Fracture (Blood & Roses #3-4) - Callie Hart Page 0,25

impression the sound of the dial tone in my ear as I’d wait for him to pick up would be like sitting with a sealed envelope in my hands. One that contains the results to some terrible blood test that will tell me if I’m going to survive something or succumb instead. Because it seems that drastic to me—this whole having Zeth in my life and how he is in my life. And I still essentially know nothing about the man.

Fuck. I need to stop thinking about him. As soon as the first rays of daylight sneak over the horizon and craftily work their way through the blinds of my room, I get up and shower, mentally tidying the whole mess away to deal with another time. I’m good at that.

Instead, I have a houseguest to focus on. Lacey is an enigma. She’s up before me, sitting at the breakfast bar, spooning Lucky Charms (I don’t own any Lucky Charms) into her mouth when I come downstairs. Out of the floor-to-ceiling windows, she is watching the city slowly come to life, a lumbering, grey machine seemingly defrosting, remembering its purpose. When she sees me cautiously approaching, her slight body tenses, spoon clattering into her bowl.

“I’m sorry. I used your milk. I was hungry. I brought my own cereal, though,” she tells me softly.

“That’s okay. You’re welcome to make yourself at home here, Lacey. Help yourself to anything you want.” I smile to back up this statement. I mean it. I don’t have a clue what she’s been through but I know it was enough to make her want to die. Repeatedly, in fact, given the scars I witnessed on her wrists. She slowly picks up the spoon again, like I’ve given her the permission she needs to continue eating.

“You’re just a resident, aren’t you?” she asks me.

Half in the cupboard, reaching for a cereal bowl of my own, I stiffen. Just a resident is a strange thing to say. Becoming a resident is perhaps one of the hardest things a person can do, and yet the way Lacey says it makes it sound like I’m an underachiever. “Yeah, well, I guess I am,” I tell her.

“How much money do you earn in a year?” She hoists her Lucky Charms to her mouth; her teeth clack on the metal of the spoon.

“Just over forty-seven thousand,” I tell her. I would probably kick the ass of another person who asked me that question in that particular tone of voice, but when you’re mentally damaged you get special privileges. Lacey appears to understand this privilege as she continues with her abrupt line of questioning.

“So how come you can afford this place? Up on the hill, out of the city. Killer view.”

“My grandmother left me an inheritance. A lot of money, I guess. I sank it all into this place.”

Lacey mulls this over. Eats some more of her Lucky Charms. “Are you working today?”

“No. We’re going to see my friend Pippa. You remember, the woman I told you about?”

“The shrink?”

“Yeah. She’s lovely. You’ll really like her, Lacey, I promise.” She doesn’t look too convinced. She sulks into her cereal while I rinse a spoon, trying to think of something to say to her. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells. I need some common ground with this girl. I catch sight of the cereal box and an idea forms—yeah, I’m pathetic, but what else am I supposed to do?

“You mind if I have some of your Lucky Charms?” Even in this small thing, if she feels less indebted to me, if she feels like she is doing me a favor, then that could change the dynamic of our painfully awkward relationship. She looks up at me from drawn brows, and I can tell she’s assessing me, trying to work me out.

Eventually she whispers, “Sure,” slowly pushing the box toward me with her elbow.

I pour myself a modest bowl, making sure not to take too much. “This your favorite?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” I pour the milk, and then take a bite, trying not to pull a face at the saccharine sweetness.

“Because of the powers,” she tells me.

I stand up straighter. “What do you mean?”

“The charms. Each one gives you powers.” This rings some vague and distant bell in my memory—a childhood remembrance, fuzzy and dusty from old age. I look down at her breakfast and notice that she’s separated out all of the marshmallows on the very edge of her bowl, stranding them, running yellow and pink and