Page 22 of Clouded by Envy

Wes pulled up to the brick building of the school, and they were already the first one in line. He was about to turn off the engine but paused. “I normally shut the car off, but I can leave it on for you if you want.”

“It’s not hot, and you forget I do live in a hole inside a tree—no AC in there.” She smiled and rolled down her window. “But leave the music on, please.”

Wes shut off the car and left the radio on as requested, then cranked down his window. Turning to her, he asked, “So tell me about your brother. Can he become human, too?”

Cringing, she rested her head against the seat and stared at the roof. “He’s actually my twin, but he cannot become human—he never quite learned how to cope with that.”

“Why?”

She thought about her answer, trying to put herself in Brenik’s wings. “Well, I was the only one granted the gift from the Stone of Desire. And since it’s just the two of us, I’m the only one who has been around him for the past ten years on Earth—besides Ruth, who found us when we crossed over. Junah took care of us back in Laith for the other ten years. So, I think he feels restricted.”

“Can’t you just go and hang out with other … bats?” He scratched the side of his head, not looking at her, as if it was hard to say the word and not associate it with the earthling animal.

“No, it’s only us here—most of our kind became endangered back in Laith.”

“You appear normal from the outside,” Wes ventured, “so you could do pretty much anything you want to, right?”

Staring down at her hands, Bray thought about it. “No. No, I can’t. I can’t because of Brenik. It isn’t fair for him, so it shouldn’t be fair for me.”

“That’s a bunch of bullshit. He should be happy that at least one of you can change, instead of just staying cooped up in a hole all day.” He gritted his teeth, appearing bothered by the whole thing.

“But he cannot mate,” Bray said, her voice serious with an expression to match.

One of his brown eyebrows slid up, arching so high, it disappeared under his hairline. “What?”

“He cannot have intercourse with anyone.”

Wes shook his head. “I know what mating is, but I don’t understand. Wait …oh… becauseyoucan.” He turned to the rolled down window, set his arm on the ledge, and stared outside like it was the most interesting sort of scenery. Talking to the outside, he said, “That’s still not a reason to, you know, force you to stay that way.” He faced her, then.

“He didn’t force me. I just told him I wouldn’t change anymore.” Maybe it should have bothered her, but it didn’t.

“But you offered to help me today with the gardening, and you said after the fact that you were going to change,” Wes pointed out. That’s true. She would have changed.

“You did look like youreallyneeded the help.” A familiar song came through the car speakers. “Oh, this is a good song!” She sang along with the music.

Chuckling, Wes started to look a little more relaxed. Bray listened to the music as they talked for a while longer, until they heard the bell ring from inside the school.

“Let me hide in the back,” she said hurriedly. Before Wes could respond, she opened the car door and hopped in the backseat, crashing to the floor.

“Really?” Wes peered over the seat and down at her.

She gazed up at his face, noticing a pale scar above the left side of his lip. “Shh! You are going to ruin the surprise.”

“I don’t know. Luca’s pretty tricky to surprise,” Wes said but put on his best poker face as he turned back around.

Bray heard the car door handle lift and open—she shot up as soon as Luca told Wes “hey.”

“Surprise!” she shouted, hands banging into the roof.

A small scream escaped Luca’s throat, and Wes was laughing, a deep rumble coming out between his lips.

Luca leaned around the seat, eyebrows all the way up, hair dangling over his eye, and Bray couldn’t stop laughing. “What? How?” he asked, grinning widely.

“I’ll explain it all to you when we get back,” she answered as she crawled from the floormat and sat in the middle of the backseat.

Back at the house, Bray told Luca the same story she had told Wes, except leaving out the whole mating situation. She wasn’t going to be the one to tell Luca about all that, and she was sure Wes didn’t want her to discuss it with him either.

Wes returned outside to grab the bag from the dollar store out of the trunk of his car. He wiped his shoes on the doormat and tossed the feathers and gummy bears onto Luca’s lap, followed by the gummy worms onto Bray’s. She had somehow forgotten about those, but immediately tore open the bag and plopped one into her mouth, chewing the squishy object slowly.

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