Chapter 20 The Newbie Makes A Deal With The Devils
The Newbie Makes A Deal With The Devils
AMANDA
“It has to be timed right,” Belle says, slapping her palm on the table with a sound that reverberates through the ceramic mugs and the meticulously polished silver scattered across the dining room.
The tablecloth jumps. “We have to wait until most people are there and the ‘grand entrances’ have been made by the hosts. Otherwise, it will get lost in the flood of welcomes and preening of everyone showing up in their costumes.”
She draws out this last word, as if it’s ridiculous that anyone would consider an opposite opinion is ridiculous. I don’t know if I agree with her, but I am sure that voicing it will not be welcome.
“Agreed. I want everyone to see their faces” Sari says, not even looking up from her phone, where she’s scrolling through some list—perhaps the final RSVP roster, or maybe a feed of all the invitees’ social posts, checking for weaknesses or likely alliances.
She’s wearing a pair of narrow wireframe glasses today that make her look like an assassin in a college seminar, and her voice is as calm as the hiss of an adder in the grass. “If it’s not public, there’s no point.”
Belle leans forward, elbows digging into the wood so that her knuckles stand out, white and sharp. “It’s not about spite,” she says, though the fact that she says it first and hardest makes me wonder if it is. “It’s about not letting them get away with acting like he didn’t matter.”
I look between her and Sari, not sure what I’ve gotten myself into, but certain that I want to be included.
It’s the kind of group that makes you feel small if you’re left out, even if you don’t always like the things that happen when you’re in.
Sometimes, I’m not sure if this is the most productive group to be a part of as they fixate on things I don’t feel like they can change and shouldn’t want to.
After all, even if revenge is sweet, it rarely leaves you feeling clean.
I’m not like them, and that difference makes me want to prove something, if only to myself. I can keep up, be the kind of person who acts, and can be trusted. They should include me and make me part of their cabal—once they do, I won’t be out on my own with Constantine like now.
Outside the window, the afternoon is sliding toward golden hour; the world is catapulting forward into the next season.
Belle’s house is on the land on the other side of the Rift, overlooking a lake, and from this height you can see the water flashing like broken glass between the trees.
Sari finished her latte twenty minutes ago and has been picking at the remains of a lemon scone with surgical precision.
Belle’s hands are moving constantly, never settled, as if the only way to keep from acting on her impulses is to turn them into kinetic energy.
I see why she refuses to live in The Rift like the rest of us—she’s too paranoid about anyone who isn’t Sari.
I open my mouth, then close it again. I want to say something that will make them pause, and consider a world where everyone isn’t always plotting against each other.
But I know they’ll laugh, or worse, roll their eyes and smile at me like I’m a child who doesn’t know how anything works. So I say nothing.
They go on hammering out their plan. The confrontation will happen once the party is in full swing, when everyone is present but still sober enough to remember every word.
Sari has a speech written—four sentences, which she’s practiced to sound spontaneous and uncaring, as if it came to her in the heat of the moment.
Belle will back her up, then feign surprise when Wilde arrives.
They have considered the angles, the likely responses, and the counter-moves.
It’s chess, but with people as the pieces and humiliation as the aim.
I probably shouldn’t be doing this, but I just… I can’t take being left out anymore.
“Amanda, what do you think?” Sari asks, looking over at me for the first time since we’ve been ‘discussing’ the plans. It’s always a little terrifying to be on the receiving end of her full attention.
I take a sip of coffee, which is now cold, and stare at the pattern of leaves on the mug as if I might learn something from it.
I imagine the aftermath of their big reveal.
The community will splinter—some people will stay loyal to Sari, and others will side with Deli.
There will be posts, and screenshots, and a sickening cycle of apologies and sub-tweets and after-action reviews in every group chat.
For a moment, I wonder if I’m the only one who sees how hollow the victory will be.
Panic rises in my gut at the idea that I have to weigh in.
“I think this is a big deal, and you chose this time and place for a reason. I wonder if we’ve considered how it will affect everyone else at the party.
It’s going to be off-putting for them and make them feel a lot of different things.
Do we want to set up an ‘us versus them’ question for people who aren’t involved in your journey or don’t have a dog in the fight, so to speak? ”
They both look at me as if I’ve lost my marbles, and I sigh.
Check.
They want to force a situation at a public event that makes community members take sides with them or the leaders of the community and their families. They’re out for blood—or Belle is, and Sari is going along with it because she’s hurting over Deli’s ‘defection’.
Constantine adores the cat, and he’s going to get caught in the middle of this. But I’ve chosen my side, I guess, and now I either play along or get kicked off the ride. Is being accepted that important to me?
I look at the trinkets and baubles they have given me since I arrived, including jewelry with my new nicknames and many goodies that define my relationships with them, and I purse my lips.
Now is the time, Amanda. Either go big or go home alone, woman.
All this soul-searching and quests with Con and the others will have been for nothing if you end up out in the street, alone, nixed by the Capulets and the Montagues of this place you gave everything up for.
I lean back in my chair, careful to telegraph cool confidence.
“I get it now. If we want a true showdown, then Belle’s right—timing and spectacle are everything, but so is the long game.
We need to leverage every opportunity, every moment, every word spoken in a hallway or a bathroom line, to slip doubts and wedge cracks open in the veneer.
The party is just a flash point, not the entire campaign.
Even outside the party, we can sow chaos—DMs, rumors, the offhanded text sent to the right person at the worst moment.
Every weakness matters. We know everyone’s resentments, every old flirtation, every friendship that’s already bent and ready to snap.
We feed those fractures, not just at the ‘event’.
but everywhere they gather, everywhere they talk.
” I pause so it sounds spontaneous, but I can tell Belle’s eating it up and Sari’s memorizing every syllable.
“We’re not after the climax yet. This is the fun part. ”
Belle’s eyes widen, and then she looks at me, her expression twisting from calculation to delight.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her drop the mask of amused detachment since I arrived.
The corners of her mouth curl up, and her teeth show, sharp and small, in a grin so pure it’s almost childlike.
“Hell yes! See, Sari, I told you she had it in her.” She drums her fingers again, this time lighter, a little dance across the wood.
“Mayhem is going to love this. He’s been waiting to see what you can do. ”
I blink, unsure if I’ve misheard. “Mayhem has been waiting to see me?”
The name still feels absurd, even after weeks of this, but the man himself is more than a punchline.
I’ve only seen him at a distance—at the gym, in the market, on that one night at Sari’s.
Belle’s clone mate is tall with a jawline so sharp it looks like a weapon.
He never talks to me, not directly. But Belle just tossed his name onto the table like it’s a dare, and Sari is suddenly paying full attention to my reactions.
It’s not that I haven’t noticed him. You’d have to be dead not to.
The stories about Mayhem are as thick as the perfume in these circles, all violence and heat and those rare flashes of tenderness he saves for his tightest crew.
The rumor mill has him and Belle in some kind of nonstandard arrangement, and Sari, once upon a time, maybe more than once, but never with commitment.
The man is a force, but also a magnet for women who want to burn themselves alive just to see how it feels.
And now Belle is dangling him in front of me.
I must look skeptical, because Belle laughs, a high, bright peal that bounces off the kitchen cabinets.
“Don’t give me that look. He’s been eyeing you since you started hanging around.
Ask anyone,” she says, gesturing at Sari, who rolls her eyes with such practiced skill I wonder if she’s rehearsed it.
Sari crosses her arms, and the glint in her eye is almost predatory. “He likes a challenge. Your first mistake is acting like you’re immune.”
I snort. “I’m not immune. I just… didn’t think he cared what I did. Plus, I don’t want to be a pawn in someone’s game; I’m not pathetic.”
Belle leans back, regarding me with new respect.
“You don’t have to be a pawn. That’s the thing.
You can be a queen if you learn how to move.
” She reaches for the scone crumbs on Sari’s plate, picks one up with the tips of her fingers, and pops it into her mouth.
“But you have to let people underestimate you first.”