The Rush (The Siren Series) - By Rachel Higginson Page 0,41
nod or incline of his chin. But it was because of the subtlety of his authority that I felt the call to him stronger than even the oxygen in my lungs, more intimately than the blood pumping through my veins. I held my ground and fought with everything I had against the intense desire to walk over to him. His lips quirked into a perceptive smirk, and I felt his expression turn knowing. It was like my defiance only spurred him on, only encouraged him. More afraid of that truth than anything else, I broke our gaze and bounded upstairs and to the safety of Sloane’s room.
“There she is,” Exie squealed. “Shut the door behind you, Ives.”
I followed her directions and plopped down on Sloane’s oversized bed. Sloane’s room was decorated in the same style as the rest of the house, light and airy with touches of eighteenth century France. Every piece of her ivory painted provincial bedroom set was occupied in some way by Sloane, Exie or their sisters Evaleen and Anaxandra.
Exie was at the vanity curling her sister Anaxandra’s hair. She had long golden curls, just like Exie and icy blue eyes framed by impossibly dark lashes. They were big-boobed Barbies with tiny waists and perfect manes of hair. Anaxandra watched disinterestedly as Exie arranged her hair in a perfect mess that would appear casual even if it had taken several hours to accomplish.
Evaleen, Sloane’s sister shared her pale complexion and deep, dark brown eyes, but her hair was more chestnut than Sloane’s rich almost black hair. Evaleen was definitely Snow White’s older sister, and not the fairy tale princess that Sloane was, but she was still breath-taking, still heart-stopping. All of these beautiful girls could give anyone an inferiority complex.
That is if you weren’t equally as beautiful and acutely aware that this kind of splendor came with an insipid, disgusting price you would have to pay for the rest of your existence and never, not once, not even in your outspoken fantasies or most private hopes and dreams have the opportunity to be free.
“Hey, Ivy,” Evaleen greeted in a falsely casual tone. She lifted her eyes from a gossip magazine and pinned me with an accusing stare. “It’s been a while. How was the…. what are you calling it? The mind-vacation?”
I gaped at her. She was speaking to me with barely hidden cruelty like she was accusing me what happened was my fault. She should know better. We were all brought into this together, the same way. We used to be in this together. But apparently Exie was right, these two girls that I used to look up to as heroes had bought into the lie.
Everyone in the room was waiting for me to say something, staring at me with jewel-like eyes and practiced expressions of curiosity.
“Rehab,” I finally whispered, my own voice failing to stand by my side. “I’ve just been telling everyone I went to rehab.”
Anaxandra snorted her disapproval. “Not a very flattering lie. Fat camp would have been better than rehab.”
I swallowed my righteous rage at her callousness and decided to save the “beauty is on the inside” fight for when it actually aided my case. In fact, all of my beauty was on the outside. All of it. So it didn’t really matter if I wanted to argue with Anaxandra or not, she would clearly win this argument.
“But rehab isn’t really a lie,” I replied pathetically. “At least not if you hear Nix or my mom talk about it.”
“What was it like?” Evaleen asked, sliding down from her perch on Sloane’s long gilded dresser. “Was it really intense?”
“Yes,” I admitted. I hadn’t even had this conversation with Sloane or Exie yet. I preferred never to think about my time in the posh brain-washing camp I had been sent to. Most of the time I believed my soul was still intact, well, small pieces of it, but there were moments of weakness when I wasn’t so sure they hadn’t penetrated my mind. “Lots and lots of therapy. And Nix had several veterans visit and share their success stories with me. I guess he was trying to sell me on this whole thing.” I gestured around the room lazily, as if Sloane’s room summed up our entire existence.
“Spa time?” Anaxandra pushed, probably noticing my glowing skin and manicured nails, both of which I had chosen to neglect before I went in. I nodded my answer. She sighed enviously. “It sounds like vacation. What I wouldn’t