I grabbed my sketchbook and stalked away from them and their stupid fucking game. I had somewhere else to be tonight anyway.
Tatum looked at me with wide eyes as I closed in on her, but I only spared her a glance long enough to glower at her before striding past and heading into my room, throwing the door closed behind me with a bang.
It was petulant and kinda pointless but I’d been in a foul mood for weeks now and the last thing I needed was my brothers poking fun at my wounds.
I gripped the edge of my mattress and shoved the sketchbook beneath it with the others. It was a habit I’d gotten into as a child. One time when I was a kid, I’d told my family I wanted to be an artist at this big BBQ my parents were hosting. My grandpa had choked on his whiskey, my uncles had sneered in disgust and my cousins had howled with laughter before my ma told them all I was joking. Later that night she’d thrown my sketches in the trash and told me if I wanted to grow up to be an artist then I could learn to use the walls as my canvas and use blood to paint them. The family trade was the only one I’d be entering and I’d agreed because there was no point in arguing.
Now I guessed I didn’t actually have to hide them. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted. But I kinda liked knowing I was sleeping on top of a hoard of my deepest thoughts and desires. Even when one of them was a grade A bitch who thought I was worse than the shit on her shoe.
I yanked my shirt off with one hand and dropped my pants before heading into the bathroom for a shower.
I scrubbed the charcoal from my hands and washed my hair before getting out and tying it again.
I was still on the hunt for whoever had pulled that corn syrup and tampon prank on us. It had taken me ages to scrub that shit out of my hair and I was happily using the existence of that video to beat the shit out of anyone caught with a copy of it.
If I was being totally honest, I was pretty sure there was only one girl in the school with the balls to do that to us, but I was happy to pretend that wasn’t the case while I used the excuse to terrorise people.
And I didn’t want to be thinking about her anyway.
I had plans tonight. Plans that involved getting wasted on Jack Daniels, beating the shit out of a bunch of assholes and forgetting all about Tatum fucking Rivers.
I dressed in a pair of black jeans and a white wifebeater then sat alone in my room, vaguely doing a bit of math homework as I waited out the evening and avoided the trap waiting for me in the front room. I didn’t really give a fuck about her seeing the sketch, I just didn’t want her thinking that meant I gave a shit about her. I didn’t want her assuming more crap about me. Like she knew every fucking thought in my head with a single cursory glance.
When I heard her laying the dinner out on the table, I headed back out of the room, trying to ignore the fact that I was acting like a moody little bitch. I’d be fine after tonight though. I just needed the rush of the fight to bring me back to myself. To make me get over my shit. It wasn’t like her words had been some great shock to me anyway. It was just unpleasant to hear someone throw your own insecurities in your face.
The smell of some fancy Italian crap filled the room and I dropped into my chair as Tatum began passing out plates. Mine last. Obviously. I grunted a thanks at her because my ma might have been a ruthless bitch who was just as deep into the family business as my uncles, but she’d also taught me to thank someone when they fed you. Under threat of a lashing, sure. But the sentiment of respect was there and it was ingrained deeply enough that not doing it made me uncomfortable. So after a few days of silently taking food from her without a word, it had bothered me enough that I’d started grunting out thanks for it instead. Not that Tatum seemed to have noticed. Her opinion of me at this point was clearly so low that it couldn’t exactly get any lower anyway.
I started shovelling food into my mouth with my fork, long lines of tagliatelle hanging from my lips as I chewed and making Saint curse me. I smirked at him as cream sauce ran over my chin and refused to admit how good the food tasted as I demolished it.
One meal and I was out of here for the night. Tatum was sleeping in with me again later, but that made no difference because as usual, I wouldn’t be there. The couch would suit me just fine. Especially with a nice numbing layer of alcohol to knock me out and a splattering of someone else’s blood on my skin to give me peaceful dreams.
“Father says there’s been an interesting development with the vaccine for the Hades Virus,” Saint announced, taking a sip of his juice as he waited for all of us to look his way.
“Oh yeah?” I asked. A vaccine was exactly what I needed. It would cut my tethers to this place and set me free to ride out and fuck people up in some real fights again. Maybe I’d find myself a nice, dirty Murkwell girl to fuck too and then I could forget all about Tatum Rivers and her platinum pussy which would
