Or asked us if we were some kind of weirdo homeschoolers.
“Is there supposed to be something else?”
He shrugged. “It just looked like there was some graffiti on the door. I was just wondering.”
“Okay, seriously, that’s enough,” I snapped. “Sorry,” I apologized to Ash, “he gets a little intense about fires. I think he wants to be a volunteer fireman or something.”
“Or a pyromaniac,” Ash said. It took me a second to realize that she was kidding. “I hadn’t heard about any graffiti, but it’s possible, I guess. My dad might know. I could ask?”
“No, that’s fine,” I replied, just as Mal chimed in with, “Would you?”
I’m going to kill you later. I don’t know if Mal could read my thoughts or not, but he avoided looking at me and focused on Ash.
“Anyway,” she said, turning to me. “You should give me your sister’s number. I figure I can introduce her to a few girls before school starts. Might make her feel better about moving in the middle of the year.”
“Jenna?” I asked, completely caught off guard. Why would Ash want to hang out with Jenna?
Jenna wouldn’t even want to hang out with Jenna.
“The other sister,” she laughed. “Bailey? She who loves the puppies?”
Oh. Of course. “I mean, yeah, that sounds nice. I’m sure Bailey would love it.” I tried not to sound too disappointed.
But Ash saw through me anyway. “Relax, big brother. No need to go into another pout.” She climbed to her feet, and I leapt up to mirror her. “It was good to see you again, boy wonder, but I have places to go and minions to pester.”
Should I walk her to the door? Or stay standing and really look like some kind of freak? What the hell was the matter with me?
Ash wagged her empty coffee cup at me, and I took it automatically. She clasped her hand around mine, so cool and amused. “You can take care of that for me, right?”
I nodded automatically, a warm rush running through my body at the touch of her hand on mine.
Mal waited until she left to laugh. “You’re so whipped.”
“And you’re a dick.” I waited long enough for Ash to get to her car or whatever, even though all I wanted to do was storm out of the coffee shop and go home. But I didn’t want her to see me all pissed off.
Mal decided not to press the issue and waited with me in silence, breaking it only after we were on our way to the door and I was in the middle of tossing our coffee cups. “You’re not seriously going to throw that out, are you?”
What the hell? “I’m not saving her cup just because she drank out of it. I’m not really the mouth breather you tried to make me out as.”
I got the annoyed older-brother look that I hated. Usually, that look was reserved for Cole and Bailey when they acted out.
“No, you idiot,” he said, pulling Ash’s cup out of my hand and twisting it around. At some point during our conversation, she’d written her name and number along the side.
“Oh,” I said.
Maybe Mal wasn’t a total buzzkill after all.
Ten
“Moonset may have been led by Sherrod, but each member had their strengths.
They were smart. They collaborated.
And their bond was unbreakable.
They wanted to change the world.
They succeeded.”
Moonset: A Dark Legacy
Quinn was downstairs by himself when Mal and I walked in a little later.
“Where’s Jenna?” I asked, crossing into the kitchen.
Quinn stood by the back door, staring out at only God knew what. Maybe the neighbor’s swing set was some kind of latent threat? Or he thought the single mom a few doors away was some kind of sympathizer.
“She’ll be down in a moment.” Quinn looked over his shoulder. “You should get home, Mal.”
Quinn never cared if Mal was here. Or any of us. As far as guardians went, he was a little lax in that department. I took a seat at the table. “What’s going on?”
“Incoming,” Jenna announced as she strode into the kitchen. “It’s the Witch of Skankbird
Pond again,” she said under her breath before she began checking her reflection in one of the hanging pots.
Heavy footfalls started down the stairs as Meghan Virago swept into the kitchen. She was still wrapped up in a dark-green overcoat, her hair pulled back from her face. “The Congress has some questions for the two of you.” Her eyes skimmed over Mal. “You can see yourself out.”
“Or I can stay,” he countered.
“I thought we finished this already,” Quinn said in an icy tone. “They’ve been through enough already.”
“Is this some kind of good cop, bad dye job thing?” Jenna asked. “Because honestly, I’d rather stick my head in the oven than deal with her again.”
“The feeling’s mutual, darling.” Virago’s pinched face was a mask of smug superiority. “But does a trailer park even have ovens?”
“Hey, back off,” I snapped, moving to stand in front of Jenna. More for Virago’s protection than Jenna’s, obviously. Jenna would tear her apart with one hand.
“I’d be defensive, too,” the redhead cooed, “if I was the spitting image of a sociopath.”
“That’s enough,” Quinn said firmly. He crossed the room and stood near the two of us. “If you have questions, ask them. But you’re not waltzing in here and poking them with sticks for the hell of it.”
Jenna took one look around the room, and spun around on her heel. “Screw this,” she tossed over her shoulder.
But she didn’t get more than one or two steps before Meghan’s voice clearly rang out. “Diana
Bellamont.” Jenna’s mother’s name was like a talisman. Once invoked, Jenna’s feet were leaden on the floor.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” Meghan asked, pulling open one of the cutlery drawers and letting her fingers drift over the tools inside. “You act like twins. Tell people you are. But you’re not.
Not really.” Her lips quirked up into another insolent smile.
Even though I knew exactly what was coming, I didn’t interrupt. None of us did. There were a thousand different ways to wrap up Moonset’s crimes—a hundred different sins to tie up in a bow. We’d heard them all. Yet every time, it was as shameful as the first. Loathing held our tongues, kept our eyes lowered, and our shoulders stooped.
As if a world full of crimes and horrors hadn’t been enough, there was the story of Jenna and me. She’d been born first, only a few hours before me. Both of us the children of Sherrod
Daggett, the leader of Moonset. But only I, the legitimate child, bore his name.
Jenna’s mother had been Sherrod’s mistress. He might have loved my mother—every account confirmed this as fact—but Diana Bellamont had been his dark soul mate. She matched him, sin for sin—the co-conspirator for all of Moonset’s darkest acts. In the end, I guess he couldn’t resist the temptation.
“How galling do you think it was,” Meghan followed up, “when Diana gave birth before his wife?”
Most people looked down on us because we were the children of Moonset. But some took special care to demean Jenna and me in particular. As if it mattered to any of them that my father had cheated on my mother. That we cared when they called us the “white trash twins” as if that was somehow worse than our bloodline.
We bore the worst of it. Jenna and I were cut from the same cloth—thick dark hair, eyes so brown they were nearly black, and each the spitting image of our parents. In my case, Sherrod, and in hers a mix of the two. When we stood side by side, the resemblance was too strong to deny. It was obvious we were related.