Children of Fire (Complete)

forty-three

Emerson

The rest of our afternoon was quite similar to our morning, we lounged around and got stoned, watched some television, and sipped on coffee and sweet tea. It was the closest to normal I had ever felt since arriving in Luciana, and I almost forgot about all the bullshit swirling around in my life. Kya and I talked about anything we thought of, from her planning out my outfit in her head, to me telling her about my high school prom (which I didn't want to attend but Clary had forced me to go to).

"You mean to tell me," Kya managed to sputter out between raucous laughter. "That you hit her so hard her crown fell off her head?" She couldn't stop laughing, and I found that the sound was contagious and I was laughing with her.

"Hell yeah it did, the bitch deserved it!" I was telling her about why I had knocked out the prom queen, Sybil. "I told her numerous times to quit fucking with me and she wouldn't listen! I couldn't take her anymore, so I knocked her out. Of course I got suspended for a week, but it was totally worth it." I laughed wryly, leaving out the detail of the beating my father gave me for embarrassing him. Still, it was worth it to see Sybil on the floor with her crown askew and blood trickling down her face.

"You've really got to work on your anger issues, Em." Kya told me, shaking her head and standing up lithely from the couch. She stretched her limbs and managed to get out a yawn, rubbing her eyes before speaking to me again. "Come on, it's seven, let's get ready."

When I had gotten out of the shower, I found that I was less anxious about being Kya's dress up project tonight. I was looking forward to getting out of town and dancing, pretending like I didn't have a sexy, hulk of a biker pining for my affection. It would be nice to be surrounded by normal people doing normal things, and maybe I could even find myself a normal guy to dance with for one night. Not that I would ever bring him back to our hotel room, but it would still be nice to not have to worry about Gideon looming over my shoulder and watching my every move. Even if part of me wanted him to see me dancing with another man and be jealous.

I blow dried my hair and sat down at Kya's vanity, looking back at my reflection in the mirror. I had expected to see myself and hate the woman I had become, but I found that I didn't hate my reflection nearly much as I thought I would. I had grown to love the woman that was staring back at me through the mirror. That woman was strong, she had overcome so much bullshit and heartache. The woman looking back at me was brave, resilient, and she would take whatever was thrown at her with stride, and she would persevere until she had no fight left to give. And damnit, I was full of fight.

Kya ran a curling wand through my thick hair, layer by layer, allowing my natural waves to take shape and look delicate and uniformed. My raven colored hair fell gently over my shoulders as Kya doused me with hairspray, assuring me that they wouldn't be stiff the entire night-- "They're going to fall, so we've got to make them extra curly to get that perfect beachy look I'm going for!". I rolled my eyes but managed to keep a smile plastered on my face, I realized that the more time I spent with Kya, the easier it was to pretend to be happy-- but was I really even pretending at this point?

After what felt like several hours, (which I guess wasn't a bad assumption considering it was now 10:30 pm) I finally stood in front of Kya's floor length mirror and let my jaw drop open. The strong woman in the mirror that I had been admiring earlier looked just as strong as she felt. Kya had thrown my clothes in the spare room, insisting that they weren't 'hot enough' for tonight, and I was grateful for her executive decision. She had dressed me in a skin tight high waisted leather skirt that barely covered my ass and a tight gray halter top that revealed a hefty slither of my abdomen, my tattoos peeking up through the fabric. When I had tried to slip my feet into my trusted combat boots, she had bounded across the room so quickly she was almost a blur, snatching them out of my hands.