched.

‘Nicole?’

‘What?’

‘Is this real?’ she whispered.

I wasn’t even sure, not in that moment. The world had shifted. I was off kilter. Not trusting the timeline I was in. Years of drugs will do that. Mind’s fucking addled.

I don’t remember what I replied, if anything.

I drop my hands when I’m out of breath. The blood is satisfying but I need more.

I cast my eyes over the water, the Vaults just a smudge between the trees. Someone will be there. The fighters, the gamblers. Place never sleeps.