Chapter 21 #2
She sighed, undid her apron, and started walking towards the entrance.
But as she was about to reach for the recently repaired doorknob, a gust of sharp wind racketed against the windows.
The breeze was so harsh, it sounded like men thumping their fists on the glass.
It continued for half a second, then everything fell still again.
Bella inhaled. The wind returned, doubled now in intensity.
Then, as if someone had slammed them with a metal rod—the windows shattered.
Glass sprayed over all the tables and stools. Bella covered her face and ducked to the side, her body pressed flush to the magazine stand. The plastic edges of the tabloids bit into her skin as she saw a leg slowly raise over the windowsill.
“Baby sister,” a voice cooed. “You’ve been avoidinggg meee.”
“God damn it,” Bella whispered into the dark.
Tears prickled in her eyes. There was no avoiding it now. There was no running. Sabina was faster than her, even in heels.
She took a breath in, and stepped out of the darkness.
“Hi, Sabina.”
The hauntingly pale circle of her oldest sister’s face emerged from the dark like a smiling full moon.
Despite the years that had passed, she looked remarkably the same.
Which was to say, she looked like Bella.
They were roughly the same height, with the same rigid ballerina posture; the only real difference was in the hair.
Sabina had a rotten apple red quality to it.
“Arabella,” Sabina said in a dramatic whine, forcing her sister into a tight embrace. “Gosh, I’ve missed you.” She let go, then cupped Bella’s face. “Well, don’t you look drearily human. Have you been getting too much sun recently? Have you not been wearing the shawl I gifted you before you left?”
Bella touched her face, briefly confused.
Oh.
She knew she was paler than most humans, but to Sabina, she probably looked startlingly tan. In addition to suppressing her powers, the cream also suppressed the other unfortunate things that came with being who she was.
“Usually the correct way to enter a restaurant is through a door, you know,” Bella sighed, moving to grab the broom. “Not the window.”
“That is how you greet your sister after all this time?”
“Were you expecting a parade? You’re four years early.”
Sabina yanked the broom from her, then pushed her on the shoulder.
“God, America has made you rude.”
“And yet your manners remain intact.”
Sabina huffed, then took her by the cheeks again. She examined her like she was a doll that she’d lost in the attic.
“You poor thing,” she mumbled. “It must be taking so much of your energy to keep yourself presentable like this all the time.”
Bella bristled. “Sabina—”
“I don’t know how you do it. Now that it’s just the two of us, I think I’ll let my hair down…”
Before Bella could stop her, Sabina took a step back, laid her hands over her own face, and began to drag down, as if she was peeling off a mask.
Her fingertips left a trail as they traveled: an inky, smokey black that smelled sweet and nostalgic to Bella’s nose.
The powder snaked across her cheeks like warpaint, over her nose, down her plump red lips, then her neck, thin zig-zagging needles of black dancing all the way to her collarbones.
To a human being, it probably looked like the kind of Halloween makeup that would take hours to apply.
Then, she slunk off her white-leather jacket, turning away to hang it placidly on the coat hanger.
Her shoulder blades flexed, and black marks that looked like lightning scattered rapidly across her spine, before leathery wings tore out of her skin and opened five feet wide in the small space, knocking over the spice cabinet.
Bella felt bile climb in the back of her throat.
She didn’t realize then, but somewhere along the way, through high school and then college and now here, with Yasmine, perfectly normal, pretty, gorgeous Yasmine, she’d convinced herself that this was not actually what she looked like when she wasn’t trying so hard to suppress it.
Sabina turned on her heel, and let out a contented sigh.
“That feels so much better. God, you wouldn’t believe how tight my wings got after flying economy on the way here.
Never again,” Sabina said, reapproaching her sister with that look.
“But look at you! Big, impressive big city Bella. You’ll cover all our flights back with that money you made eating face at Columbia, I’m sure. ”
Eating face. Bella couldn’t help but scowl at the old phrase. A sense of stupid, blind defensiveness shocked through her.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
“I didn’t get that job using my powers.”
Sabina’s eyebrows flew up, and Bella sucked in a breath. She couldn't keep her damn mouth closed. Not when her sister once again insisted that the only thing she was good for was—just drop it.
“Is that so? So you’re really a what, a science person?” Sabina asked. “Why?”
Bella crossed her arms defensively, fearing the real answer might jump out of her stomach.
“Because I felt like it?” She responded. Not her strongest return.
Sabina’s voice lowered conspiratorially. “Oh my god. Is it because of a guy? Did you meet an old-fashioned New England vampire? Is he rich?”
Bella scoffed. She was relieved her sister’s suspicions were completely off-base, but her cheeks burned nonetheless, a shock of protectiveness running through her. That was new. Feeling protective over someone that wasn’t herself.
God, if she only knew just how rich she is, she thought, immediately followed up with: They can absolutely never meet her.
“No, there’s no guy… Sabina, I don’t understand why you’re here.”
“Well of course you do. I told you on the phone.”
“Because you wanted to see the Empire State Building? Okay, well, go for it. I’ll show you to the fucking ferry. But you weren’t supposed to contact me until—”