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She stared up at me with eyes filled with hate.
"Are you really trying to argue with me right now on whose experience was worse?" she asked incredulously.
I shrugged. I really wasn't trying to argue with her at all. Just stating facts. I didn't think she'd care either way, so I kept my mouth shut.
"I think she wears the mask sometimes because it gives off an air of mystery," Tyson said quietly, as he stepped up to my side. "People find her interesting because of it and they want to know what’s really beyond the mask. How much damage is there really? And Annabell likes it because it's Annabell, and the only things she loves more than herself are male attention and power."
There was no sadness, no anger, no nothing in his voice. Tyson sounded completely devoid of emotion, as if he were speaking of something that he cared absolutely nothing about and talking about a complete stranger. There was a time where that would worry me and I'd wonder what he was really feeling in there. That time had long since passed and I knew he really did feel nothing for the woman he'd once loved more than anything.
I wasn't sure if I should feel sad or relieved for him.
"We're going to have to do something with her," Dash said, and there was something in his voice that had me turning to him. There was something a lot like glee mixed with malice on his face. He was enjoying this.
"I've already got that covered," Julian added cheerfully, as he rounded the table. An unconscious Rachel was flung over his shoulder and I was happy to see that her dress hadn't ridden up the same way Annabell's had. Then again, hers was see-through, so she didn't really need it going anywhere to show off her merchandise.
Without preamble, Julian shifted forward and dropped Rachel from his shoulder. She landed on top of Annabell with a sickening thud. Annabell shrieked, and none to nicely shoved Rachel's prone body off of hers.
"Well, that wasn't too nice," I said before turning to Julian. "And here I thought the two of you were friends now."
He grinned at me. "Oh, we got friendly earlier, alright. She told me she's been banging Adrian and she promised to hit on all of us tonight to try and get us to turn away from you. Her parents kept her locked up and hidden from people out of fear of what might possibly happen to her. They died when the hunters raided their house, but they missed her because she was hidden away in their little hidey hole. She's been with the Council ever since, and I'm telling you she is loving all of the attention and promises they are handing over to her. But, she's young and doesn't want to spend the rest of her life with a bunch of old dudes. Adrian promised her she could meet some other covens just to see if she liked something else better, you know, like shopping around."
All of that was really disturbing and made me feel sorry for her when I knew I shouldn't, because she was ready to replace me in a heartbeat if my guys had allowed her to.
"Okay," I replied, as I gestured down toward her body. "But that doesn't mean you should go around abusing her. What happened to treating female witches like the precious treasures you all talk about them being?"
Raven and Marcus moved around the table, joining our little group. Marcus was staring down at the two women with a sad look on his face. Raven, however, was looking back and forth between Rain and myself, likely putting two and two together and getting four. This night just kept getting worse and worse by the second.
I shot a panicked look around and noticed something I missed before. We were missing people. Damien, the twins, and both my bodyguards were missing in action. I whirled around, searching for them, but they were no longer in the backyard.
"Where are—"
"We can't have witnesses for this," Rain interjected. He was eyeballing Raven in a way that said he clearly did not trust him and was willing to do whatever it took to keep his,our,secrets safe. Rain's scary side was about to come out to play and I really didn't want to see it. Not with so many other people around who seemed to be fighting off the same thing. I'd seen it in Dash's eyes just minutes ago. The difference between Rain and most people was that they actually tried to fight it. Rain did no such thing.
"I'll take care of this one," Julian said, as he gestured down toward a now quietly crying Annabell. The gleeful tone was gone, replaced by a blankness that had matched Tyson's earlier tone. Julian and I weren't as tight as Tyson and I were, but I knew him well enough to know that he no longer had romantic feelings toward the woman anymore. No, his feelings ran a different sort of way now.
Annabell scrambled backward on her hands in some sort of crab walk, but didn't make it far before she crashed into Dash who'd moved behind her. Her arms went out from under her and her back slammed into the grass.
Julian prowled toward her and kneeled down in the grass beside her. She was sobbing now and quietly begging him to get away from her. Any normal girl and I would have been fighting to get them away from her. With this girl I just didn't give a shit.
Dash held her arms as Julian pried open her mouth. She squealed but didn't fight them off. Her body went limp and she just lay there on the grass looking sad and pathetic. Julian put the jug to her mouth and poured it in there. She tried to spit it out, but he set the jug down in the grass and held her mouth shut while he pinned her nose closed. Her body bucked violently but they both held on tight to her. Eventually, she was forced to swallow the bitter liquid and the whole show started all over again when he put the jug back to her lips a second time.
I turned to Tyson and murmured, "This is familiar."
I'd once watched Tyson pour something down Annabell's throat, only she'd put up a better fight that time. I assumed the potion he'd given her had worked wonders because she had never mentioned it to anyone, and her obsession with him and the others had seemed to have faded away entirely.
Tyson wrapped his arm around my shoulders and I leaned my head on his chest as we both watched the show.
"I'm happy that happened before," he told me. "It worked out well for us. Totally worth it."
"We're okay, right?" I asked in a quiet voice. The timing was completely inappropriate and it made me an a-hole for bringing it up right now, but I didn't care.
I had been caring less and less about a lot of things lately and that thought was kind of terrifying. The more I came into my magic and the life I now lived, was I losing pieces of myself? I sure hoped not. I used to be a nice girl, a sweet girl, and I knew I'd lost a little bit of that, but I never wanted to be someone who just didn't give a crap about everything. I actually liked being nice to people. I didn't want the bad shit that had happened to me to ruin any part of my personality or make me some sort of bitter, angry shrew to the rest of the world.
"We're okay, always," Tyson whispered so that none of the others could hear our conversation. "But, are you good? You look sad all of a sudden."
"I don't want to be a bad person," I told him honestly. "I don't want to look at what's going on with Annabell and know that I don't care that it's happening. Shouldn't I care? Shouldn't I want to try and stop it? What kind of person just doesn't care and sits back and watches? This is the second time I've watched something like this happen to her. I shouldn't care that she's a bad person, a horrible person even. I feel like if I want to be a decent human being and someone I can live with, then I feel like I should care and try to do something to stop it. Yet, here I am, standing beside you and watching the show like everyone else."
Someone cleared their throat, closer to our little bubble than I was expecting, and I looked away from Julian to see that Raven had moved into our personal space and now stood close to Tyson's side, so close they were almost touching. He wasn't looking at Ty though, his eyes were only for me.
