Venus City 1 (21 page)

“I couldn't!” Braya admitted. “I just couldn't. You saw her!”

“But Bellamine's in danger—”

“You don't know that,” Braya shook her head vehemently, as if to convince herself as well. “Mother was just upset. Everything will be fine tomorrow.”

“Don't fool yourself,” Aspen bit his lip. “Charlotte doesn't care about Bellamine and never has. You heard what she said. She called our sister a creature. With us gone, I fear there isn't a lot of hope left for Bellamine.”

“What are you talking about?” Braya asked, horrified. “Of course there's hope! Nothing will happen to her.”

“You keep doing this,” Aspen sighed. He was looking at her with a look she couldn't discern. “You keep defending Charlotte even though she does these awful things. When are you going to wake up and realize there's no good to come from that woman?”

“How could you say that?” She asked, aghast. “She's our mother!”

“It gives her no excuse.”

“It gives her all the excuse!” She yelled fiercely. Aspen didn't respond to that, which forced the two of them to endure the entire ride back to the manor in terse silence.

****

Everything didn't prove to be all right tomorrow. Two weeks blurred by and their mother was still refusing to let them return to the house. That's when the panic finally started settling in. The morning after Braya and Aspen were kicked out, all of their belongings arrived at Heartland, with a note from their mother saying they were forbidden from returning and they had no more use of their car or driver.

Brielle was happy that she was living with them, Emma was indifferent, and Maydessa found every chance she got to gloat about the fact that she'd been kicked out. Braya hadn't told them that was the reason she was living in the dorms, but Maydessa's teasing jests happened to hit the mark by coincidence, and it only made Braya feel worse.

Maydessa also made it a priority to win over Brielle and Emma. She would bribe them, give them gifts, and invite them out at night to explore the lively Heart District with her. She figured the girl wanted the other two to leave their hands off of Latham so that she would have a higher chance of getting him. While they all got to rank the boys from first to fourth pick, they weren't guaranteed their first choice, but they had a higher chance if no one else had chosen that guy.

Other than dealing with her roommates, she felt like she attended her classes with a rain cloud over her head. They had their final exams on the last week before their weddings, but she didn't plan on studying for them. On top of that, she had to endure listening to Grade Three Brides twitter around in excitement for their upcoming weddings and Grade One Brides gossip about their upcoming dates. It meant that she was now a Grade Two Bride—it angered her because she wasn't ever supposed to be Grade One. Now she was already at level two?!

Braya met her brother every day, but his presence did little to soothe her worry that grew with each day that passed. She couldn't help feeling like she was the cause of this whole mess. If only she'd gotten her Crown job in the first place, her mother wouldn't have snapped. Braya must have put too much stress on her.

Her concern for Bellamine was the greatest problem. Braya wasn't sure how well the medicine had been working for her, but what if Bellamine had grown an addiction, or a dependence on it? Two weeks without it could turn out to be worse than never having it in the first place.

Braya had tried to visit Leraphone for the first whole week that she'd lived in Heartland. Most of the times she traveled to the West Wing to knock on the woman's door, she wasn't there, or simply did not answer. When she finally did, the stupid frizz ball acted as if she didn't know her and told her to come back next week. Overall, the woman was not helping and she couldn't get Aspen to help, either. He repeated the same thing as before; that she had to trust Leraphone.

Latham, he continued to give her flowers with secret meanings and it only served to draw her closer to him. Amid her mess of worries, he was the only one who didn't tease, bother, prod, or upset her, and she couldn't be more thankful about it. The attraction she felt toward him was still something she wasn't willing to accept, though. She told herself it was a lapse in judgment, something for her to cling to while she got through this time. She liked him in a meaningless and petty way, she decided.

Her time with the Locers over the two weeks proved as fruitless as ever. She barely got any time to be around them as a group and there were still at least four members whose names she did not know. Asher had noticed her irritable moods, and had asked her why she would snap at him whenever he asked her a question. Braya hadn't been specific with him, and she'd been grateful that he hadn't forced her to tell him. She figured he didn't want her to pass out on him again, which was fine with her.

The worst thing, however, came a couple days after being banished from home. Asher and Page had inserted themselves into Heartland as Grade One Grooms—the same grade as her brother. They claimed it was for undercover work, but Braya had no idea what they could possibly accomplish from lounging around with a bunch of giggling girls and “zombie” men, as Asher had called them. They had even managed to do something to their eyes to make them magenta. If there was anything that unnerved Braya the most, it was seeing Asher's jewel-blue eyes masked by that common magenta color.

As it was, Braya could not escape Asher. Not his scent of flowers and soil, not his touch that awoke something alluring and unknown inside her. He was everywhere. When he wasn't parading around in his Groom disguise, he would stalk her while invisible, or together with Page they would resume their de-hazing. He even favored skipping his own classes to attend hers, invisible.

That was something. Even though she hated working for the Locers, and she still had no idea what the boosters were meant to do, she started enjoying the de-hazing, which only added another thing to the growing list of things to hate about herself. How could she enjoy such a damaging activity? But she did, because it allowed her to feel that rush of adrenaline that had been so sweet, so consuming, so good to her the first time.

Their de-hazed areas soon grew. They covered the South Valley and North Valley where the Finches lived, and had begun in the Moon District and Diamond District, where Mother Ophelia and the rest of the Crown jobs were headquartered.

Braya was counting down the days until she could speak with Leraphone—it was only tomorrow, now. Even if that blue frizz ball didn't have a cure, Braya was hoping for anything, even more medicine.

****

Brielle bounced into their room with four envelopes, shouting with delight. Braya groaned. It was too early in the morning.

“I've got our husbands! Come on, wake up everyone!”

Braya scowled, pulling her blankets up higher to hide her face. It was too real. She'd never thought this day would come when she'd actually be assigned a husband.

“Braya, come on! We have to open them all at the same time!”

Brielle was at her bedside, pulling at her blankets. Braya relented, accepting the envelope thrust into her hands. In the long run, this wouldn't matter, she told herself.

“One, two, THREE!”

Together, the four of them opened their envelopes.

There was a moment of silence as the girls studied the contents of their envelopes. There were several pages of instructions, congratulations, and wedding information. Apparently the wedding was a week from today, and the papers explained that there would be group weddings. Braya had no idea what that meant, but shuffled through the rest of the rambling files to find the name of her future husband imprinted in swirly letters at the bottom of the last page.

Latham Featherwood.

It was as if her heart wanted to react in two different ways—sink to her stomach in dread, and leap into her throat out of relief. As a result, it felt swollen and strained, like a rubber band that had been stretched too far and snapped back into its original position. It was hammering in her ears, and her face flushed with an uncomfortable heat.

She glanced up from her papers and saw that Brielle, balancing on the edge of her bed, was giggling, clutching her envelope to her chest as if she meant to hug it. Emma, standing against the closet doorway, looked mildly satisfied, if not the same as usual. Maydessa, who also hadn't left her bed, was still reading her papers. Braya held back a snort—of course she'd want to read every word, even if that meant forestalling her results a couple minutes.

Maydessa must have sensed Braya's gaze. She broke from her intent reading and her eyes slid over to Braya. She considered her for a moment, before narrowing her eyes. “Who...who did you...”

Maydessa didn't finish the question. She was frantically leafing through the papers without any care to whether she tore them or wrinkled them. After scanning the last page, her eyes widened and her reaction was immediate. Maydessa deflated, sinking back into her pillows. Her light brown eyes sought Braya once more, and the unreadable expression brushed over her features made Braya cautious. When she finally spoke, her voice came out different. Low, dark, measured. “You got Latham.”

It wasn't a question but a statement.

“Who will be your husband, Maydessa?” Brielle asked meekly.

“Julian,” Maydessa answered after a pause. She was putting her papers away now, folding them neatly and trying to conceal the look on her face, the look that made it seem like she was trying to force something down. “Um, but...congrats, Braya.”

Braya was astounded by the profession, but even more so, dazed by the utterly subdued manner in which Maydessa had accepted the news.

“I think it's because of yesterday,” Brielle heaved a sigh, watching sadly as Maydessa locked herself in the closet.

“What do you mean?” Braya asked, confused.

“After Latham gave you that rose, instead of her, I think she snapped inside,” Brielle explained carefully.

“In other words,” Emma added, “She needs everything in perfect order. Yesterday was the opposite of that.”

“So that's why she's acting like that?” Braya's brows knit together. Why did Maydessa have to take everything so seriously?

“I feel bad,” Brielle pouted.

“It wasn't your fault,” Emma scoffed. “We weren't the ones who gave her Julian.”

“Julian's so nice, why can't she learn to like him?” Brielle asked uselessly.

“I bet she's resigned herself to becoming a Maid. She wanted into a Crown family no matter what,” Emma commented, staring thoughtfully at the closet door.

“I bet it was because her family used to be Crowns,” Brielle said, her voice hushed as if she was revealing a secret. “You know, when Maydessa was only nine years old, her mother got fired from the Handkerchief Society. Tore the family apart. She was raised by her father after that. I don't think Maydessa can ever get over that.”

Braya scowled. “How do you know all that?”

“Oh,” Brielle blushed, looking apologetic. “She and I went to the same elementary, middle, and high school. She doesn't act like it...she pretends we don't know each other. But our whole school knew what happened to her.”

Emma made a sound as she shook her head. “God, makes it harder to hate her now.”

It could explain why Maydessa disliked her. Oh, well.

Braya decided not to make anything of it. So, the girl had a rough life. Boo hoo. Braya's life wasn't so peachy at the moment, either. It
was
interesting—Braya had never heard of anyone being fired from a Crown job before—but for some reason, it did nothing to make her feel better about being denied the career she deserved.

After an elongated silence passed over the three of them, Brielle and Emma went back to their business.

Braya climbed out of bed and padded to the bathroom to wash up. She donned an intricate white dress with tight lace patterns along the middle, long sleeves that swelled around her wrist in a deep U-shape, and a frill-edged skirt short at one hip and cutting across her legs in an elegant sweep to touch her ankle on the other side, leaving one leg mostly exposed and the other completely hidden. It was light and graceful, and Braya thought it very tasteful for the engagement party in a couple hours. She made sure to take a lot longer getting ready than she normally did—she needed something to keep her mind occupied so that she wouldn't dwell on the imminent party and the implications it held.

“Braya,” Brielle whined playfully. “Why do you always have to look better than the rest of us?”

“She's got more money to buy nicer clothes,” Emma quipped, posed at the door, calm and uninterested.

“Plus, she's just so pretty,” Brielle smiled, taking Braya's hands in hers. “You're going to have beautiful children!”

Braya blanched. Children? She would not think of it. She clamped it down. Sooner or later she would have too many thoughts, questions, worries to keep at bay that they were going to burst through and drown her. But children? No, no, that thought definitely had to banished forever.

The four of them walked down to the Great Hall when it was time. Braya was a bundle of nerves, Maydessa was sulkily silent, Brielle claimed she was so excited that she had to check the current Moon Tamer scores every minute—via her arm—and Emma was as stoic as ever.