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Exie looked up when I spoke, shaken frohter spark in
her deep blue eyes, a glisten of miniscule hope that hadn’t been there before "Sloane, what if we don’t?" she squealed and pulledShe bounced up and down and then pulled Sloane into our circle of affection like we had already conquered this life and et caught up in her excite after an endlessly frozen winter There was no reason for it, no explanation for why this time my voice sounded confident and sure But there it was all the same and the three of us were suddenly infected with as much hope as ere once diseased with despair
Chapter Thirteen
"Alright ladies, it’s time to make an appearance," Sloane ad
Exie and I roans of frustration, but let Sloane lead the way out her door and down the staircase to the ht, less than fifty But each rooo to suffocate an innocent bystander
Caterers floated fro trays of bite-sized canapés or flutes of chah the air barely heard over the steady conversation Men had joined the ranks of women since I was upstairs, dates, husbands, lovers, Nix’s apprentices… There were not as many of them as there oe
We waved and smiled at everyone important, at everyone ere supposed to pay notice to But each of us avoided Nix’s authoritative eye and the expectation-filled expressions of our mothers Exie and Sloane were as unco with these people and we shared a h constituted a legiti kind of despair I noticed Anaxandra and Eveleenvodkacurrent events
Another one bites the dust
And another one, and another one, and another one bites the dust
We ducked into the den toward the back of the house The room was unoccupied, but we kneould be Personal offices are always off lis, hence the reason we use them as our safe haven Technically ere still apart of the party
We squished together on a rich, deep chocolate suede sofa surrounded by ceiling to floor bookshelves stacked with volumes of intellectual books that had probably never been opened and began our ritual ofin our brief sprint from the bottom of the staircase to this room We pulled our cell phones out andThis was procedure for us, years of routine and tradition
"So did that guy ever work out for you?" Sloane asked with a sly lift of her eyebrow
"Guy?" I clarified A surge of irrational panic slid throughe
"That one from your first day back? The one that offered you a ride?" Sloane clarified as if I was especially slow tonight
"Oh, right Yes, actually We have a date to…" I trailed off and then felt the need to defend Chase’s choice of first date "He asked ht first, but obviously I had other plans So we decided to do this thing toht because he already told his friend he would be there," I rambled nervously "His name is Chase" For a moment I assumed she meant Ryder, which sent off all kinds of panic alarms in my head I realized then that I held a fierce desire to protect Ryder from this life, fro from I didn’t even really like Ryder He washad become far too predictable But maybe that hy I wanted to protect him Maybe because he was all but invincible to my curse, I wanted to protect him from every potential female that could hurt him
Which was kind ofthe victim
It was all the other boys that lay in the wake of my war path that I should really be concerned about
Except I tried that once… I tried that with Sas did not end well
"I re her second eyebrow to join the first "But a house party? Seriously? I thought I raised you better than that" She threw
"Well, if itevent planned but when I turned hi It should be fun The guy who’s throwing it is super sweet and funny And Chase’s whole circle of friends will be there, so…" I trailed off not really knohere I was going with that or why I was defending the night at all It was a party, so what? We went to parties all the time
"Aw, I think our little Ivy is nervous," Exie elbowed me in the ribs fro a little bit, sweets Are you scared to go to the party?"
I thought about that for a minute and decided I was h school event since the accident last spring I had plenty of reasons to be nervous but I was raised to believe that kind of anxiety was a weakness