by Amo Jones
The thing about Saint is, she talks. A fucking lot. You would expect her to be quiet, because she looks demure and carries herself with a rare kind of grace that is usually only captured by something fucking celestial like a seraph. She’s not. She’s bold enough to be inquisitive about every-fucking-thing in this world, and I think I’m partly to blame for that. I have always hovered over her like a monster, ready to tear anyone apart that comes near.
“Brantley?” she whispered. Her voice had a direct fucking line to every switch inside my body.
I hated it.
“Are you bleeding again?”
Saint
Present
It was too dark for it to be morning. I knew as much when I opened my eyes. My lace curtains swayed with the wind that was drifting through my room, cold yet oddly serene. White fabric moved with the lace. I rub my eyes and open them again, but just as my lashes lift from my cheek, a dark shadow zips past me, ducking behind the curtain. I jump off the bed in shock, fear crawling through me, its sharp nails moving down my spine.
“Who’s there?”
I rub my eyes again, suddenly more awake than I was a second ago. Opening them again, I reach for the curtain to push it out of the way. “Who—” It’s empty. My antique three-piece outdoor setting sits in the corner, with my mini Monstera plant in the center of the table.
“I’m going crazy.” I patter toward the bathroom where my white marble tub is mounted in the center beside my freestanding rainforest shower. I love my bathroom. Windows overlook the front of the house, but all of my different species of ferns hang from various places. Brantley calls my bedroom and bathroom “a fucking jungle,” but I think it’s just perfect.
Turning on the faucet near the sink, I splash water on my face, dabbing the moisture off my cheeks with Egyptian cotton. The room is quiet. Secluded. But I’m used to it. I’m more comfortable in silence than I am around noise.
Moving my way through my bedroom, around my plants, I change for the day, switching into something comfortable enough to garden in. Since I was a child, gardening has been my outlet. It was a hobby, but now it’s more like a lifestyle. To be able to grow and nurture something that is alive gives me a sense of purpose.
I’m jogging down the stairwell, raking my hair up into a high pony when I pause in my steps. Brantley is leaning against the wall opposite me, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders straight. I’ve never known him outside of these walls, never seen him interact with his peers or in social settings. Brantley has always come off as closed, cold, and completely unapproachable, but seeing how he moved around his friends last night, I’m guessing there’s a whole lot to him that not even I know.
Sometimes it’s not about the words people whisper into your ear in the dark; most times it’s about what they say in front of an audience.
I’m beginning to feel as though the Brantley I know is a mere outline of the whole artistic picture that is Brantley Vitiosis. I want to study it as a whole, learn the curves and the brush strokes, but I can’t do that until he bares it all to me.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, playing with the leather bangle that’s around my wrist.
“What did Tillie talk to you about last night?” He pushes off the wall and makes his way into the kitchen. I follow behind him slowly, watching as the muscles in his back flex while he gathers the ingredients he needs for a protein shake.
“She asked about some details of me being here,” I say softly, pulling out a barstool while remaining focused on him.
“And what did you say?” he asks, scooping out powder and tipping it into the blender cup.
“The basics,” I answer, watching him closely. He flips the blender on, and for a few seconds, we’re drowned out with noise. He switches it off, tears off the lid and tosses it into the sink, before turning to face me and leaning on the counter.
“Which is?”
Alarmed by the vocal confidence that he’s spewing, my mouth slightly closes. You would assume that because we live together and have always lived together, that we would see each other often. We don’t. Brantley is never home. At least since Lucan died anyway. Up until that point, I would have been confident enough to say that he and I existed around each other. It may have not been a conventional friendship, but I knew he tolerated me. Since Lucan died, however, Brantley’s anger has only peaked, and I hardly see him now. I see him around the house maybe once every three months—if that—and when I do, it’s in passing. It’s not because we live in separate wings in this gigantic mansion, either, because we’ve always stayed on the same wing. The same hallway. There were two bedrooms on the third level of this house. One door led to his room, while the other to mine.
When I don’t answer him, he interrupts. “I didn’t hire urbane tutors for you throughout all of your homeschool life for you to not speak when I ask you something. Answer the question.”
My cheeks flare, and I watch as his eyes drop to the spray of pink now exposed over my skin. That was probably the longest thing he has ever said to me. Brantley communicates through his eyes, his body language, the way he walks and moves around the room before he uses his words. At least, that’s how it has always been with me. “I told her that I’ve been here since I was a child. That’s all.”
His fist clenches around the edge of marble, while my eyes follow down his thick arms, where purple and green veins pulse beneath his pale, untouched skin. “Did you go for a run?”
His finger taps against the counter. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Is there something that she was supposed to say to me?”
He shakes his head, bringing his shake to his mouth and taking a swig. “Hmmm,” is all he says. His eyes move up and down my body. “What are you doing today?”
“The gardens.”
“We pay people for that.” He turns to tip out the contents, rinsing, and leaving it on the side of the drying rack.
“You know that I like doing it.” At those words, Brantley’s back freezes, the muscles beneath his skin instantly hardening.
He turns, taking the steps he needs to my chair and spinning me around until I’m facing him. I stop breathing, because he’s so close. I’ve never seen him this close before, at least not since I last cleaned the dried blood off his face when he fell asleep after I snuck into his room when I was ten years old. He never liked to talk about what was happening to him, and I never pushed him to talk.
I think I spoke enough to occupy both of us.
I think he hated me for it.
He’s so close that I can feel the warmth of his breath fall over my lips, and I do everything in my power not to allow my eyes to drop down to his own, or God forbid, his arms. They drop, because I’m not very good at this. Human interaction, that is. He knows that.
So when his mouth twitches ever so slightly, it throws me off-balance.
“What?” I whisper, hypnotized by the bow in his lip. How it swells, dips, and curves in all the right places.
“Yeah,” he says, pushing off the table while keeping me pinned to the spot with his glare. “Go get changed and meet me down here in thirty minutes.”
I’m still sitting, trying to catch the words he had said when he disappears upstairs. What does he mean, be ready? There have been few times that he has taken me out of the house, and all of those times were before Lucan died.
I make my way up to my bedroom, closing the door behind me. My room is in complete contrast to Brantley’s room, and the general aesthetic of this haunted mansion. Everything is white and beige. From my sheets, to my four-post bed, to the dresser and floor-length mirror. The curtains that cover the twin doors open out onto my little patio that overlooks the back of the house and the cemetery is the softest beige I could find. Not quite white, but not quite nude. I sleep with my doors open every night, even in the winter. I like to feel the cold while being warm in my bed.
Moving through to my walk-in closet, I flick on the light and scan over my clothes.
He said to get
changed.
He didn’t say into what.
I was allowed to shop online, and I loved to shop. I love fashion. I think being able to dress your feelings, to hide or expose them, is an art. Fashion is an art.
I reach for my mid-top white and gray Van sneakers, a pair of high-waisted ripped ankle-biter jeans, and a white camisole that is cropped just above my belly button. I find most of my inspiration on Pinterest, and then I shop from there. Money has never been something that I’ve thought a lot about. Brantley gave me a black card when I was thirteen, and since then, it hasn’t run out. Obviously, over time I’ve come to realize that this black card, by its limit, holds a lot of money. The name Saint Dea Vitiosis is embedded into the plastic.
After I’m dressed, I brush my hair until it falls in natural white waves before sliding lip balm over my lips. Peach. Subtle enough not to taste, yet sweet enough to smell.
Kore nudges the backs of my legs with her nose and I reach down to rub the back of her ears. “I won’t be long. You have Hades here.”
Brantley clears his throat at my door, and I look up at him from where I’m leaning. “She gets lonely when she can’t see me.”
“It’s mainly because they’re so used to you being home.” He leans backward and rolls his fingers into his mouth, whistling. Hades comes strolling into my bedroom with ease, flopping down onto the fluffy rug at the foot of my bed.
Brantley glances at my vanity mirror, where my makeup, beauty products, and jewelry are all laid out. “Wear your necklace.”
“I thought you said I didn’t have to start wearing it until I was older?”
He ambles into my room, the sheer size of him taking up the space greedily as his fingers graze over the white gold Cuban chain. Like his, only with smaller links, right down to the pendant that sits on the bottom. A simple pendant. White gold crown with diamonds shaped like ice, melting over the tips.
He hooks it off the stand and comes closer until his body is towering over mine like a giant versus a lesser human. David and Goliath. His six-foot-six against my five-foot. He’s a whole foot, and then some, taller than me. We look ridiculous beside each other in any room, and he could wrap his fingers around the circumference of my head and pick me up with one movement.
Leaning forward, his cologne wafts through my nostrils when he clasps the necklace around my neck. I close my eyes when the fabric of his simple white shirt grazes the tip of my nose. “You’re seventeen, but you need to start wearing this from now on.”
“Why?” I ask through a tight throat. “All I do is stay home. It’s too pretty to just wear.”
He steps back, and once I’m finished being distracted by the weight of the necklace around me, I tilt my head up until I’m eye-to-eye with him.
“Not anymore.”
“Okay,” I say, clutching the crown in the palm of my hand. “I won’t take it off.”
I follow him out of my room and down the staircase, toward his blacked-out sports car.
I Googled it when he drove the shiny new car down our driveway a couple of months ago. The Bugatti La Voiture Noire. Eighteen. Million. Dollars. There was a woman, I guessed was the car dealer, who shook his hand and gave him the keys before leaving. I couldn’t see much from the window in the kitchen, but I did catch her name tag as she left. Nikki. I slide into the leather seat, shutting the door behind me as he fires the car up and pulls out of the driveway.
I don’t ask him what’s going on.
I don’t ask him why we’re leaving the house.
The slightly scarier looking one of the two stood first, and when he did, I almost—almost—regretted enticing them both. They couldn’t be that bad. No one was. Well, that was a lie. One person was that bad, but he wasn’t here, and neither were his henchmen. “Twisted Transistor” was playing now, and at the back of my very intoxicated brain, I thought maybe the DJ didn’t have anything else to play but Korn.
I cowered slightly, but not enough for the big scary one to catch it.
His eye twitched. Or maybe he did.
His eyes. They were dark. So very dark. I felt myself trapped in a messy haze of sin, and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to find the exit. Diverting my gaze, I found the disinterested boy on the sofa, who was watching both of us.
He smirked, leaned up until he was standing, and suddenly I was between both of them. Sandwiched between a snowstorm and a tropical cyclone.
I gulped down my nerves, smiled smugly up at both of them, swiped the bottle of whiskey they had so generously left on the floor and brought it up to my lips. I swallowed a gulp of the liquid, flashing them both one of my famous smiles. “Want to get out of here?”
The taller one leaned down to my ear. “What’s wrong with here? Hmm?” His voice was deep and about as hypnotizing as his eyes. Everything south wanted him. The other one behind me had his hand on my stomach, pulling me into his body. “I mean… only if you’re game.”
His voice was sexy and smooth, too, like the shot of whiskey I just downed. I had no doubt they’d leave a fire in my belly just the same.
My eyes flew around the room, frantic, on all of the teenagers that were at this party. I knew only some of them, but they all knew who I was. The fact they weren’t staring at me was only because they liked their limbs connected to their bodies.
I’d never seen these two boys before, and I definitely would have recognized them if I had passed them before. They were different, though. They made the whole room seem darker and more sinister.
The music had changed to heavy metal, The Ocean, I think, and before I could second-guess myself, I stood on my tippy toes, hooked my hand around the back of the shorter one’s neck, and pressed my lips to his.
He didn’t kiss me back, but he didn’t push me away either. Everyone kissed me back. Every single fucking one. I kissed girls who kissed me back. That’s just who I was and the kind of effect I had on people. Except this guy, apparently. I stepped backward. When I turned to the angry and taller one, he simply shook his head, but before I could say anything, his hand was on my throat, pulling me close enough to hear the next words that came out of his mouth. “Don’t even fucking think about it. The only place you’ll be planting those fucking lips is on my cock.”
So he didn’t just look mean, he was mean. Perfect.
The guy behind me brought his hand around to the front, slipping beneath the waistband of my skirt. Good thing I wasn’t wearing panties. The lighting was dim, but the strobes flashed fast enough to give anyone a seizure. He found my slick entrance instantly after rubbing against my clit. I pressed myself against his cock and moaned at the way he swelled against the crack of my ass. The tall one in front of me slowly dropped back onto the sofa. I watched as his knees spread wide, his eyes on mine, never moving. “Headup” by Deftones shook the walls, the lights flashing on and off to the beat. He smirked up at me and it was the first time I thought I really may have fucked up, but then his hands were on his belt buckle, unzipping his zipper, and then finally he inched his pants down just enough for him to duck inside and pull—I gasped.
Holy. Fuck.
The guy behind me, who now had me turned completely around to face the one on the sofa, brought his lips to my ear. “Bend over.” I did, bringing my hand to the thighs of the guy on the sofa. His muscles clenched beneath my grasp, as if saying how dare I even touch him. Maybe he didn’t like being touched. He had that whole tortured bad boy thing going on.
The guy behind me ran his palm over my ass cheek, slapped it, and then shoved me down until my lips touched the piercing on the tip of the sofa guy’s cock. My lips parted like the Red fucking Sea as the one behind me drove into my slick pussy. I relaxed into them. Yes. This was what I wanted. Fuck everyone else in this room. This was what I wanted.
Brantley
Pulling into Nate’s driveway, I can sense Saint’s unease beside me. It rolls off her like a spray of Chanel. I’ve gone back and forth on what to do and what to say when it comes to her. I’ve seen firsthand h
ow secrets can destroy people, and contrary to my reputation—snickers—she’s the one person that I never want to destroy.
I can’t explain why that is. All I can say is that there was a reason why she came into my life, and none of the reasons are what she thinks. Five-fucking-minutes.
We both climb out of the car and the front door to Nate’s swings open, with Tillie standing at the threshold.
“Little Terror, not today,” I growl in her direction. I can sniff out her mischief from a mile away.
Tillie waves me off, her full attention on Saint. Figures. It’s her last living sister. Tillie is a woman’s woman before she is anything else. “Nate is in Buckingham. Saint and I can chat.”
I carefully and naturally push Saint behind me. I trust Tillie, and I trust her with Saint. I’ve watched how Tillie is with her friends, and she’d die and kill for them. I trust someone like that with her, but it doesn’t mean my natural habits die easy.
“Bran Bran, you’re overthinking it.”
My jaw clenches as Saint sidesteps out from behind me. My muscles seize when I feel her cold hand on my arm. “I’ll be fine. You brought me here, it must be safe.” Before I can tell her that I brought her here to come to Buckingham and not to talk shit with Tillie, she’s already up the stairs and Tillie is blowing me a kiss.
“Fuck,” I breathe out just as I hear Bishop’s Maserati pull up behind me, his door closing loudly.
“The kiss of death is what that is,” he says, gesturing to the front of the house.
I turn to face him as he’s shoving his keys into his pocket. “You showered today?”
“Fuck you.”
No one has asked Bishop what the fuck he’s doing with Madison. I don’t know what is going on inside his head, but Bishop is calculating. He’s a walking, talking bullshitter. Lied his way into Madison’s heart, all to let her walk away with him still caged inside of it. Dumb motherfucker when it comes to her, smartest motherfucker with everything else.
