Southern Charmed (Hell's Belles Trilogy Book 2)

by Alison Claire

  She lifted another covered dish that held a basket of rolls and a pat of butter.

  I shrugged. “I want to see Virginia.”

  I also really wanted to eat.

  Despite my frustrations, I did sense that Fiona was good and that she was genuinely telling me the truth, or what she believed was the truth. She was such a warm presence. Not someone you could really be mad at. She was just this tiny little woman. Adorable.

  Fiona nodded. “Of course. That’s actually exactly what will happen. Miss Embers is on her way this very moment. She needed to run an errand and then she’ll be right back. I’ll leave you to eat in peace.”

  With that she scurried away, like a sweet little mouse.

  And I was alone again.

  I filled my belly until I thought I might burst, but it was the best Brunswick stew I’d ever had, and the rolls had been perfect little carb clouds. I was grateful to be fed, even if I was being held against my will.

  I laid back down on the bed in what I was sure were Egyptian cotton sheets, with who knows what thread count. Hopefully Virginia would be here before I fell back asleep. And maybe once she was back in, I could make an escape.

  But she could read my thoughts. So I wasn’t sure how I’d deal with that.

  That was the part that still befuddled me. How had she been in my head? Or had I’d imagined it? How had she knocked me out? She hadn’t had anything with her, not even a handbag.

  These questions floated through my head when I heard the clicking of heels coming up what I assumed were the stairs to this home.

  I sat up, wiping the slobber off my cheek. I’d almost been completely asleep.

  The door creaked back open and sure enough, there she was.

  “Briar,” she said, her tone apologetic. “I hate that it had to be this way. I certainly don’t want you to feel kidnapped or in distress. Once we explain what’s happening, you’ll understand. I hope.”

  “You haven’t given me a lot of choices,” I said, my eyes flickering over to the door. I could make a run for it…

  “It’s really useless to make a run for it,” she replied. She was clearly in my head again.

  I stood up, angry. “Get out of my head! How are you doing that?”

  “How do you do what you do?” Virginia asked.

  I froze for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

  Virginia moved toward me and I sat back down on the bed. She joined me.

  “How did you get out of the shed, Briar?” Virginia asked. “How did you fix your friend Gina? How did you survive in the home? That’s what allows me to read your thoughts. And what’s brought me back to you.”

  I was shaking.

  Only Gabriel and Gina knew about the weird thing I was capable of. Whatever it was. I hadn’t even figured it out myself. How did she know about the shed? Even I didn’t know for sure if I had been the cause of what happened to Marla Muchow that day.

  “Deep down,” Virginia said. “You knew. You know.”

  “Get out of my head!” I stood again and made a run down the stairs. I’d expected Virginia to chase me or stop me somehow.

  It’s hard to escape a strange house. The staircase was winding and long. When I got to the bottom, I saw what I believed was the front entrance. I flung the door open and sprinted through–

  And found myself back in the bedroom with Virginia.

  “What the hell?” I said, panting. “How…”

  Virginia sighed. “Again. Do not expend your energy. I don’t mean to be sinister here, it’s not my purpose. You are not being imprisoned, you’re being held for your safety and for every other Belle. We can’t lose any of you. Not now.”

  I ran my hands through what was now sweaty hair.

  This was insane. I actually felt like a crazy person. I was in a house of horrors.

  “It’s hardly a house of horrors,” Virginia replied. I screamed.

  “Can you please somehow stop that?” I shook my head. “It doesn’t seem fair that you can hold that over me. You’ve gotten your way, I’m here. It’s like you want to prove you can do it. I get it. You can read my mind. Now… stop. Please?”

  Virginia nodded. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

  She stood up and walked toward the window, staring out at the street below. She didn’t say anything for a very long time. It was awkward being surrounded by her silence. When she finally spoke, her tone was more serious.

  “I know you don’t trust me yet,” she said. “I understand that. I just want you to know, you’re not in this alone anymore, Briar. You’ve been alone for so long, which means your default condition is to assume the world is against you. It’s how you’ve survived.”

  I bit my bottom lip to keep it from quivering.

  “You have no idea,” I said.

  She looked back at me now and I could see her eyes were wet.

  “I wish more than anything…” she started, but then stopped.

  “What?” I asked.

  It was like she’d been shaken out of a trance because suddenly she was her aloof and cooler self again. “I have someone I’d like you to meet. Actually, two someone’s if Josephine has made it back from Frogmore.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, Virginia. It’s become clear to me I have no choices here.”

  Virginia gave me a thin smile. “Choices are overrated.”

  Chapter 6

  I followed Virginia out of the room and down the grand staircase to the foyer. Much like the bedroom, it was modern and chic. It had an open layout and gorgeous furniture; like something out of Town and Country magazine.

  “Is that music playing?” I asked. A faint melody was coming from a hidden sound system.

  Virginia smiled. “Vivaldi. It soothes us.”

  Rich people, I thought. Always needing to be soothed and comforted.

  I wandered toward the bookshelves that lined the walls of the living room. I was reading the spines when I heard the front door open.

  “I was wondering when you’d be here,” Virginia said.

  I turned around and my jaw almost dropped to the floor.

  There stood the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. And that’s saying something in Charleston, where beauty is ubiquitous. There’s no shortage of prettiness in the South.

  But she was different.

  Her beauty was otherworldly. She was a little above average in height, with long, lean, tanned legs. She was one of those rare women who was thin yet also curvy, and it didn’t appear to be from any sort of plastic surgery.

  She had long, dark hair that cascaded down her bare shoulders. She was in a sundress and strappy heels. Everything about her was exquisite and perfect and posh, and I was completely mesmerized by her.

  “Briar,” I heard Virginia’s voice. It sounded far away. I shook myself out of my daze and focused again.

  “Yes?” I said, trying to sound indifferent.

  “This is Calista,” she said. The supermodel girl looked at me with a cool stare. Her eyes were sapphire and her face was as perfect as everything else.

  Not that I was ugly, but I couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like to be as stunning as Calista was. There was such power in it. I was immediately intimidated by her presence.

  “Hi,” I said. She narrowed her eyes at me.

  “What do you know? Anything yet?” she asked. Her voice didn’t completely match her looks. I’d expected something high pitched, maybe with vocal fry. She sounded older than she was. Her voice was commanding and strong.

  “She just got here,” Virginia interjected. “She doesn’t know anything yet.”

  “What am I supposed to know?” I asked, walking toward them.

  Before either of them could reply, the door opened again and another young woman walked in.

  This one was pretty, but not like Calista. She was strawberry blonde and very girl-next-door-esque.

  But she looked about as sad as anyone I had ever seen— like someone had just run over her puppy. I i
mmediately felt sad too and I didn’t even know the girl.

  “And this is Josephine,” Virginia said. “Darling, what’s wrong?”

  Josephine shook her head. “You know what’s wrong.” She looked up and made eye contact with me. “Oh. I didn’t realize she was here already.”

  “Do we know each other?” I asked, but no one answered. They were focused on Josephine.

  “Seriously though, what’s wrong?” Calista asked. Despite her chilly exterior, I could tell she cared about this Josephine girl.

  “Palmer,” she replied, and her voice started to shake. “I can’t see him…”

  “Of course you can,” Virginia said, wrapping her arms around the despondent girl. “Just not for a little while. It’s to keep him safe. We can’t let anyone know he was involved in saving Emma.”

  My head was spinning now. I had no idea what was going on.

  It made me feel like maybe they had the wrong person. I mean, what could they possibly need from me? Or what did I need to be protected from?

  Virginia had sensed my apprehension; or was possibly reading my mind again.

  “Palmer is Josephine’s boyfriend,” Virginia stated. “Something I just found out recently. It had been kept hidden from me, since I evidently wouldn’t have approved.” Virginia looked at Calista and Josephine sternly. “But he’s from a good family, and he’s done a huge favor for one of us, and for that I will be forever indebted to him.”

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  Josephine started to cry.

  “I’ll take her upstairs,” Calista said. “We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Virginia nodded and the two girls walked up the grand staircase, Josephine’s cries fading as they got farther away from us.

  “Did you watch the news this morning?” Virginia asked, as she walked toward the kitchen. There was a large marble island in the middle of it with a bowl of assorted fruit. I thought she was going to pick a piece of it up, but instead she walked over to the enormous refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water.

  “Want one?” She handed it to me as she said it, clearly knowing the answer already. I accepted it.

  “Yes, I watched the news. At work,” I said. “Why?”

  “There was a girl who jumped from the bridge,” Virginia slowly began. “Her name is Emma Ayers. She was made to jump by the Sirens, who were hired by a man named Ezekiel Walker. When she jumped, Palmer swam to her and saved her life. He also hid her, so the people who did that to her wouldn’t know if she was dead or alive.”

  When I’m anxious, I tend to bite the insides of my cheeks. It’s an awful habit that began when I was a kid. And right now I was chewing the hell out of them.

  “What are Sirens?” I asked. “Not like the ones from stories? The ones that would lure sailors to their deaths?”

  I remembered reading about them in The Odyssey back in sophomore English class. But that had been fiction. A myth.

  Sirens weren’t real.

  Virginia nodded. “Those are the exact ones. We had a shaky truce with them and they were supposed to stay away from Charleston Harbor. But clearly something persuaded them to come back. They entranced Emma and convinced her to jump off the bridge.”

  I shook my head.

  “But she’d never survive,” I said, running my hand over the marble of the counter. It was cool to the touch. “The Ravenel is something like 200 feet over the river. Even if Palmer had reached her… which I am not sure how that would have been possible… she’d be gone. People don’t survive those kinds of jumps.”

  “They don’t,” Virginia agreed. “It’s why we were terrified for our Emma. But she did survive, thanks to Palmer. And she’s recovering now. We will see her soon.”

  I paused.

  “How could she have possibly survived?” I asked. I remembered how miserable I’d been after seeing the news with Mara that morning. The story of the jumper had really had an impact on me. I figured it had to be because it was such a tragic story and yet the news was treating it like entertainment. And then that strange dream I’d had…

  But maybe there was more to it.

  “Who is Emma?” I finally asked. “You said our Emma. Why is she yours?”

  “She’s more yours than anyone else’s,” Virginia replied. “Emma Ayers is your twin sister.”

  Chapter 7

  I don’t remember what happened, but the next thing I knew I was on the kitchen floor and my opened water bottle was spilling out next to me.

  Emma Ayers is your twin sister.

  “Briar,” Virginia was kneeling next to me now, her legs folded under her. Her hand was in my hair and the other was rubbing my back in small circles. “Are you okay?”

  My cheeks felt hot. I didn’t know how to answer that question.

  In the course of a day, I’d learned a lot about myself. But nothing beat this.

  I had lived my life alone. I’d felt like nothing could connect with me, but I had to admit I’d always felt like a piece was missing from my story. I had assumed it was my lack of parents.

  I’d never even considered that I might have siblings. And certainly not a twin.

  “It’s a lot to take in,” I finally said.

  “Of course it is,” Virginia replied. “And you weren’t supposed to find out in such a clumsy way, but recent events have sped up the timeline a bit.”

  “When exactly would I have found out?” I asked. “Why didn’t I find out long ago? Why wasn’t she at the home with me?”

  Virginia looked me in the eyes. “To have you together would have put you both in serious danger. The President and Vice-President never travel in the same vehicle or plane for the same reason. We had to keep you separate. They were looking for twins.”

  “You keep saying we and they. Who are you referring to?”

  “That answer is so big and so complicated,” Virginia said, standing back up. She held her hand out to me. “If we’re going there… I’m going to need a drink. A strong one.”

  A half-hour later, I was seated on a plush couch in a sitting room toward the back of the house. There were large paintings on the walls of the room. All of them featured women and all of the paintings looked very old.

  There was one piece with a woman in a Victorian dress, posing, her expression flat and giving nothing away. I recognized something in her face, but couldn’t place it.

  Virginia walked in and Calista and Josephine trailed behind her. Sure enough, Virginia had a glass in her hand and it was half-full of an amber-colored liquid.

  Josephine sat next to me on the couch.

  “I’m sorry I was rude,” Josephine said. “I should have introduced myself. I’ve just had a hard day.”

  “It’s really okay,” I said. She seemed like she needed reassurance.

  She gave me a huge smile which lit up her whole face.

  “You’re so sweet,” she said, giving me a hug. “I’m so glad you’re finally here.”

  I nodded, as if I had any clue about what she meant.

  Calista sat across from us on the other couch. She crossed one long leg over the other and was staring at her phone. It was apparent she couldn’t care less about whatever conversation was about to take place.

  Virginia joined Calista across from us. She touched Calista’s arm.

  “Let’s put that away for now,” she said, nodding at the phone, a model I didn’t recognize.

  “I just got it and I’m still getting it configured.” Calista said. “It’s a Vertu.” I’d never heard of it. If I was going to be spending time among the jet set, I was woefully unprepared. “I’m trying to get intel on where Zillah is right now,” she replied. “I could use Aleta’s help with that.”

  “There’s no rush to find Zillah,” Virginia said. “Emma’s safe. We’ll worry about Zillah when we have to.”

  Calista’s expression turned dark for a moment. “I’m going to kill her.”

  My eyes widened. Sure, sometimes we all said “I’m going to kill
her!” when talking about someone who made us angry. It was meant figuratively.

  But in this case, I could feel that Calista was being very literal.

  Suddenly I realized I didn’t really know who I was dealing with here. If Virginia could read my mind and force me to go where she needed me to go, what could Calista do?

  I glanced over at Josephine. She looked innocent enough, but looks could always be deceiving. What kind of powers did she have?

  And then I thought about my own ability. I couldn’t even articulate what it really was, but I knew I had something going for me. And if I had anything in common with these sophisticated women I assumed it had to be related to that.

  Virginia sighed. “Calista. Later. Briar’s here. Let’s focus.”

  Calista begrudgingly put down her phone and stared at me.

  “Focusing,” she caustically muttered.

  Virginia shook her head as she spoke to me. “Forgive her. We’ve had quite the week. And so have you. I can’t imagine…”

  “Just tell me what’s going on. I have a twin sister who jumped off a bridge, but is miraculously alive. When do I get to meet her?”

  I could tell Virginia hadn’t expected me to cut right to the chase; which also meant she was keeping her word about staying out of my head.

  “Very soon,” Virginia replied. “She doesn’t know about you yet, so we have to be very cautious, since she’s still recovering. She had a different upbringing than you did…”

  “Was she in a different home?” I asked. I couldn’t stand the thought of my twin going through the things I’d gone through. Did she have abilities too? I was itching to know everything at once.

  But Virginia shook her head. “No. She grew up in California. Her family was recently killed. We suspect it was staged to look like an accident and that she’d been the intended target. At the last moment she foiled their plans by not accompanying her family.”

  My head was spinning now.

  She’d had a family.