Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
SERAFINA
“ Y ou’re dead!” Caleb’s shrill screech echoes from the bathroom and down the hallway, shortly followed by the pounding of feet and Cleo’s cheerful barks.
Step one completed, I think to myself, smirking.
My bedroom door slams open, bouncing off of the wall hard enough I’m sure he’s left a dent behind. Cleo prances happily into the room and flings herself next to me where I’m lounging on my bed, sifting through a magazine. I ruffle her fur affectionately as she flops across my lap, heedless of the golden hair that’s clinging to my white leggings and neon-pink, off-the-shoulder sweater dress.
“Did you need something?” I drawl, keeping my gaze on my magazine while monitoring Caleb’s movements out of the corner of my eye.
Always be aware of where an attack may come from. And the fact that if the towel he’s wearing hits the floor, you’ll probably be scarred for life. Just ew.
Seriously, Caleb and Maddox may not be my biological brothers, but they are in every way that matters, and seeing them naked would never be on my to-do list without wanting to bleach my brain and scoop my eyes out with a cocktail fork.
“You’re seriously sick. You know that?” he hisses at me, and I let out a large yawn that Cleo happily mimics as I lift my gaze to take him in.
His blond hair is sticking up at random angles and completely coated in a layer of rainbow glitter that has fallen down to coat his face, shoulders, and even the towel he’s holding tightly around his waist. Little wisps float in the air around him, giving him a magical aura, before they settle onto the ground at his feet.
“Something itching you, Cal?” I ask, biting back the smile that wants to tug my mouth up in a manic grin.
A thud and a gasp outside my room makes Caleb whirl to where Maddox has apparently tripped over his own feet in shock at my brother’s new state, which looks like the floor of a kindergarten classroom.
“Dude…shimmer spray isn’t for everyone,” Maddox tells him seriously, his eyes sparkling and his mouth curling up in a Cheshire grin. “The key is to use it lightly.”
Caleb snarls and flips him off before turning his glare back to me. “You know as well as I do that this has Sparkle’s name written all over it.”
Maddox bursts out laughing, leaning his large frame against the doorjamb to hold himself up while strategically avoiding the cloud of shimmer Caleb is letting off.
Smart move. Glitter is one of those things that never truly goes away. You’ll find pieces of it decades later.
Even more so when it’s about a full pound of varying sizes and textures poured into a mix of glue and soap.
“Dude, I think we may need to rehome that nickname ’cause I’ve gotta tell you, I think it fits you more than her now,” Maddox continues, his smile widening to unveil bright-white teeth.
A smug grin crosses my face as I continue to pet Cleo’s velvet ears, making her wiggle in ecstasy across my lap.
“Fuck you, Madd,” Cal snarls.
“Nah, I don’t need a craft-based STD. Besides, incest isn’t my kink, and we both know I could do better than your man-whore ways.” Maddox arches a brow at me, even as Cal growls at him. “Glitter, Sera? Seriously? You know Mom is going to kill you for all of this getting on the carpet.”
I shrug a shoulder. “Not my fault the shiny one here stomped his way out of the bathroom without cleaning up. That wrath’s on him, not me.”
“How exactly was I supposed to clean up when you rigged the fucking shower?!” Caleb screams, his cheeks bright red under the layer of glitter stuck to his skin.
I bat my lashes at him. “Me? And what makes you think I had anything to do with adding glue to your body wash and shampoo and setting up a timer-based bomb in the shower fan to cover you in glitter?”
The tone I use is sweet enough that candy should be falling from my lips with every word.
“I have glitter fucking everywhere, Serafina! Ev-ery-where.” He enunciates each syllable clearly as he shifts from side to side, and it only takes a moment for Maddox to catch on.
My gruff brother nearly doubles over as he howls with laughter at Caleb’s plight of a glittery crack.
“Then I guess you’ll think twice before taking my knives again, won’t you?” I sniff and stick my nose in the air, continuing my nonchalant petting of an adoring Cleo.
“Dude…” Maddox drags the word out, shaking his head as he straightens, clutching at his stomach. “You touched her weapons?”
“Oh, not just touched,” I inform Madd, glaring at our oldest brother. “He took my flower knives and my two favorite Hello Kitty knives.”
Caleb reaches up a hand and scratches at his forehead, a tsunami of glitter rolling off of him and coating the floor.
“And what, pray tell, did he do with them?” My tone is soft and sweet, and Maddox winces, taking a step away from Cal as if he could be found guilty just by association. “Our dear older brother decided to donate them to the local charity shop and send me a picture of them with dollar price tags on them. And by the time I was able to get downtown, they’d been purchased .”
Maddox hisses between his teeth and takes another step back so I can barely see him behind the doorframe. “You’re lucky all she did was glitter bomb you. I’d have money on castration.”
“Who says I stopped at glitter?” My smile is as sharp as the edge of one of my knives, and Cal’s face goes slightly pale, a startling contrast to the sparkling, multi-colored glitter stuck to his skin in a kaleidoscopic, rainbow display.
“Caleb Apollo Jensen!” My mother’s voice cracks as loudly as one of her whips as she stomps into view, the pink and purple scarves she’s decked herself in today fluttering like wings around her in a dance similar to the glitter coating the air. “Have you lost your mind?! Do you know how hard it is to clean up glitter? And why are you in a towel?”
I can hear Madd’s footsteps on the stairs as he escapes our mother’s wrath, leaving Caleb and me behind without a second thought.
Smart man.
My mother glances between the two of us, clearly weighing if I were in on this, and I arch a brow at him when her back is turned.
“Um, I was trying out a potential Halloween costume, and it got out of hand. I’m sorry, Mom.” He tries a sweet and sheepish smile, but it’s ruined by another rain of glitter when he tilts his head.
She reaches up and grabs his ear, hauling him down to her level as she begins towing him away. “I’ll give you out of hand , young man. You’re going to be doing drills for a month. And scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees to clean up all of this glitter. What in the world could you have been going as? My Little Pony ?”
Caleb shoots me a look as he’s led out the door, my mom’s ranting continuing with every step.
Payback is a bitch, and glitter just makes it sweeter.
“Wake up, jerk.” I shove at Caleb’s shoulder, his snoring loud enough I’m surprised the windows aren’t rattling.
It took him most of the night to clean the bathroom and hall to an acceptable level for my mother’s scrutiny.
Honestly, he’d probably still be on his knees with a toothbrush if she and my father hadn’t been called away for work. My dad had dubbed a still-shimmery Caleb to be too much of a distraction and had left him pouting here at home as they headed out. Caleb took the opportunity to collapse in bed for some much-needed sleep.
He snores away despite the shove, and I whip the blankets off of him, thankful he’s at least dressed, before grabbing one of his spare pillows and whacking him on the head.
“Hb-bbah,” he grunts out, and I snicker, the pure sibling urge to record his drooling nonsense for fodder later tugging at me.
If only I didn’t have an agenda that this dork is screwing with.
Fine. If he doesn’t want to wake up the nice way, then the Jenkins way it is. Not to mention Mom and Dad would both kick his ass if they knew he’d managed to sleep through someone not only in his room but screwing with him. Talk about running drills. They’d wake him up every night for a year if they knew.
I flip my wrist, letting the knife in my bangle drop into my palm, before lunging onto the bed, pulling him back by the hair, and putting the knife to his throat. Not hard enough to draw blood, mind you. I’m not a psycho. But I apply just enough pressure to create a pink line across his skin.
“The fuck, Sparkle?!” Caleb bursts out, bucking underneath me.
I roll, keeping my hand in his hair, forcing him to roll with me or lose a chunk of his locks to my fist. Only when he’s half off the bed and half sitting up do I release my hold and duck out of the way of his sluggishly thrown fist.
“You already covered me in glitter and exposed me to the wrath of Mom. Why are you still torturing me?”
Before he can slump back onto the bed, I give him another shove.
“You still owe me, and you know it.” I loved those damn knives.
And while it wasn’t all my knives and I can get more, the new ones won’t be the same as the ones I broke in. And stabbed people with.
Besides, I’ve been looking for an excuse the last few days to get what I want. Caleb finally handed me one on a silver platter.
Step two, here we come…
He groans but doesn’t object. “What else do you want?”
“You’re going to tell Mom and Dad that you’re taking me for training in the area and to shop for new knives.”
“Fine, I’ll buy you knives.” He moves to lie back down, his eyes half-mast and his face cracking in two with the force of his yawn, but I yank him up by the back of the shirt.
“I didn’t say you could go back to bed,” I warn him, releasing him and crossing my arms over my chest. “We’re leaving now.”
“Sparkle. Sera. Have some mercy. I haven’t slept in, like, forty-eight hours. I was already running on fumes when you glued me to the damn shower.” His tone’s pleading, and he widens his eyes, clasping his hands in the prayer position. “I’ll shop with you later, and you know Mom and Dad won’t care if it’s done this afternoon. Besides, they’ll be at work for hours yet.”
Because they’re trying to find the psycho behind this mess. He doesn’t have to say it for me to fill in the blanks.
“That’s why I said you’re going to tell them I’m with you.”
He half closes his eyes and, edging towards his pillows, halts suddenly, his full focus turning towards me. “You are not going to have sex.”
I snort and roll my eyes. “Dude, if I wanted to have sex right now, I would, and I wouldn’t ask you to cover for me. It’s my body, and I’ll do what I want with it.”
A slight pallor creeps over his skin, and he shakes his head. “Seriously, can we skip this conversation?”
“You’re the one who brought up sex,” I point out.
He groans, rubbing a hand over his face. “Fine. What is it, then? A cupcake run? A party?”
I step back, crossing my arms over my chest and arching a brow at him. “Sorry, glitter butt. Nothing quite so easy.” He gives me a wary look, and I smile, channeling V with his edge of menace and insanity. “You’re going to be my alibi to Mom and Dad and sneak me into Faerie.”