Pretty Perfect Toy -- A Temptation Court Novel (Temptation Court, Book 2)

by Angel Payne

  But people who did not know any better. Who were part of a different world, a different time.

  Which excuses their behavior?

  I push the mute button on the deliberation. Refocus on Mallory. “Then what was it?” Not muted enough. The tension in my mind jabs into my tone. I compensate by gently taking her hand again. “What could have caused him to burst out as violently as that?”

  The woman turns her head. Gazes toward the gray-blue ribbon of the Hudson. “If my gut is right…it has to do with more than Lily and the baby.”

  My spirit gives itself a quick fist bump. My premonition from the hospital waiting room was accurate. There is someone else, stalking Cassian’s soul alongside Lily…

  But the new tension across Mallory’s face cuts my celebration short. As difficult as it is, I hold back at prodding. She is prepared to tell me more, but needs to do it her own way. I see it clearly as another breeze flirts with the edges of the terrace, pushing her bangs away from her eyes. They glittering with a new depth of emotion…a deeper surge of grief.

  “How much has Cassian shared with you…about Damon?”

  “Damon?” For a moment, the name does not connect. It is doubly hard because of the sorrow I feel so fully from her. Finally, it clicks. “His brother?”

  A hard gulp vibrates in her throat. “Yes.”

  I force more clarity to mind—though it requires dredging unpleasant memories. Unpleasant? That is the diplomatic description for that night, the one that will not stop taunting as one of the hardest of my life. First, being thrown out of turret two by Prim—followed by a confrontation with Cassian I can only define by borrowing an expression from Vylet’s dictionary.

  Balls to the walls; here comes the brawl.

  Though his balls had ended up nowhere near the walls, I had desperately longed to put them there—especially after he cracked open the door about Damon but slammed it again. I took the shutdown personally. Too personally. Viewed the situation past blinders that were like solid oak doors, likening myself to nothing but his “fuck friend” and “booty call.” Though I now see everything about the situation more clearly—obviously, we both let our fears do the talking—I have been reluctant about reentering that space again.

  Reluctant? Try terrified.

  But what in my life, in the two months since I first clasped hands with Cassian Court, has not been terrifying?

  And what, among all those fears, has not been worth pushing past?

  Suck it up, buttercup.

  “Cassian mentioned him once.” I add a soft smile to the revelation. “He was relaying a story about a trip you three took to the coast. Something about a hotel with thin walls and loud neighbors…”

  Mallory laughs then sighs, staring toward the river again. “Oh, yes. That one.”

  “Indeed.” I tap a finger on the air. “And he was good about remembering the arm farts too.”

  “Dear God.” She drops her head into her hands. “How could anyone forget the arm farts?” A new laugh—that dissolves into a sob. “Oh, God. That was so long ago.” Pulls a knee up, settling her pain-lined face atop it. “Yet it was just yesterday, wasn’t it?”

  Heavy sigh. I let her hear it, hoping she feels my empathy in it too. Not the sympathy—like her son, Mallory Court is a person who will suffer the pity of no one—but as my offering of understanding for the yesterday she pleads for. Those days in which the waters she gazed at were the Atlantic Ocean, and she held both her boys in her arms…

  “Mallory.” I wait through the moment in which her face contorts harder, like a woman facing a firing squad. “What happened to him? To Damon?”

  Finger by finger, she extricates her hand from mine. Slides it beneath the other, between her chin and her knee. The trajectory of her gaze does not change, extending toward the river’s far shore…though I sense the intent of it does. Her eyes, clear and dry as blown green glass, reflect it. She can revisit the pain, but not relive it.

  “He was always my dreamer,” she murmurs at last. “Cassian was the doer…like me. Impatient, impertinent, impossibly stubborn. Didn’t want to ‘talk’ about his shit. Just wanted to punch through it.”

  I slide a wry smirk. “What a revelation.”

  After a conspiratorial wink, she returns to the thoughtful repose. “But my Damon…I worried about him a lot, especially after his father left. Which, just for the record, was a damn good thing.” Her lips compress. “Larry Court could charm the wings off an angel, about his only talent outside of counting cards. When he finally decided he liked being big man in Atlantic City more than being big man for his kids, he was gone—and frankly, I couldn’t shut the door hard enough on his worthless ass.”

  “Though it was hard for a bit?” I discern it from the fresh tension in her jaw.

  “For more than a bit.” Her head lifts a little with the pull of her inhalation. As she resettles it, her shoulders hunch. “Cassian was too young to remember or care—just five years old and reveling in kindergarten—but Damon was seven, nearly eight. He took it hard. Blamed himself for a few years. When he got old enough to realize it wasn’t him, he started blaming me. And once puberty hit…”

  She whooshes out breath with slow but rough emphasis.

  “Oh dear,” I mutter.

  “About says it all.” Her fingers wrap harder around the tops of her knees. “Though ‘oh shit’ fits too.”

  I hum in agreement. All too clearly, I remember what a different creature Saynt became when his tempestuous teenage hormones kicked in. Seemingly overnight, my sweet little brother turned into a textbook Heathcliff, minus the moors.

  “What happened at that point?” I ask quietly.

  A heavy moment passes.

  Another, even heavier.

  Mallory surges to her feet. Like Cassian, she must deal with the force of her tension by doing something; anything. “Like all clichéd stories of teenage boy angst—”

  “It was about a girl.”

  She halts, providing an instant yes. “At first,” she confirms. “But when said girl decided she was no longer into him, a buddy helped him deal with the breakup by getting him high.”

  My hands coil in my lap. “Oh…shit.”

  “You are a fast learner.”

  “Did he get addicted to it?”

  “The pot?” She bursts with a sharp laugh. “Oh God, Ella. If he’d stopped at the pot, I would have been happy. Not thrilled, but happy.”

  My jaw drops with slow-motion heartbreak. “He—he tried other things?”

  She wraps her arms around herself. Paces to the terrace ledge. Drums her fingers on the lip of a planter before reaching and plucking dead heads from a burgeoning hydrangea. The doer has gone sonic with her doing. Ohhhh shit.

  “Mishella…what didn’t he try?”

  My head dips, weighted by the claim. “By the powers.”

  “That sounds about right too—since the boy had hallucinations about possessing super powers when he was amped.” She circles back around, one foot balanced on its heel, her face a mask of neutrality. Now I see where Cassian has gotten his talent for erecting instant emotional walls. “There were the other delusions too, of course—like the time he thought he was Snoopy battling the Red Baron, and bicycled around Cassian’s school barking at all the kids. Another when he swore he was the reincarnation of Freddie Mercury, and strutted up the street belting Don’t Stop Me Now.”

  Her foot drops. So does the façade of indifference. She drops her head—but not before I catch the violent shiver of her chin. “I put up with all of it, hoping he’d wake up the next day and feel like such crap, he’d beg me to get him into rehab.” A shaky breath goes in but does not leave. “But I waited too long—and knew it the night he went at Cassian with a kitchen knife, thinking his little brother had been hired by the Russian mob to assassinate him—”

  “Creator’s teeth.”

  My gasp is well-timed. At the same moment, she exhales as if setting down a huge weight. Not a surprise, though
the start of a revelation. Has Mallory been carrying that awful memory all by herself over the years? Cassian knows, of course—but he was a small boy when it happened, unable to process all of it fully or properly. Talk about a giant thumb into the modeling clay of his psyche…hardening into the man he is today, now making so much more sense to me. His unshakable devotion to Mallory. His fierce loyalty to the Temptation Manor “family” who serves and loves him. And his protectiveness of me, intense as a sun guarding a planet in a cosmic storm.

  “Wh-what did you do then?” I finally rasp.

  Mallory kicks at the deck with her toe. “Only thing I could do. Told him to get clean or get out—and that if he ever came again at Cas like that, tweaked or not, I’d call the police.” The wind whips her hair against her face. She ducks her head, letting it happen, her mind and heart seemingly lost in a dark, spinning whirl. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.”

  The gust wanes as quickly as it rose. In the following silence, my soul battles my body. I yearn to rush and embrace Mallory again, to match her tears with the burst of my heartache, but sense her composure is only bound by pins of glass. If even the wind touches her now, her worst nightmare will come true. She will shatter.

  “What happened after that?” I abhor that I must ask it—but it is not an option. Once more I remember Cassian’s face from last night, right after we exploded in passion together—sweeping from fulfillment to torment in the space of seconds. But the recall no longer confuses me. Dredging up everything about Lily was just the first stop on his soul’s world tour of pain. And if the story about his brother ends where I think it shall…

  “Damon took off, of course.” Her all-business mask is re-secured as she jerks up her head and sets her shoulders—another move so much like Cassian, I wonder who borrowed it from whom. “Cas and I dealt with it the only way we knew how. Moved on, one day at a time.” The edges of her gaze tighten, emulating her son even more. “I took advantage of some free social programs to get Cas some counseling about it, though I was never sure how much of it stuck. Whenever I asked him about the sessions, he only shrugged and told me shrinks were like strippers—teasing at answers but never giving them.”

  I concentrate on not swallowing my tongue. “And he was how old?”

  “Too old.” It is clear the words—and their allegory—are not new for her. “He’s been too old for it all since the day he was born.”

  I tip my head toward the sky. Not really necessary, for the accuracy of her words is as obvious as stating Cassian has green eyes, deep dimples, and one ear lobe a little lower than the other. He is an old man in a demigod’s body—knowledge that wrenches my heart and simmers my blood in the same jolt. “Did Damon ever come back?” I finally ask. “Try to get in touch?”

  I hesitate at assuming the worst, though Cassian implied it when first telling me about his brother. This isn’t something I want to talk about anymore, Ella.

  Mallory confirms the exact same meaning, making my heart squeeze and my eyes sting, as her proud shield tumbles.

  “The next time I saw my boy, I was standing in the morgue…identifying him on a steel table.”

  I push fingers to my quivering lips. I have expected this truth, simply not the image it was delivered on. “H-how did you tell Cassian?”

  “He…already knew.” She slowly shakes her head. “The little bastard just…did. He even had dinner ready when I got home. Said he knew I’d be in no mood to cook.” Her cheekbones tighten, gaunt from the effort of containing her emotions. “Boiled hot dogs and burnt Tater Tots.” Finally, her tears brim over. “I ate every damn bite—then threw it up in the kitchen sink later, when listening to him trying to muffle his sobs by running the shower.”

  I cannot hold back any longer either. With wet tracks pouring down my face, I hurry to her. Hold her as tightly as she grips me, letting our sorrow flow once more, emulating the morning in which it has struck: in quiet gusts created by a somber river.

  Until someone behind me softly clears their throat.

  I angle back, the mirror image of Mallory’s move, welcoming the chance to smile again. “Prim. Thank you for coming up.” Presumably to inform me Cassian is home—or at least that is what I infer, before noticing the furrows in her brow. “Is everything all right?” I charge. “Where is he?”

  “Not home yet,” she replies. Dips hands into the pockets of her apron, always worn during her baking sprints. “And I am sorry to intrude—”

  “You’re never an intrusion.” Mallory’s insistence, true to her queenly grace, threads reprimand with encouragement.

  Prim, no slouch in the two-messages-in-one department, answers with a smile that is half thank you and half fuck you. “Well, when this kept clanging like the bells of Notre Dame,”—she pulls my cell out of her left pocket—“I thought it best to come find you.”

  As if on cue, the device chimes in her hand. Then again. I take it from her, my frown intensifying. “That is the text bell from my parents.”

  “Well, they’re damn near nine one-one’ing you, girl.”

  It is the first time Prim has approached casual conversation with me—a bittersweet win, since there is not a second to enjoy it. Not with Maimanne or Paipanne, perhaps both, turning my phone into a dinging arcade and my chest into a jam worse than the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour.

  Tension that only worsens as I scroll the confusing barrage of bubbles down the screen.

  :: What in Creator’s name is going on? ::

  :: What on Earth have you done, young lady? ::

  :: Could you have at least smiled for this? Even once? ::

  :: Why are you not controlling this bedlam? ::

  :: Where are you? ::

  :: Why are you ignoring your father and me? ::

  :: Mishella DaLysse—this is a complete disgrace. ::

  :: We will not be able to show our faces in court. ::

  There are at least two dozen more, spewing the same thing in different syntax. Two more pop up before I am finished reading, so I give up.

  Mallory’s face copies my perplexity. “They’re timestamped over the last fifteen minutes.”

  Prim nods. “The bell choir started a few minutes after you came up here.”

  I drop back onto the couch, letting Mallory keep my device. “But what does it all mean?”

  Mallory’s lips tense. Still barely moving them, gaze still glued to the screen, mutters, “Do they always talk to you like this?”

  Pandora’s Box. Huge, pretty bow.

  That I completely ignore.

  Boxes cannot be concerns right now. My parents need to be—only I have no idea where to begin answering them. “What are they babbling about?” I ricochet a stare between Mallory and Prim. “I have no idea what they are even—”

  The phone shrills with another sound. The Cake by the Ocean ringtone. A familiar face lights up the screen on my device. Dark sherry hair in a trendy style, with eyes nearly the same color. A warm smile, reflecting the fun we had during our first lunch outing nearly a month ago. Since then, those lunches have become weekly occurrences. Undoubtedly, Kathryn Robbe has become my closest friend in New York—to the point that I know she is an avid night owl and hates facing the world, me included, before nine on any day.

  So why is she calling at quarter to seven?

  I nod my thanks to Mallory and punch the phone’s green button. “Bon sabah, my friend.”

  “Hey.” It is breathless and hitchy and slightly impatient, not the usual “and good morning to you, dear arkami.” I am almost tempted to ask her what marathon she is warming up for, but have a strange feeling sarcasm is not on her breakfast menu.

  “Errmm…” I extend it through the hurried rustlings coming from her end. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your voice before the strike of nine?”

  “To what do you—” The rustlings stop. “Oh, God. Someone’s listening to us, aren’t they? Do you think they’ve gotten your private number already? But Cas bought i
t for you, right? He’s more careful than that. Much more careful.”

  “Kate.” I feel my brows drop. “What on Earth are you about?”

  A strange pause. As in, the kind of wordless stillness I expect from Cassian, not Kate.

  “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “About the explosion you and Cas are causing.”

  “The expl—” I surge to my feet. Swoop my stare in a full circle, admitting to nobody that I actually expect to see a plume of smoke somewhere on the horizon. “And where, exactly, would this apocalypse be?”

  Early morning no-man’s land or not, she has earned herself the sarcasm. To my delight and dread, her riposte rides the same bandwagon. “Do you have a web browser open?”

  I pull my phone away long enough to tap on the internet function. “In about ten seconds.” The little wheel rotates, taunting me for three seconds longer than that. “Where do I go?”

  “Anywhere.”

  Nothing proves her more right than the list of trending subjects for the day.

  After scrolling through the first screen of them, I succumb to sitting down once more.

  As my stomach turns into a tempest, my lungs morph into twin Kraken, and my limbs become ice luges—

  And I realize, at last, why my parents are texting as if the end of the world has started.

  For a moment, I completely commiserate.

  Just when Mallory has given me the key to Cassian’s final door, the entire world has stomped into our way. Tapped on the dominoes—when we have barely had time to line up a decent stack of our own.

  “Holy saints.” I tap the first link in the list on my screen. Correction: the first link appearing not to take blatant advantage of the others. Vy had a distinct term for it. Click bait. The definition takes on new meaning when one’s own name is that lure.

  When the page bursts into view, my head spins despite my backside on the cushion and my feet on the ground.

  There is more than just a story here.

  There are pictures—indeed painting a thousand words—each one “angled” with a total fallacy.