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Authors: Avery Hastings

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BOOK: Feuds
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Cole met his eyes, careful to keep his face impassive. Abel was always unpredictable. “I didn't lose control,” he lied. Then he couldn't help it; his eyes flicked again to the envelope.

“It's yours,” Parson said, extending it toward Cole.

Cole reached for it a second faster than he should have.

“Wait,” Parson cautioned, lifting the money just outside of his grasp. “I forgot to take my cut. You know, Cole,” he said, counting out his 50 percent of the cash. “If I hadn't spotted you, if I hadn't
sponsored
you, you'd be going nowhere fast.”

Cole looked away. Even though it killed him to admit it, Parson was right. It was Parson who pushed Cole for the games in the first place, who paid his entry fees, who kept his meager salary coming. Parson Abel resumed distributing the stack of dollar bills and handed back the envelope. Cole sifted through his winnings against the dim light of the makeshift office. It would last two weeks, maybe three if he was careful.

“Thank you,” Cole said stiffly as he stood up.

“Wait!” There was an unmistakable command in Parson's tone. “Stop right there.” Cole sat back down, sighing. The simple motion of bending his knees hurt. “I have a business proposal,” Parson said, leaning forward. “Actually, consider it more of a prerequisite. For the final rounds.”

“What is it?” Cole asked.

Parson pulled a small photograph from his wallet and extended it toward Cole, his fingers touching only the edges of it, as if it were something precious he didn't want to spoil. Cole grabbed it carelessly, gripping it between his filthy thumb and forefinger on purpose. Parson Abel offered him a tight smile. Cole had won that round.

“I need you to get close to her,” Parson Abel said. “I'll pay you for it. Ten thousand dollars. That's what you need to get into the finals, as you know. I'm not quite sure how you could come up with that sum of money without my assistance.”

Cole bent over the photo.

“Here.” Parson Abel reached out and brightened the lamp, illuminating the photo. Cole squinted at the face in the picture and felt his heart stop. At first he thought it was Michelle, but then he saw that the features were too regular and perfect, the coloring a shade or two lighter. The image lacked all of Michelle's defiance and rough edges.

She was flawless. Soft brown hair floated to her shoulders, and bright—almost surreal—green eyes shone out at him. Cole ran his fingers over the photograph for a second time, and he could feel the hair beneath his fingers and the softness of her skin. Was that a mole on her chin? Cole touched it lightly. No. Just a speck of dirt.

She was perfect.

A zing of curiosity rushed through his whole body.

“Lifelike, isn't it?” Parson Abel commented, seeing Cole's wonderment.

Cole had never seen anyone so breathtaking. That morning when he'd woken up, he'd been convinced that Michelle was the most beautiful girl in the world. Now he knew he was wrong.

But the girl in the picture wasn't one of his kind.

“A Prior,” he whispered, more to himself than to Parson. “You want me to get close to a Prior.”

“Yes,” Parson said simply. “A Prior.”

“Why me?” Cole looked up.

“Let's just say I've heard you have a way with the ladies.” Parson Abel jerked his head, indicating the hall down which Michelle had retreated. “It's no secret that you're a good-looking guy, Cole. Don't you hear the way people react to you in the fights? No? Of course not.” Parson Abel smiled thinly. “People are
hot
for you out there. Men, women, everyone. That's why I need
you
for this. It can't be anyone else.”

Cole frowned. None of it made sense. “How—?” he started to ask.

“Leave the details to me,” Parson assured him. “And meanwhile, try to keep that pretty face of yours from getting hammered in the cage. Are we on?”

Kissing a Prior was illegal. Even getting close to one could get Cole arrested. “Do I have a choice?” he said.

Parson smiled without humor. “Smart boy,” he told Cole, slapping him on the back.

 

3

DAVIS

“Welcome, Miss Davis.” The automated voice boomed out after Davis swiped her P-card at the front door of Emilie's building. She crossed the lobby and stepped into the elevator, her six-inch heels ticking on the floor.

“Reflection, please,” she commanded the system.

She stretched her legs as she waited for her image to register. Her calves were sore from the extra two hours of practice she'd put in that morning.

The elevator's hexagonal design allowed Davis to check herself out from every angle as it shot to the 102nd floor, where Emilie's party was being held on the building's communal observation deck. Her legs were her best feature, muscled and defined from a lifetime of ballet, but now she tugged on the hem of her dress, worried that it showed too much. The glitter on her shoes drew attention to her slim ankles—but should she have worn heels that were a little lower? Fia had helped her select a navy dress that clung to her frame, and her chestnut hair spread over her shoulders in uniform waves. She thought her hair and makeup looked subtle enough; she just hoped she didn't look like she was trying too hard.

Davis smiled to herself as she remembered the gravity with which Fia had selected her outfit. Her sister's eagerness to please was sweet—she so badly wanted to be grown-up. She'd asked Davis at least six times to take her along, even saying she'd bring a book so she wouldn't bother anyone. Davis had kissed her cheek and promised her, as always,
Won't be long until it's your turn.
She wished she could tell Fia to slow it down a little, enjoy being a kid. There'd been a brief second when, exiting the house, she'd caught a glimpse of Fia leaning up against Terri's shoulder on the sofa, Terri's arm draped around her as they laughed at something on TV—and in that second, Davis wanted to swap places with Fia.

Davis caught her reflection in the mirror—her eyes looked big and sad, and she righted it quickly, taking a breath and squaring her shoulders. She smiled at herself in the mirror, hoping the emotions would follow. She was just a few minutes shy of seeing her best friend in the world and having a night of fun. She needed this—a light, easy night with her friends.

She turned sideways to catch a glimpse of her back. Fia had chosen well, she thought. She narrowed a critical eye, twisting to see better for signs of areas that needed improvement. Davis had always loved the lean sexiness of backs. They reminded her of old pictures of racehorses she had studied in history. The beautiful creatures had gone extinct fifty years before she was born, afflicted by a mysterious virus that some claimed to be a direct result of the last bad Tornado Decade. She always wished she'd been alive to see one, to sit on one's back and fly through the city,
away, far away from here.

She straightened her shoulders. The shoulder blades floated, she knew, attached to the back by muscles and nothing else. This was what made the back so flexible but also so vulnerable. It was up to the ballerina to develop the connections that lay underneath. Discipline and strength were what kept everything from being too soft, from falling apart. She opened her purse and took out a small pill case full of her optimizers, shaking them into her hand. Davis swallowed the first pill, a little blue cylinder that was supposed to develop her spatial perception. Then she swallowed the purple one, the one that allowed her to take in more oxygen with every breath. Last was the pink pill, meant to help with brain cell regeneration. She might actually need a little extra regeneration-oomph that night, depending on how much she decided to drink. Just in case, she also took a yellow pill to help her more efficiently metabolize whatever Emilie had persuaded her parents to buy them.

The counter ticked down from forty-two floors in a hologram above her. Emilie's building was more than a hundred stories tall, but Davis wouldn't trade it for her family's more modest, sixty-story building if someone paid her. Davis's bedroom window overlooked the river, but from Emilie's you could see beyond that to the Slants.

The elevator opened to a blast of cool air from the observation decks. Davis took a quick look around. As usual, Emilie had gone overboard with her party's theme: Black Magic.

An Imp waitress wearing a dark corset, feathered skirt, glittery black heels, and a white beaked mask carried a tray of steaming shots, the dark alcohol within the glasses smoky.

A huge hologram of a pentacle lined one end of the roof, and the balcony was draped with sparkling red lights. Davis stepped around a cluster of velvet wing chairs: they were a nice touch, as were the gilded mirrors and brocade draperies that gave the roof deck the intimate feel it otherwise lacked. Trails of smoke seeped from every surface, obscuring Davis's view but giving the rooftop an eerie effect, as though it was distinct from the building itself. Besides the absinthe, the servers were toting around trays of foie gras and champagne and wearing top hats and black bow ties. Emilie's parents spared no expense for her legendary bashes. Emilie was notorious for using that money for a fully stocked bar, even though most of the guests were still a few months shy of the drinking age—eighteen in Columbus.

Davis brought her necklace to her lips, eager to find Vera. The mouthpiece of her phone was hidden in a gold necklace she wore at all times. It bore her initials—D.M.—but it also masked her DirecTalk. All the girls she knew wore jewelry to hide their DirecTalks, but a lot of them switched it up from time to time. Most girls had a dozen gaudy diamond bracelets by the time they turned sixteen.

But Davis preferred the simple gold chain she'd always had, a copy of one she saw long ago in a picture of her mother. The chain itself was a little flimsy—and Davis knew it was impractical. She ought to have reinforced it with a stronger, hardier one, but every time she thought about it, something held her back. She'd always loved the delicate quality of her mother's original chain, and the way this one mimicked it.

“Connect Vera,”
she said into the device, clutching it in her palm. There was a minute of ringing, and Vera picked up. Davis held the necklace close to her ear, her voice connecting with Vera's somewhere in the sound waves between their accessories.

“Hey girl, you here?”
Davis heard. Vera's DirecTalk never failed to put Davis on edge. DirecTalks were supposed to sound like their owners, but something always rang a little off about them. There was a quality to a human voice that the machines could never capture, in Davis's opinion.

“Yup. I'm standing by the bar on … the east side, I think? Where you at?”

“West corner by the white leather lounges.”

“We're about to play spins, hurry up!”

“Be there in a minute! I'm going to grab a drink first. You want?”

“No way. I've taken like five shots already.”

Davis could tell Vera was tipsy, but she didn't mind. She was so excited to see her friend that she found herself smiling broadly with anticipation. Vera was unpredictable and never boring. Some people were like that—they made every situation better, more vibrant. Davis loved traveling in Vera's orbit. They had so many ridiculous memories together. Like the time Vera had flashed the bartender at one of Davis's dad's political functions for a free bottle of Grey Goose, and they'd downed a third of it in the stairwell behind the stage before pouring the rest out since it was disgusting to drink straight. Or the time she'd snuck Davis out at three in the morning to sing at the top of their lungs to “Fire Walk” on the roof of her building in honor of the new year, even though Davis was grounded. Or the time she'd picked up a kitten on the street on the way home from Oscar's and insisted on taking it back to her place, where she'd promptly forgotten all about it and passed out and woken up the next morning to find that it had shredded half of her wardrobe.

A bunch of top hats soared over the rest of the crowd, tipping her off to the closest bar, which was right on her path toward Vera's side of the party. Davis pushed her way toward the velvet-and-brocade-draped station, sidestepping a crowd of about a dozen partiers who were clustered in the middle of the dance floor.

It wasn't hard to spot Emilie in the center of the crowd. She swayed on top of a mirrored, rotating table just next to the bar, matching the pulsing rhythm of the music. Her eyes were closed, and her drink sloshed a little over its brim as she danced, her silver boa trailing behind her. She moved with the kind of confidence and fluid precision that even copious amounts of alcohol couldn't strip from her. Her tiny body and boyish, muscular frame were perfect for ballet. Those were partly inherited and partly, of course, her parents' engineering.

Davis turned away and motioned to the bartender, trying to get his attention.


I'm
fine,”
someone shouted, bumping into her from behind. Davis whirled around to see a younger girl—Caitlyn, she thought—struggling to stand up straight. Her thin body looked overly gaunt in her tight white dress. Caitlyn's red hair was sweaty and clung to her face. The girl didn't look good; Davis felt her eyes widen in concern. Where were Caitlyn's friends? Why weren't they looking out for her? Davis reached for her arm, drawing her closer toward the bar where she'd be out of the way of the crowd.

“You look like you could use some water,” she said, pouring her a glass from the pitcher at the edge of the bar. Caitlyn's eyes were unfocused; Davis helped her bring the glass to her lips and smiled reassuringly when the girl met her eyes. “Feel better?” she asked. Caitlyn nodded a little, pushing her champagne glass away from her, in the direction of the bar top. Davis grabbed it before it could spill, and pulled up a bar stool with her free hand. “Sit,” she told her.

BOOK: Feuds
3.8Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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