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Doyou really think you’ll ever be more than an asset?
A puppet?
You can’t possibly believe you’ll ever be able to function without someone else pulling your strings.
Stupid girl.
Those were the thoughts that woke me from my sleep in the wee hours of the morning, driving me from the warm comfort of my bed. It was frustrating, really, because sleep was already a scarce resource for me – one I refused to augment with artificial means.
Even if it meant I’d be dragging ass for the rest of the day.
It wasn’t as if I had any place to be anyway.
Phone in hand, I went downstairs, to the workroom that was now pretty empty. After a deep dive of research – the one plus side of my insomnia – I’d gotten rid of all the old expired wax, fragrance oils, old candles and everything else that was no longer usable.
And ordered all new things.
Fresh soy wax flakes and wood wicks that would crackle like a fireplace when burned. Essential fragrance oils, and thermometers and all kinds of other shit.
I kinda needed an obsession – somewhere to focus my energy and attention that was…healthy.And I’d found one.
None of the new things had arrived yet, though.
So, I sat down in the middle of the empty workroom, imagining what it could be, and marveling at the fact that I…. was really about to make fucking candles, of all things.
Chuckling to myself, I picked up the phone and unlocked the screen, dialing my mentor’s number. It was early – or late, depending on how you looked at it – but before she’d sent me here, she’d insisted on something.
If you need me… call me.
So I did.
“Are you okay? Did something happen?” she asked, picking up after the second ring. She sounded breathless, but not inran to the phonekinda way – a suspicion furthered by a male voice mumbling in the background, far too close for him tonotbe intimately near.
“No. Not really. I’m fine,” I quickly shot off. “Is this a bad time? Because—”
“No,” she insisted. “Will you get off me?” she hissed, half-annoyed, half-giggling, in a damn-near identical tone to what Charlie had been using with her husband inPot Liquorlast week.
Thatin lovesound that grated at me.
“Are you sure?” I asked, not wanting to interrupt, and also not wanting to hear her go back and forth with her lover about whether or not he was going to give her any peace.
“Yes,” she answered, clearing her throat. “Cree is going to behave himself—”
“Hey Tempest!” he called in the background, and despite myself, I smiled.
He was cool.
Andfine.
“Tell him I said hello,” I told Alicia, and she delivered the message before demanding that hereally didleave her alone, this time.
He promised.
And then he made her giggle again.
Giggle.
As if she wasn’t one of the deadliestRosestheGardenhad ever seen, damn near a legend before she left to re-integrate into “normal” society. We were onlyRosesat the same time for the briefest of periods, but I, like the other girls, idolized her.
