Page 84 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
She smells sweet and fruity, like coconuts. It’s pl
easant, but I’m being suffocated, and so I make a bleating sound of distress.
She releases me to hold me at arm’s length and cackle. “A travel writer! Ha! We all knew that was baloney, girl! No writer in history has ever had ta-tas like that!” She leers at my chest.
“That’s what I’m sayin’,” drawls Ryan, leaning against a bookcase.
Darcy turns scolding, shaking her finger in my face. “Now don’t worry about us telling anyone you got sticky fingers, girl. We’re real used to keeping each other’s big, hairy secrets in this crew, you hear?”
“Um…”
She leans in and says in a stage whisper, “You know, me and you gotta stick together because the redhead is nuts. Tattoos of green fairies, and building computers that think and shit. And don’t get me started on all that Hello Kitty nonsense. It’s like she thinks that cartoon cat is alive.”
Tabby looks at the ceiling. “Darcy. I’m literally four feet away.”
“Lurk much, nutty?” Darcy mutters under her breath.
Exasperated, Tabby throws her hands in the air. “Still! Four! Feet!”
Darcy ignores her. “Now I know you and the boys got some business, so me and my baby”—she blows a kiss to Kai, who giggles and waves with his fingertips—“and short stuff over there with the obese dairy cow rodent just stopped by to say hi real quick on our way to lunch. So. Hi.”
I can tell I’m supposed to say something now, so I pretend this is a completely normal situation. “Hello. It’s very nice to see you again, Darcy,” I say pleasantly.
She nods in solemn satisfaction, like we just made a blood pact. Then over her shoulder, she bosses, “Kai, say hello to Miss Thang!”
Kai makes a formal little bow. When he straightens, he says in his charming German accent, “I would like to cook you a meal when this is all over, Miss Thang. Do you enjoy schnitzel? I make an excellent traditional schnitzel.”
Wondering what he means by “ven zis is all over,” I reply, “That sounds wonderful. Thank you, Kai. And you can just call me Mariana.”
I notice Connor and Ryan are both trying hard to keep straight faces, and not having much luck.
Juanita rises from the couch and skips over, tossing the rat onto her left shoulder in a smooth, practiced move. All gangly limbs and soft clouds of dark, curly hair, she inserts herself between Darcy and me, dusts orange Cheetos powder from her hands, then stares up into my face.
“Me and Elvis have a bet about where you’re from,” she says, as if picking up where we left off in an earlier conversation. “He says Brazil, but you don’t have a Portuguese accent—”
“I don’t have any accent,” I interrupt, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach.
Everyone else seems to have suddenly fallen silent.
Juanita slowly shakes her head, not in disagreement, but as if I’m not listening. “He says Brazil,” she repeats firmly, “but I say Colombia. So which is it?”
Her eyes are large and velvet brown, black-lashed and penetrating. They’re also devoid of childlike innocence, or any of the bashful self-consciousness adolescents usually display in a roomful of adults.
I’m looking at a fifteen-year-old girl, but the person looking back at me hasn’t been fifteen in an eternity.
Ghostly pale and unsmiling, my sister’s face swims into my vision. I inhale a hitching breath.
“You remind me so much of someone I once knew,” I whisper in Spanish, reverting to my native tongue without a thought, dragged back by the weight of ancient memory and the kind of wounds that scab over, but never fully heal.
“I knew it.,” Juanita replies instantly in Spanish. “Elvis, you owe me five bucks.”
“Okay, no secrets now. Everybody talks in English from here on out.”
It’s Tabby, her tone light and joking, but she’s looking at me with a gaze that’s anything but light. I realize that she understood everything Juanita said to each other at the same time I understand that she won’t mention another word to me about it, or divulge to anyone else what we’ve said.
This is turning out to be one hell of an interesting day.
Twenty-Two
