Page 6 of Desert Rose

“You stepped in it. I’m going for the weekend and you can’t stop me.” I turn on my heel, leaving him with her. I swallow hard fighting the tears. I’m his only living family and yet he chose her. And I know he will always choose her. It’s just how it is. I grab my oversized duffel bag, angrily packing for two days. When I finish, I call Robin. “I’ll be there in a few hours. Tarak knows he fucked up.”

“I have a special birthday surprise for you.”

I roll my eyes. “Nothing can surprise me anymore.”

She giggles, “You are going to eat those words tonight. Watch it happen.”

***

“Ugh! Stop!” I try batting robin’s arm holding the hot curling iron away from my head. “You’re frying me. I can smell the burning strands…”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s just the alcohol in the hair spray burning off the hot iron. Relax.”

“I don’t see the point in this anyway. Everyone knows who I am, and no one will go near me. My brother made sure of that.”

“Not everyone… we are going somewhere tonight.” I raise my eyebrow. “My cousins made a track out behind the dunes. Bonfire. Illegal street racing isn’t illegal on our lands. Boys pretending to be men, bet big. And…. The Scorpion Crew is coming tonight.”

Despite the hitch in my breath and the thrill of remembering his kiss, anger burns at how quickly the moment I thought was something dissipated as he walked away from me that night.

“Edge? Please. He’s the enemy. I want Scorpion blood.” As my eyes narrow a plan starts spinning in my mind. A brilliant one. I want him to feel the pain and humiliation I felt. Even if it only lasts a few seconds.

Before Robin can grab another section of my hair to curl around her hot iron, I get off the bed, I inspect my reflection in the mirror. I tilt my head to the left, ever so slightly. Stick my right hip out and flick my hair over my shoulder. Just like she does. I’ve studied my enemy. Learned her moves.

“I need some perfume. “I need Marc Jacobs Daisy, Revlon matte lipstick in corvette, and Suave aerosol hairspray… the pink can.”

“What?”

“I’m going to mind fuck the hell out of Edge tonight. Make him think I’m that bitch Mandy whose fucking with Tarak’s head.”

“Girl…. You’re five years younger than her and no offense…. Don’t have that thing she does.”

I sigh. “I know. She has that stupid, unidentifiable,itsthing that brings all the boys to the yard. But that doesn’t mean I can’t copycat the shit out of it and get Edge high enough to believe I do have it.”

I twirl, moving my hips in a seductive circle while looking at myself in the mirror. “Your cousins got the goods tonight?”

Her brow wrinkles. “They do but you know I don’t do that shit. I won’t let you either.”

“I’ve never touched drugs and I won’t start tonight.”

“You want to drug Edge?”

I bite my lip.

“No. Heck no. I’m not gonna blow up the peace my people have between the MCs’. We are kids. If we start a war….”

I snort. “Please. As if Edge or any of the other Bloody Scorpions don’t get high.”

“I have a bad feeling about this...,” she trails off.

I shrug. “It’s my birthday and I’ll pysop a guy if I want to.”

“What’s a pysop?”

I smirk at my reflection, “You know Arrow from our MC?”

“Yeah?”

“He was Army. Doesn’t talk much about the dark shit he’s seen but he’s talked about using the training he learned from his days serving to help the MC. Anyway, a pysop is a physiological warfare operation. Fucking with people’s heads—their minds. Making them think whatever you want them to. A total mind fucking of sorts. I’m going to mind fuck Edge that I’m Mandy. And hopefully stir enough shit to get her claws out of my brother.”

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