Page 14 of Songbird: Black Kite
I liked it.
No, I fucking loved it.
It was so edgy and badass. I looked tough, like the kind of person who could handle shit when it came my way. Like the kind of girl a person would think twice about fucking with.
Smiling, I reached into my back pack, fishing out my pouch of hair stuff and digging around until I found a few ties and some pins. Flipping my head over, I hung upside down for a moment and gathered it into a messy ponytail. Standing straight again, I teased and twisted sections, using the pins when needed and working hard to try to create a look that appeared as though I hadn’t worked at it at all.
“That’s hot,” Sabrina said when I’d finished, her voice breathy, and I smiled.
“Thanks, babe.” Putting away the hair stuff, I touched up my eyeliner and lipstick, both dark, and then we left the bathroom and headed to class.
“Oh. My. God.”
Denise’s words greeted me the second I stepped into the room, causing the teacher to pause her lecture and all the other students to lift their heads and stare at me.
“Miss Blackburn, you’re late,” came Mrs. Burrows’s droll voice, like I was somehow unaware of the fact that class had already started.
“Sorry,” I said, not sounding sorry at all.
“That’s the third time this week, Miss Blackburn.”
Yeah, it was. The first time was because I had fallen behind trying to get Jasmine out the door in the morning, her tantrum over her favorite shirt not being clean enough to wear putting us way behind schedule.
The second time was because Mom had gotten called in to work a double at the diner, and Dad had been pissed as hell when she hadn’t come home at night. I’d woken up to him laying on the living room floor in a puddle of his own puke.
I was so fucking tempted to leave him there, but the thought of my mom walking in on that after working sixteen straight hours was more than I could handle, so I’d sent Jasmine out the door and stayed behind, cleaning him up and forcing him to drink something other than Miller Lite for a change.
But Mrs. Burrows didn’t give a shit about my problems. She only cared that I wasn’t on time for her math class, and to hell with whatever else was happening in my life.
“That will mean detention, Miss Blackburn,” she added, pulling the detention slip off the pad and handing it to me as I made my way to my seat. “I’ll see you after school.”
“Sure thing,” I said, slumping into my chair as she turned back to the board, pointing out all the different types of triangles she wanted us to care about. Detention would mean I was late for work, and that would cost me money we needed, but no one would give a shit about that, either, so why bother saying anything?
“What the hell did you do, witch?” Denise whispered, leaning across the aisle toward my desk and using the nickname she and her little gaggle of friends had concocted for me last year when I’d gotten particularly good at applying my thick winged eyeliner. “Sacrifice your hair to your dark lord?”
Behind her, Jason Mason snickered, ducking his head to hide his smile in case Mrs. Burrows happened to turn back around. Detention might not seem like a big deal to other students, but he was starting quarterback this season, and if he fucked up, coach would bench him.
I wanted him to fuck up so badly.
“Yeah, Denise,” I said slowly, not looking away from the board. “That’s exactly it. All devil worshipers give themselves ritualistic haircuts to show their allegiance.”
“Seriously?” she asked, looking horrified. And she would be. Denise sang in the church choir every Sunday, and she was the leader of our school’s Youth Chapel Club, which was supposed to be a place for young people to study the bible together, but it was really just where they all went to talk shit about the other kids at school and feel righteous about it.
“No, not seriously, Denise. Fuck. I’m not a witch or whatever it is you think I am.”
“Sure, you’re not,” she retorted, eyeing me up and down. “You wear all black all the time, your makeup looks like you stepped right out of a Marilyn Manson music video, and now your hair?” She snorted delicately, and I hated how even when she was being the world’s biggest bitch, she still looked so fucking pretty doing it. “If you’re not a witch, Wren, then you’re just pathetic. And I’m not sure which is worse.”
Denise turned back to the front of the room and resumed listening to Mrs. Burrows’s lecture, but I couldn’t find the energy. I was too busy letting Denise and her snotty words get to me.
Because as much as I hated her, this time, she was absolutely right.
I was pathetic. And everyone around me knew it.
Chapter ten
Hawk
Nineteen Years Ago
