Page 36 of Her Devil

“It’s actually a truth and a dare,” Jasper corrects. “Angel’s choice. One for your Devil and one for the person bringing the token.”

Ivy adjusts her legs as she sits, crossing one over the other and then swapping. I smirk as her gaze flicks to mine, pressing her thighs together before she tucks her feet to one side.

“Ooh,” Tamsin says, rubbing her hands together with glee. “There are plenty of things I could think to havemydevil do.”

Yeah, I bet there are.

I flick the radiant heat panels on, the gentle glow enough to keep the edge off as the six of them settle in together, whispering ideas whilst everyone else searches the house.

People-watching isn’t my usual forte, I tend to be in the thick of it, being and doing, but pressing myself back into the darkness, the rough bark of a tree makes a welcome change of pace. The party continues, excited squeals breaking free over the now slightly muted music as the boys laugh and joke by the side of the pool.

The spiky bristles pinch into the back of my arm, but I don’t move. If I do, he’ll find me. And I can’t be found first, that’d make me a loser. The first loser. The biggest loser. And I might be small, but I’m not a loser, and I can’t care what he says.Brothers are stupid anyway.

A couple pass, their hands wrapped together as they laugh and whisper, looking over their shoulders before making a run for it and heading further into the gardens. They're big, the gardens, with two different play areas and a lake we get to canoe in during the warmer months. Andrew practices water polo and rowing in there, but he hates it and says I will too one day. It looks fun though.

The longer I stay pressed in the bush, the less convinced I become that anyone’s coming to find me. A spider creeps along the back of my knee, making it jerk as I flick it away with a shiver.Creepy creatures.It’s not exactly hide and seek if no one comes to find you, is it? But if I go and find them, then I don’t win either.

Indecision swirls in my gut.

I’m close enough to the party to hear the grown-ups laughing, their chatter mingling into an altogether too loud mass of indeterminable noise, but far enough away to not be picked out. It seemed like the perfect spot. Maybe too perfect if nobody can find me.

It’s the giggling that first catches my attention, her raven hair swinging as she rushes past, her pink dress blowing in the light breeze. Much like the couple, she checks over her shoulder before venturing further, and something about her garners my interest.

I don’t know who she is, this raven-haired girl. Not that that’s unusual at one of these things, there are lots of people here I don’t know, but as she presses away from the house, I follow. She’s small, smaller than me, and alone. She doesn’t know this garden, what if she finds that other couple and gets in trouble? It would be her word against theirs, and nobody ever believes a child, do they?

Although, there’s something about the confident way she carries herself, her head held high as she looks from flower bush to hedgerow, through the rose garden and into the corridor of cherry blossom that makes me think the adults would listen to her, they’d believe her.

No, nobody would call this girl a loser. First, last, or any other kind. She doesn’t see me as I sneak along behind her, creeping from one tree to another as I keep just enough of an eye on her to be sure she is well and truly lost.

She circles the rose garden twice, coming at it from a different direction as her frustrations grow by the second. The game of hide and seek is completely forgotten as she stamps her feet before dropping onto an old wooden bench, tucking her feet up and crying.

She doesn’t bawl and sob like any other eight-year-old I know. She doesn’t scream and cry and shout for someone to come and find her, to help her. No, she sits quietly, tears tracking down her cute little face when delicately she says, “Are you going to help me, or what?”

So much for being stealthy, I guess.

“I thought you were doing just fine by yourself.” I shrug, stepping out from behind the tree, scratching at an itch from the ivy I jumped in not five minutes ago.

“You’ll want to get some cream on that,” she comments, her gaze flicking to the raised angry rash covering my arm and spreading. “I can just follow you back.”

“I don’t, it’ll be fine,” I argue, not really sure why I’m arguing. She’s right, it burns, but it’s been fun, following her through the gardens in the quiet. Her getting lost, and me being found.

I’m not ready to go back to the party. To the rooms full of people, the noise, and everyone in my space. I can do it, usually, put on a face, smile and be happy. Be the twins that nobody can tell apart. It’s just a thing we do.

And sometimes there are benefits to that. Letting Jacob take the maths test I didn’t want to do and me getting to do his drum lessons for those couple of weeks whilst he got four levels on his latest game. Nobody notices, nobody cares. But she did.

Just for half an hour walking around an unfamiliar garden, she saw me. She saw me and she let me. Only waiting until the moment she thought she needed me before calling me out on it.

“Maybe I don’t know the way back either,” I offer. “Maybe I’m just a guest here too.”

She narrows her eyes in my direction, weighing my words for their truth as I cross the path to her, sitting down on the bench beside her with a sigh.

“Who are you hiding from?” she asks.

And isn’t that the question of the year.

TWELVE

IVY

---