Rage of Vendetta (The Vendetta Series #2)

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

"Do it again."

I drop my head into my hands with a thump. "Lily, I swear to all things holy-"

"Come on!" she insists. "Just once more."

With a flick, I lift her flower vase a few inches into the air, spin it, and settle it down.

She squeals. "That's so cool! Okay, I think I've got it: red is telepathy, orange is fire, yellow is electricity-"

"Energy," Jesse corrects.

"Right, right. Yellow is energy, green is earth, blue is water, indigo is tele-tele..."

"Telekinesis," Vee supplies.

Lily nods. "That's it. And violet is the ability to communicate with animals?"

She turns to Sasha, seated opposite her on the other couch. Meanwhile, I'm on the lone beanbag: right in between the two crescent couches arching a circle. The upside to this seat is that it's comfortable as fuck. The downside is that I'm at crotch-level to everyone.

"Do your fire-spinning thing again," Lily says.

Sasha, being much more patient that I am, alights her two palms and begins to juggle fire. We told her everything. From start to finish, not a detail missed. Well, maybe some of the more gory details omitted with consideration.

"Look, Lily?" Courtney says, resting her chin on her palm. She is seated beside her, and at least a whole head taller in comparison. She clears her throat as if there's something stuck in her mouth. "Can we get back on track?"

Sasha continues to juggle fire, amusing herself.

"Oh." Lily smooths down the wrinkles on her jeans. "Right. Courtney, is it? I do like your hair."

Startled, Courtney reaches up to pat it on reflex. I bite my lip to stop myself laughing. Courtney is caught completely off-guard.

"Thanks?"

I can't help it. A laugh escapes before I can clamp my lips shut. To distract from my outburst, I quickly lead us back on topic.

"Alright, Lil. I'm going to need you to repeat everything again from the beginning," I say, folding my hands together, my fingers inter-crossing. "Slowly. Because it's still not making much sense."

"Okay. The beginning." Lily sits back, nodding to herself. "Two days after you disappeared--and I had to call off your birthday party, by the way--your mom came knocking on my door," Lily begins. "I'd been showing up at your house nonstop, honestly, you'd think your mom could talk to me while I was there. She'd been telling me you were sick, and that's what the high school thinks at this point too."

Lily stops. "You are coming back to school, right? I've been sitting with the art kids, and they are really loud."

"Well, I'm going to need to graduate," I answer, momentarily taken off track too. "That is, if I don't die first."

"Let's get back to the story-telling!" Courtney interrupts impatiently.

Lily's head jerks.

"Right," she says. "So Genevieve-"

"Your mom's name is Genevieve?" Vee laughs to me. "As in, Eve?"

I roll my eyes. "My grandmother probably had a sense of humor. Moving on."

Sasha gestures for Lily to go in when she hesitates.

"So Genevieve shows up at my door, dressed in this black ensemble like she's some sort of CIA agent, and your car was dawdling outside."