I give Adelaide a look and she only winks at me in return.
Octavia slowly looks between me and her sister.
“Did a certain cartel bitch just speak to me?”
Adelaide doesn’t look remotely bothered by the insult.
“I might be a bitch, but in this case is necessary,” she replies sarcastically, and something about the way she says it makes me think the meaning behind it runs deeper than I realise.
Octavia laughs without humour.
“Careful, Adelaide. One day I’m really going to lose my patience, and my blade might actually find an artery.”
That finally wipes the amusement from Adelaide’s face.
The two of them stare at each other without backing down, the tension between them becomes so heavy it makes me uneasy.
Thankfully, we’re saved when the food arrives at the table, and I breathe a little easier.
I have no idea what happened between those two, and judging by the tension between them, I highly doubt either of them plans to explain it anytime soon.
So instead, I pick up my spoon and start absentmindedly playing with it.
It’s strange to think that only two weeks before the Ferrum Syndicate party in August, all of us were perfectly fine.
We laughed together, and existed around each other without this constant tension in the air.
Now Octavia’s hostility towards Adelaide is obvious.
And Adelaide, for reasons I still don’t understand, seems almost determined to provoke her whenever she gets the chance.
And the more I watch them, the more certain I become that this didn’t appear out of nowhere.
Octavia doesn’t turn on people without reason.
She may be intense—completely unhinged on occasion—but she is also fiercely loyal. Protective in a way that can turn violent when it comes to the people she considers hers.
Her sister.
Us.
If you are on Octavia’s good side, there is probably no safer place to stand.
But if you are not…
Which is exactly why I can’t stop thinking Adelaide must have done something extremely serious to destroy whatever existed between them before.
But I’ve also caught Adelaide looking almost guilty more than once.
Small flashes of regret cross her face sometimes before disappearing so quickly I almost think I imagined them.
And maybe, like the rest of us, she is carrying problems none of us know anything about.
Being the future cartel queen cannot exactly come without pressure. If anything, I imagine it crushes her more than she lets anyone see.
I just don’t understand why she refuses to talk to us about any of it.
We’re supposed to be friends.
