(FREE TO READ) Bad Moon

chapter 39; roses

There was something about roses that made Tisper feel grounded. The way they smelled, the way they poised themselves above the other plants like royalty. Her mother loved roses, and so Tisper hated them. But roses were the queen of flowers, weren't they?

That's right. Even if she hated them, she wanted to be a rose.

She pulled the trigger and a sheen of silver cut the air. It was too dark to see much more than what the porch light allowed, but Tisper caught the unsteady teeter of her arrow as it sailed onward, and disappointment drown her in its chilly depths. Another miss.

She dug through her back pocket for her phone and the light of the screen stung her eyes. Or maybe it was neglected sleep, nagging her for rest. The clock shown 1:23 AM, a time when she'd usually be long passed out in her pink duvets. But tonight, all she wanted was to steady herself. To breath in all the plentiful roses in the Sigvard's garden, and to get a feel for her new weapon and all the power in it. She wanted the confidence to devour all the fear in her. She wanted to go to sleep tonight knowing that this object she'd been given would be the one to bring Jaylin home.

Quentin had set up a shooting station for her before he set off to his room. It was nothing complicated—just an old, unmarked canvas where she could keep track of all the holes she'd pierced in the paper. So far the number was zero.

To liven things up, she'd nailed a rose to the middle of the canvas. It was supposed to stand as her bullseye—the very heartbeat of her pseudo-target. But if she couldn't even hit the glaring white canvas ten feet in front of her, there was no chance she'd make the rose in the middle.

In fact, she wasn't sure she'd even find the training arrow in the dark, barely-moon-lit shrubberies. Devi had only given her one—one little training arrow, far different than the others. It was designed to carry the same weight, shoot the same distance, but this arrow didn't hold any of the paralyzing liquid in it. It was designed of a hollow aluminum alloy, and weighted with water in the middle to account for the ever-shifting weight. It would never break, Devi had promised her. But at this point, it might never have the chance.

She turned the light of her phone to the garden floor and bent in search of the silver arrow. It couldn't have gone too far, I can't shoot five feet in front of me. But all she could see was the bark of the mulch and the walking stones beneath her feet.

"Here," she heard a voice say. He hadn't sounded like himself at first, so when Tisper turned, she was disappointed to see Felix's tall figure, standing a black mass in the porch light.

She pushed herself up to her feet, tongue clicking against her teeth. "Was hoping you were Alex," she said and walked to greet his dark, looming outline, reaching for the arrow in his hand. "At least he's cute."

Felix lifted the object out of reach—which, for Tisper was really quite a strange experience. She'd never been the monkey in the middle. Always the beanstalk on either side.

She grabbed for it again and he lifted it higher.

"I'm not playing this game with you. I've got shit to do, you Irish jackass."

"Irish," Felix grumbled. "Ain't fuckin' Irish."

"I'm not sure I like you enough to care."

"I'm not sure I care enough to care," Felix retorted. "But if Quentin or Alex get hurt because you can't shoot a simple arrow, I will make it my life's mission to pop the silly little heads off every pet ya ever loved."

"Never had any pets. I'm allergic to cats," Tisper said, jabbing him in the chest with the nock of her bow, "and I'm starting to really hate dogs."