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“Four.” I answered immediately. “She’s really good. Doesn’t cry or make a noise - I’ll look after her the whole time, I swear.”
Finally, the woman smiled, nodding once.
“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll be right back - I just need to go inside and fetch Gemma.”
I flew over the broken step and ran into the house to scoop Gemma out of bed. A fresh, hot meal. It was exactly what we needed.
I blinked up at the sky. Were the stars brighter in the memories of my childhood because we lived in backwoods Alabama - away from all the city lights and metropolitan buzz, or was it simply the way my memory had warped it all, polishing a shitty memory and replacing it with something I should miss. That was the crux of nostalgia.
As an adult, I understood that my mother was never simply after ‘medicine’ - she was an addict who neglected her kids. The Society had made sure that I understood what a shitty family I came from, ensuring I was grateful for how they hadsavedboth Gemma and I. For a while, I had even believed them.
Still, I could appreciate the quiet and solitude up here - even if the stars didn’t shine quite as brightly as ten-year-old me remembered.
I exhaled loudly, the sound vibrating through my chest, and my exhale was answered by a loud sigh - or was it a gasp?
My gaze scanned the rooftop, looking for any sign of danger. Because a sound like that didn’t belong up here - not in the solitude of the night. My breathing grew erratic, and my palms were sweaty as my heart raced with the demand to find the threat and eliminate it. My mind raced in a different direction, arguing that I had probably interrupted two people who had slipped away to fuck.
It was that thought that would be my downfall because I was so busy looking for two half naked fucks that I almost missed her.
Her. As inoneperson.Singular.
She sat cross-legged on the concrete floor with a book balanced in her lap. Her hair was down, flowing around her shoulders in pretty waves, her brown eyes staring up at me in fright, as ifIwere the intruder.
Trust a Society bitch to assume this space ishers. It was mine before she got here and it'll be mine long after she leaves. Because she will leave here - theyalwaysdo.
"I can… I can leave." She stutters the words out, meek and mild, as though she were a little sparrow, usurped by some bigger, uglier bird.
I watch her, allowing the silence to stretch between us. Once The Society had me in their grip, I fell into the use of silence far more than I had as a child. Most people didn't like silence - they chose to chatter in order to fill what they perceived as awkwardness. And in their madness to execute their manners, they often shared a lot of shit that they weren't supposed to.
But the girl before me didn't speak, instead, she cocked her head to the side as if she were studying me. And that action alone made me want to stepcloser- to take a goodlookat her - because, right now, she was looking at me as if I were more than simply a Society slave - she was looking at me as if I were apuzzle.
My feet shuffled forward of their own accord, and I took her - and her textbook - in.
She was pretty. Not overly done up. Instead, she had that kind of natural beauty that made you want to roll over on a Sunday morning and find her relaxed and sated in your bed.
Still, I inched closer, examining her, and she simply stared straight back.
And that's when it struck me.
Ihadseen her before - outside by the pool. She wasPaul'sgirl. And, somehow, knowing that she belonged tohim, made me want to fuck with her just a little bit.
Because no matter what he said, he was stringing Holly along, and I didn't want to be the one to pick up the pieces.
Instead of answering her, I seated myself beside her and waited…
Waited for her to fill the silence - waited for the incessant chattering - waited for secrets to be spilled.
But the girl simply looked at me, judging my worth, before finally tearing her gaze away, returning to the book positioned in her lap.
The very act of her turning away from me - of weighing me and finding me wanting, made me want to slam her goddamn book shut. Instead, I simply sat there in silence, digging out my box of smokes. A better person might have felt bad for lighting up in such close proximity to someone else, but I was not that person.
She didn't flinch - didn't seem to care that I was pulling on my cigarette beside her. Instead, she was content to read her textbook. Because now that I was next to her, I saw the book for exactly what it was - a psych textbook. It was something they gave to first year college students. And why the fuck was she reading that bullshit on the rooftop on a Friday night?
Fucking odd.
"What's your name?" I asked the question as I exhaled a cloud of smoke, and she was silent for so long that I was almost certain she wasn't going to answer.
"Madilyn," she sighed, turning the page without looking up.
