Kill Me Softly (9 page)

“Didn't you guys want to be alone?” Mira asked, watching Viv cozy up to Henley, totally confused by their behavior today versus yesterday.

“Um, no.” Viv laughed, then started down the steps to the beach. “Come on,” she called, waving at a red beach umbrella stuck in the sand. “That's my spot.”

Viv ran ahead, her ghost-pale skin almost as white as her bikini, while Mira kept pace with Henley. She hooked her fingers inside the heels of her silver flats and carried them, letting her toes sift through the hot sand.

“So are you the gardener or her boyfriend?” she asked.

Henley glared at her. “You did not just ask me that.”

“What? Am I supposed to just know?”

“It's complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

Henley sighed roughly, the ice and drinks rumbling in the cooler as he shifted his weight. “You're an outsider. You wouldn't understand. So I'm not going to bother telling you.”

“If
you
don't tell me,” she said, “I'll ask Viv.”

Viv was standing under her umbrella, the wind rippling through her red sarong as she peeled it off and flung it aside, like an unwary matador taunting a bull. Henley's face got tight as he watched her; there was an almost painful attraction there.

“I'm just her toy,” he said finally. “She treats me like shit and then on off days when she's bored, I'm worth knowing. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Sorry,” Mira said. “I just couldn't figure you guys out….”

Henley continued across the sand, dropped the cooler next to Viv, and sat down like the seat he'd picked was temporary. Like he'd be ordered away soon enough.

He'd claimed Mira couldn't understand what was between him and Viv because she was an outsider. And she
didn't
understand—but did that mean there was some secret detail that made their relationship make sense? Something an insider would know?

They'd hinted at curses—and she wanted to know what they were. Was it a curse if bad things happened to you? If all your relationships were broken? If
you
were broken?

Mira had lost her parents to fire. She'd been born with a hideous mark on her back. She was saddled with a sorrow that never grew lighter, and now, with a realization:

Maybe she was cursed, too.

The sun blazed down, pale and furious. Viv was curled up on a blanket under her umbrella, every inch of her drawn into the shade. Henley crouched a few feet away, shooing away the seabirds that were desperate to get close to Viv.

Mira lay just beyond the umbrella's reach, rolling a wet plastic Coke bottle across her stomach to cool off. Pink light burned through her eyelids. She wasn't sure how long she wanted to stay, but Viv was quiet, peaceful now, and the crash of waves was a good soundtrack for thinking.

What kind of curse did they all have? And was there something wrong with Felix, too?

So far the most obvious curse was Jewel's: the wet flowers that rose from her throat, blooming in her waiting handkerchief like the blood of a consumption victim.

There was the odd allure Freddie and Viv held for animals. And Viv had said something about
breaking
Rafe's curse; Layla had threatened to shoot Rafe on his “transformation day”. …

Blue was just obnoxious.

She wasn't sure that added up to anything.

But Viv seemed more open than the others; maybe Mira could get it out of her.

“Your house is beautiful,” Mira said, to get her going.

“It's a beautiful prison,” Viv said. “That's all. Like the rest of my life.”

“Why a prison?”

Viv rolled over to squint at Mira. “Regina. My stepmother. She's obsessed with her looks—and obsessed with mine. She hates me.”

“She probably doesn't
hate
you,” Mira said.

Viv laughed. “Believe me—she does. She'll say stuff like
I used to have a body like that
or
I used to have skin like that
. It's like living in a cage, being scrutinized all the time. I used to feel guilty, like it was my fault she wasn't happy; now I just hate her. But I'm stuck with her every day, living way out there. My dad spends all his time on the green, avoiding us.”

Viv glanced at her seabird-chasing boy toy. “And then there's Henley. But he's doomed.”

“Doomed?”

Viv sighed, and propped her head on her hand. “We're all doomed here. You picked a crappy place to go on vacation, Mira. You don't like Blue, do you?”

“No,” Mira said, caught off guard by the change of subject.

“I was worried he was doing his knight-in-tarnished-armor thing and it was winning you over.”

“No, he's just irritating. I don't want to be around him any more than I have to be.”

“Okay, good,” Viv said, lying back down.

Mira draped a thick wave of her hair over her face, like it was a shield from the sun. It smelled like Felix's shampoo.
Felix.
She'd see him later and Blue would be a bad memory.

“How are you doomed?” she asked after a moment, hoping Viv wasn't tired of her questions. But Viv was on a roll.

“You know when you go to a carnival, and you get to drive an old-fashioned Model T car, but there's a metal track between the wheels, keeping you on course? So you get the impression that you're driving, but if you veer too far in either direction, the track jerks you back into place?”

“I think so….”

“Our lives are like that. It feels like we can do what we want—but if we venture in a new direction, fate pulls us back. We can rebel, but we all know we'll fail. Which doesn't stop us from trying, I guess. Like Blue.”

“How does Blue—?”

“Wait,” Viv said, sitting up. She shaded her eyes with her hand and peered out at the water—and at a group of girls, all clamoring for someone's attention. Someone with Freddie's honey-colored head.

“I thought I sensed a flock of girls,” Viv said. “Knight's here; I bet that means Blue's here, too. Looks like your sanctuary may be compromised.”

“Great,” Mira muttered. That meant now would be an ideal time to go—but she couldn't leave right when she was making headway with Viv.

Henley started back toward them, his warding job over now that the seabirds were fighting the girls for Freddie's attention. He ducked under the umbrella, hesitantly, as though waiting for permission and expecting it to be denied.

But Viv was in an affectionate mood. She extended her leg and touched her toes to his chest; slid her foot flirtatiously up and down. “Henley, would you be a sweetheart and get my camera out of the car?”

Henley nodded, transfixed.

“Thank you.” Viv gave him a sweet smile and he slowly got to his feet, like someone waking from a dream.

“It's too hard to gossip with boys around,” Viv said, once Henley had staggered away. “Now, where were we?”

“You were talking about being doomed. And how it's futile to try to escape fate. You said that hasn't stopped Blue. What did you mean by that?”

“Oh. Just that Blue still wants to believe his fate is in his own hands. But it's only a matter of time before he succumbs.”

“Succumbs to what?” Mira asked.

“Instinct,” Viv said, as if that was sufficient explanation. “I'm still waiting for things to happen to me, personally. It's embarrassing; I feel like such a late bloomer. I had two significant birthdays go by, and yet—
nothing
. Sometimes I get so fed up and depressed about it that I feel like choking myself just to set things in motion.”

“Uh, you—what?”

Viv laughed uneasily. “Uh, I'm probably confusing you….”

“Yes. But—feel free to explain.”

“It's … hard to understand if you're not from here.”

That again.
Mira was about to argue when a rain of cold water droplets spattered her stomach, jolting her upright. It didn't take long to see where the “rain” had come from.

Blue was standing over her, shaking out his wet hair like an annoying blue dog. Beads of water clung to the muscle on his chest. He was wiry, not buff like Henley, but his body made up for size with definition. Nothing could make up for his personality.

“Stop dripping on me,” Mira snapped.

Blue pushed his hand through his hair, flicking more water at her. “Move if you don't like it.”

“If I move, it will be to assault you. I don't want to humiliate you in front of Viv.”

“So considerate.” He sat down, the sand sticking to his skin like powdered sugar, then reached across her to grab a Coke out of the cooler—dripping on her again. He grinned as she glared at him.

“I'm going to find Henley,” Viv announced, tying her sarong around her waist and crawling out from under the umbrella. “He's either taking a smoke break or using my camera to photograph skanks on the boardwalk. Either way, he's in trouble. Remember what I said, Mira. About …” She jerked her head at Blue.

Mira nodded. Blue squinted after Viv as she left.

“What was that?”

“She said before that she's glad I don't like you. Maybe she was reminding me to make sure it stays that way—but that's one reminder I don't need.”

“Good.” He drank half the bottle of Coke, then capped it and lobbed it back into the watery slush in the cooler. The water splashed her leg, and she rubbed it away.

“You have gorgeous legs,” Blue said.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you being nice, or sleazy? Because I doubt that's a compliment, coming from you.”

“Always assume the worst.”

“I can't wait until I never have to see you again,” she muttered.

She rolled over onto her stomach, tugged a cheap paperback out of her purse, and let her hair curtain her face so she could read. She'd almost succeeded in ignoring him when she felt his fingertip skim the back of her calf, from the hollow of her knee to her ankle. She flipped over and hurled her book at him, the open pages slapping his face.

“
Don't
touch me!” she yelled. She could still feel the line he'd traced on the back of her calf, cool against her skin, like the seam of a crooked stocking.

Blue shrugged, shameless. “I wanted to see if it felt as nice as it looked.”

“It won't feel as nice when I kick the crap out of you.”

Blue seemed to consider this. Then: “Are you a dancer?”

“Yes,” she said through clenched teeth.

“I thought so. You couldn't be that sexy naturally. I figured you had to work for it.”

She was working up a response—something that was more than an accumulation of curse words—when she noticed Freddie striding up the beach. He was carrying something in his cupped hands, water dribbling down between them, and he kept stopping and turning back to respond to his admir-ers—girls who trailed after him in a procession of sun-kissed cheeks and tiny bikinis.

When he reached them, he dropped to his knees in front of Mira.

“Mira, have you ever seen a starfish? I brought one so I could show you.”

She glanced quickly at the purple starfish splayed across Freddie's hands, then back at Blue. He was like a thorn under her skin, constantly irritating her. She couldn't have a nice, normal conversation with Freddie when she felt like she was about to explode. “Why are you such an asshole?”

“It's a survival skill,” Blue said.
“Really? How does being a jerk give you an edge?”
“It gives
you
an edge.”
“Of course it does,” she said, fed up.
“I think you're obsessed with me,” Blue said. “But that's

okay. I'm not going to judge you for it.” Then he got up before she could hit him. Sand speckled his legs and his swim trunks. The sun had wicked the water from his skin; a few droplets dribbled down from his hair.

Blue turned, and Mira sucked down a bubble of air with her Coke and almost choked—because smack in the center of his lower back, crowning the waistband of his swim trunks, was a fist-size birthmark: wine red like a burn, shiny-smooth like a scar.

Like hers—only it was shaped like a heart. A perfect, dark heart. “What?” Blue said, turning again. “You're sad that I'm leaving?” “What—what is that?” she asked, pressing her fist to her

chest, coughing like she'd nearly drowned. “What is what?” he said. “That mark. On your back.” Blue shrugged. “Nothing.” She didn't believe him. That mark
meant
something. “Don't worry, it's not contagious,” Blue said, before he ran

down to the water. The sea ate him up in little bites, first his legs and then his waist and then his chest, until he disappeared beneath the waves. The sun glittered on the water and it was almost blinding; she couldn't watch anymore.

“Sorry about that,” she said to Freddie. He was still kneeling beside her, dejected but patient—or maybe just quiet.

The starfish looked limp in his cupped hands.

“I'm going to put this back,” he said. “Okay?”

Tentatively, Mira touched the starfish and then withdrew. She felt bad for ignoring him. “Thanks for showing me. I
do
think it's cool. I was just—mad before. I don't know why it seems like it's his goal to piss me off. I'd rather he just pick one: be nice, or leave me alone.”

Freddie nodded. “Well … that would be better. But he doesn't have the self-control for that, I don't think. He just likes you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Um, have you been paying attention
at all
?”

“I didn't say he
wants
to like you. Just that he does. Maybe because you act like you don't like him, so he feels a little safer.”

“Freddie, that doesn't make sense.”

Freddie shrugged. “Blue has, um, weird issues with girls.”