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I make a noise somewhere between a cough and a grunt of agreement. He has an opinion—clearly—but I don’t care to hear it.
The clinical term for my mood lately is “depression.” I’m cognitively aware of it, and yet unable to shake it. When your sister disappears mysteriously without a trace, only to turn up dead a few weeks later, then your mother effectively loses touch with reality, I think some depression is warranted.
“Just tell me one thing,” Bennet says, watching me out of the corner of his eye.
I take another sip of my too-strong drink. “What?”
“Could you get over it if it turned out the Capulets did something to Marcia?”
I frown at him, not sure what he’s getting at. “Why the fuck would I have to get over it?”
I’m not convinced that Etta’s familydiddo something to my sister. If I were, I would have already strangled Tyberius Capulet with my bare hands. Fuck, I might have put aside my issues with the Order and using magic, just to take him on what he considers his own playing field. But ever since Marcia disappeared last summer, that answer hasn’t rung true for me.
Tyberius is a fucking asshole. He’s a year older than me, which makes—made—him four years older than my sister. I beat the shit out of him back in high school for trying to mess around with her, probably just to upset my family. Still, call me crazy, but I don’t think he’d kill her.
It’s hard to know how far the Capulets would go—or how far my family would go in retribution, but for some reason I always got the feeling they have at leastsomehonor around who is and isn’t fair game in a fight. It’s a low fucking bar when I’m talking about a family who cursed my grandfather and murdered my uncle in cold blood, but somehow I don’t think they would target someone too young to pledge to the Order. My sister was nineteen. An adult by normal human standards, but not by the Order’s standards where the age of pledging is twenty-one. Then, there were the other victims. Two sisters from the same family who had absolutely nothing to do with the Capulets.
I’ve just never really thought it was them. Even after Etta didn’t come to the funeral.
Bennet turns back to me, after taking far too long to put two slices of bread in the toaster. He leans forward against the counter, turning serious again. “I swear I’ll drop it after this, but I just want to point out that you’re not exactly unbiased.”
I take another sip of the too-strong drink. “You’re dancing a fine, fucking line, man.”
While anyone else might be nervous, my cousin grins. “Unless you’re suddenly planning to use magic I’m not worried. Hit me, I’ll go a couple rounds with you drunk and half-blind.”
I raise a painful eyebrow. “How valiant of you. They’ll write poems about your courage.”
He raises his eyebrows, but when I refuse to continue or feed into his shit he gives up. “Alright, never mind.”
I knew Bennet always suspected, but he’s never come right out and asked me about Etta before. Not even back then.
I guess I was asking for questions after the scene tonight. We should have left as soon as I saw her through the window, but the moment I realized she was there, I knew I was done for.
The last time I talked to her, she wore a rose-covered sundress, her dark-blonde hair was messy, eyes full of contempt. Tonight, she also wore black. Her floor-length dress stuck to her like a second skin, and my eyes instantly fell on her tits, spilling out of the top before I yanked my gaze back to her face.
She was staring at the stage, eyes glazed over, as if she was only pretending to listen. It was the same expression she wore during every prep school assembly. Every school council meeting and debate club. Every extracurricular event that she excelled at and clearly hated, where she was pretending to listen for the sake of appearances.Of course, I was pretending to listen too. I was only there because of her.
I knew, the moment I saw her, I had to talk to her. I knew, like I know my own name. And later, when I lied to my cousin about where I was going, and followed Etta like a phantom out onto the steps, I knew I was completely fucked.
Because I’ve been in love with Etta Capulet since I was twelve years old, and until this year, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.
* * *
Iwake the day after the auction to the bitter taste of whisky coating my throat, as if bubbling up from the depths of my alcohol-soaked soul. My head pounds, feeling about three times too large for my skull, and the desperate urge to blow my nose wars with the need to sink into the mattress and let it become my tomb.
I open one blurry eye and for a moment, I can’t understand why I’ve woken up at all. My strangely accurate internal clock knows it’s well before 9:00AM. I’d say it’s before 7:00AM if I were a betting man—which, honestly, I am. I close my eyes again and will myself back to sleep, only to hear my phone chime from somewhere to my left.
That must be it. Someone called and woke me up. Someone has a fucking death wish. Groaning, I throw an arm over my face, then wince. Fuck, I forgot about my eye.
I mumble curses under my breath—some half-magical, some simply profane—and lean over in bed and fumble for my phone, my eyes still closed. It vibrates in my hand, the actual vibration louder than the chime. Forcing myself to open my eyes, I instantly regret it as “Father” flashes across the otherwise black screen.
Fucking hell. If I don’t answer it, though, he’ll simply keep calling. Worse, he may just show up. “Yeah?”
There’s a pause, where my father says nothing. I know he’s debating berating me for rudeness, complaining that, “Yeah” is an inappropriate way to answer the phone. Evidently, he decides it’s not worth it. “Morning,” my father says in his clipped, self-important tone. “Did I wake you?”
“Yeah,” I say again.
“Sorry.” He’s not sorry. “Bennet and I are heading down to the club. I’ll pick you both up in an hour.”
