Chapter Twenty-Five
Kane
Age Ten
“I don’t want to put a suit on. I bet all the other children won’t be wearing theirs. Charlie said they’re to have a jumping house. I’d look ridiculous jumping in a suit.” It's only half-true. I look good in everything I wear.
My mother rolls her large brown eyes while she stabs her ears with her pearl earrings. She says those are to be for my future wife. I don’t want a wife. “Kanedrew, please. Just get dressed. We’re going to be late. This is Matilda Winters’s daughter. We must make a good impression.”
I don’t know who these people are. Or why I have to impress an eight-year-old girl. I do not like meeting other children as oftentimes they are not very kind. Which is why I make sure they know I’m not one to push around as soon as they meet me.
“Why do we need to impress the Winters? Charlie sounds funny.”
Mother firmly smoothes down the front of her black dress, which has what she calls a ‘sweetheart’ neckline. At times, my mother reminds me very much of Jackie Kennedy with the way she dresses. Very posh. Very stylish. Very professional. No nonsense.
Which is why she has me dressed in suits more than half the time. I represent her.
Again, my mother’s eyes flash. “David is a very powerful attorney in New York. That’s why Charlie sounds funny.
They spend more time there than here, only coming on holiday.
But Matilda is bringing them back for a year or two to go to school here.
Get to know their home country. That sort of thing. ”
I blink a few times. “Grandfather says I will like her.”
She smiles grandly at me before swiping on mascara. “I very much think you will, too, Kanedrew. We’ll see him there, as well. Now, go on. Get your suit on. You know as soon as I put my heels on I’m ready to go.”
Though it is a bleak October day, there is a jumping house.
And ponies. But it is cold. And the children running around the Winter’s estate are very loud, squealing and running like animals all over the place.
They have no composure. No… decorum, Mother would say.
While I am the only one in a suit, the rest are dressed in their coats and large sweaters and trainers.
While dressed well, they still look… comfortable.
I am not comfortable. I have loafers on. There is also mud everywhere as it drizzled just this morning.
“Go on, Kanedrew, go play. Make some friends. Matilda! Hello!” she greets with forced enthusiasm at the beautiful, thin blonde woman with stark green eyes.
My feet stay planted in my spot. I do not want friends.
I want to go home. I believe if I run around like these idiots, I’ll catch a cold.
Or worse--the tiny little air sacs in my lungs will freeze and I'll bleed out.
I watch the children squawking about, tilting my head as I stare and watch one specific boy without a coat.
My eyes follow and track him as the noise around me whirs to a complete stop.
My brow quirks as he begins to grab at his chest, coughing.
His hand flies to his throat as he seems to choke, blue eyes widening into saucers and reddening with tears as blood spittles out of his mouth, down his chin and onto his sweater with each hack.
He falls to his knees there… staring at me.
I do not panic. I do not help. I simply watch him die.
“Kane? Did you hear me?”
The noise comes back like thunder as I blink rapidly, finding the boy still very much in the midst of a game of tag, hand outstretched, so close to tagging a girl in a red peacoat. Hmm. Pity. Watching him die was far more entertaining. I peek up at my mother. “It’s a bit cold. May I go inside?”
Matilda puts a dainty hand on my shoulder and smiles down at me.
“Absolutely, Kane. There are snacks inside. We’ll be heading in shortly to cut the cake, it seems you’ll just be a little early.
” She winks like she’s just told me a very large secret and I'm the only one who will ever know it. How odd.
“Thank you,” I reply, turning toward the manor and away from the sprawling lawn and messy children.
Matilda was right. There is a table lined with snacks and sweets, particularly cupcakes of all kinds.
And in the center, a three-tiered cake. It’s white and gold, with decorative pale pink roses.
It does not say Happy Birthday. It only holds eight candles on the lowest tier.
It’s much more mature than that of eight-year-old girls usually are.
I grab a bowl of strawberries and ask one of the maids where the library is.
They point me to the stairs and tell me which door on which floor and up I go. To enjoy my strawberries alone.
But I am not alone.
In the library there’s a girl with golden spools cascading down her back like ribbons and a little pink princess dress that poofs out.
Shoes off, she sits on the arm of the sofa that’s against the window, perched there, observing the thirty or so little animals running amuck and all the parents standing around and chattering.
In her hand she holds a cupcake. The sunlight pouring in through the large window creates a kind of spotlight on her.
She turns her head to face me when the door behind me shuts with nothing more than a barely audible ‘click.’
Her green eyes find me and she looks surprised. “Who are you?”
I stab the tiny fork into a sliced strawberry and lift it to my mouth. “I’m Kane… Kane Burton. And you are…?” I trail off, waiting for her to answer as I take a bite of the fruit.
“Sabrina Winters.”
“Ah, so you’re the birthday girl. Tell me, why is the princess up here on her lonesome during her birthday party?”
A frown settles on her face and for some reason, I don’t like it. There’s a seriousness to her that is also soothing. “I don’t know anybody here,” she replies softly. “All of my friends are in New York.”
I have no response to her sadness. I toe off my loafers and set them to the side, then climb the sofa and sit across from her to watch all the happy children make a mess of her property. Not to mention the ponies defecating in her yard. Disgusting. “Well, are you going to eat your cupcake?”
She grins at me, showing off her new teeth coming in, slightly large but perfectly straight.
Incredible. She folds down the lining holding the cupcake and instead of taking a bite, she…
she twists off the top until it tears in the middle and flips it, so the frosting is…
sandwiched. She laughs at my expression, which I'm sure is bewildered, but her laugh is loud, and…
and beautiful. It makes the irritation in my chest shake loose and even when she takes a large bite out of the cupcake and frosting drips onto her stockinged feet she… she moans happily.
It… it stirs something inside of me.
For a few moments I wonder what she would look like covered in blood. That little pink dress tie-dyed with crimson… for the first time, it makes me frown.
Age Fifteen
“Oh! Kane! Have you come to say goodbye?” Sabrina asks, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around herself.
“Grandfather says you leave tonight?”
She nods, wet hair slicked back from just now walking out of the pool like a little goddess.
Her hair is lighter from the sun and her skin is flawless.
I abhor that she always hides her body from me.
“Just for the holiday. We’ll be back once the school year begins.
” She smiles. She never needed braces. She’s…
perfection. She’s also only thirteen and not interested in the things I’m interested in.
And that’s fine. The girls at school are plenty interested in the only Ainsworth heir.
It doesn’t take much to get them to expose themselves to me.
It’s rather boring at this point. All I have to do is lift a finger and their skirts bunch up.
Nobody’s a challenge. Even the girls on scholarship.
I show them a few pounds, and they are eager to show me their shaved pussies.
Very droll business. Besides, none of them are Sabrina.
Sabrina… she’s still… pure. And as sweet as frosting. Even if she currently smells like chlorine and chemicals.
“Sabrina!” Charlie calls from somewhere above us.
She looks up but my eyes roll at the sound of his voice. I loathe Charlie. I despise him as much as I despise mud. Actually, he might be worse. “Coming Charlie!”
“Hurry up!”
She groans and shakes her head. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around? I’ll be starting secondary school this year. Will I see you in the halls?"
I grin at her. “Absolutely. Let me know if you’d like me to show you around, princess.”
“Alright. Well, I’ll see you,” she says with a grimace when Charlie calls for her again, this time from the window.
This time, I do look up at him, meeting his cold glare with one of my own.
He pulls his head away and I turn to leave.
I open the back gate that leads to another section of the garden that follows a trail back to my summer home here in Kensington.
A hand grabs me from the top of the shoulder and forces me to turn around.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Fucking Charles Winters. The bane of my existence. The only thing in the way of me getting more time alone with Sabrina. “Just… came to say goodbye.” I smile.
His eyes roam over me and he shakes his head. “I’ve already told you to leave my sister alone, Kane.”