The Rush (44 page)

             
“Let’s see, darling. Come show me,” my mother commanded from her perch on the couch.

             
Honor stopped jumping around with me immediately and walked over to our mom to show them off. Smith stood in the doorway smiling at me.

             
“What did she do to convince you?” I asked with a smug smile.

             
“What didn’t I do?” Honor sighed dramatically and then plopped down next to mom. Ava extended her thin arm across the back of the couch and Honor snuggled right in. I ignored the picture of pure evil wrapped around perfect innocence and tried to school my expression into anything but the disgust I felt.

             
“She had to receive all A’s this quarter and she volunteered at some of my charitable causes,” Smith explained in his dignified voice. “She had to earn them, but she worked very hard. I am very proud of her.”

             
“Plus, there’s a dance next weekend,” Honor’s whole face lit up in expectation.

             
“But we haven’t decided if you will go, Honor,” Smith reminded her with gentle authority.

             
“Have you been asked by a boy?” It was my mother’s turn to get excited. These were exactly the signs she was looking for, more reason for her to want to possess Honor.

             
Honor blushed deeply, from the top of her hairline to her ankles. “Yes, but daddy says I can’t go with a boy. If I go to the dance, I’ll just go with friends.”

             
“What is his name?” my mother pressed, ignoring Smith’s scowl.

             
“Ava, she’s only eleven. She’s too young for this, do
not
encourage her.” Smith growled.

             
Usually Smith and my mom tried to hide their utter hatred for each other, but this would definitely be a volatile issue. My mom kept her easy smile and started to run her fingers through Honor’s hair. It was a soothing motion that she used to do to me when I was a child, her trick to lull me into trusting her. I wouldn’t let her do that with Honor.

             
“You can’t keep her locked in a tower her whole life, Smith. It’s not like she can’t meet the boy at the dance. If she really wants to go with him, she’ll find a way,” my mother’s smile turned smug. She knew she was planting ideas into Honor’s head.

             
From the way Smith’s face heated up and his hands clenched viciously, I started to think he knew it too.

             
“Honor, are those the only earrings you have? Or did Smith let you pick out another pair for when your ears are healed?” I asked quickly.

             
“Daddy let me pick out
two
pair,” she gushed. She sat up out of our mother’s arms beaming again.

             
“Will you show them to me?” I took a step toward her and extended my hand.

             
She leapt from the couch and attached herself to me. I gave my mother an apologetic smile, but she just waved me out of the room with a roll of the eyes. At the doorway I chanced a glance back at Smith who was looking at me with an unreadable expression. He didn’t hold my gaze though, fury twisted his features and before we were to the staircase Honor and I could hear them arguing heatedly.

             
Honor’s room was a princess palace. Decorated in all white and soft pink, there was an enormous canopy bed fit for royalty with matching dressers, vanity and night stands. A huge dollhouse took up one entire wall, extending even higher than Honor could reach and another wall displayed floor to ceiling bookcases with a moving ladder connected to the ceiling. Smith seriously spoiled his little girl.

But she was so lucky to hav
e her father.
Fate balanced life out for her in this way. Because as lucky as she was to have Smith,

she
was equally unlucky to have our mother.

             
So what did Fate give me? Where was my equalizer?

             
Or maybe I didn’t get one. Maybe life stepped in and decided a balance wouldn’t have done any good. I would be this same rotten, black-hearted witch with or without a representative from the good side.

             
“Is it because Tyler asked me out?” she whispered when the door closed behind us. The earrings were forgotten in the wake of the crestfallen expression painting her face.

             
“No, absolutely not,” I rushed to pull her into a hug. “They don’t agree, that’s all. It has nothing to do with you. I promise.”

             
“But it does have something to do with me,” she whimpered.

             
“No, it doesn’t, sweet pea. Your father loves you very much is all and he just wants to protect you. And mom…. Mom doesn’t always know what’s best for you, Honor. She sometimes…. sometimes she wants bad things for you.”

             
This was the most honest I’d ever been with my little sister. She was too young to see the evil creature that was Ava Pierce, and I didn’t want her to end up resenting me or Smith because I pushed her too hard. And now I wondered if I had made a mistake when she looked up at me with shimmering eyes and a deflated expression.

             
“Does she want bad things for you too?” Honor whispered, the horror in her face making her green eyes shine with tears.

             
I was momentarily stunned. Maybe Honor was more perceptive than I gave her credit for. Not really knowing how to respond, I just hugged her tighter and said, “Hey, don’t worry about me, Ok? I’m just fine. It’s you we have to worry about. With these newly pierced ears Tyler’s not the only boy we’re going to have to worry about.”

             
I regretted the words as soon as they left my lips.

             
“Ivy?” Honor asked in such a small voice that I closed my eyes against the sudden anxiety I felt for her. “Tyler’s not the only boy. Lots of boys asked me to the dance, but Tyler’s the only one I liked enough to think about going with.”

             
“Oh, really?” I closed my eyes tighter, but this time against tears. I hated that she would have to go through this mostly alone, and without any idea of why this was happening to her.

             
“Don’t you think it’s weird?” she asked truly perplexed.

             
“Was it a lot of boys?”

             
“All the boys…. In my class and in seventh grade,” she confessed in that worried tone again. “But I didn’t tell daddy that.”

             
Oh no. I could not let her get away with that. I walked her over to her big bed and sat down with her so that I could face her. “Hon, don’t keep that kind of stuff from your dad, Ok? I know it might seem embarrassing, or…. it might be hard to tell him that kind of stuff, but he really does want what’s best for you. He won’t get mad at you; it’s not anything you did wrong, Ok? He can probably help you, make it easier for you.”

             
She nodded along, seeming to understand how important it was to be honest with Smith by my freaked out tone.

             
“Ivy, is something happening to me?” she whispered in that frightened little voice again.

             
“Honey, no! Why would you think that?”

             
“Because…. because it’s not just the boys. It’s the girls too,” she admitted and then looked away.

             
“What about the girls?” Suddenly there was ice in my veins. I remembered what middle school was like for me away from Sloane and Exie, completely on my own. It was
awful
. Girls were cruel, and the boys were relentless.

             
“They stopped being nice to me,” she croaked. Her chin trembled and then a tiny little tear slipped from the corner of her eye and down her cheek. I wiped it away quickly with my thumb and then held her face in my hands so she was forced to look at me.

             
“Honor, there is
nothing
wrong with you. You are perfect and special and wonderful. No matter what anybody else says, or does, you have to know that is true about you. You are the one that decides how you feel, Ok? You make you matter. And I think you are the greatest eleven year-old in the universe and my opinion matters too.” She laughed at that with a watery smile. “I love you, Ok?”

             
“Ok,” she mumbled, throwing her arms around my neck. “I love you too!”

             
And then my eyes were brimming with tears.

             
A knock at the door and Smith walking into the room tore us apart from each other. Smith looked back and forth between us before deciding that whatever had caused the tears must have been a good thing because his face softened and a sweet smile turned his mouth.

             
“Honor, your mother would like to spend more time with you before she goes,” he instructed. Honor stood up and gave me one more confident smile before disappearing into the hall.

             
I stood up too, wanting to follow her before my mother got her alone again. Smith stopped me with a raised hand though and asked me to wait.

             
“Mallory talked to you this week?” he whispered.

             
I nodded and then stole a glance at the door just in case my mother suddenly appeared.

             
“Please let her try,” he begged in a rumbling whisper.

             
“Ok,” I said quickly. “I told her Ok.”

             
Smith immediately relaxed, his face smoothing out to happy. “Good, Ivy. That is good.”              

             
We both moved toward the door before I said, “Have you thought about homeschooling Honor?” My voice was as quiet as I could make it without having to resort to smoke signals to communicate with Smith.

             
“After last week, I’m seriously considering all-girls school,” he sighed. Smith ran a rough hand over his face showing me how much he realized this problem was going to cost him.

             
“Please don’t do that. It would crush her,” I pleaded. I grabbed onto the sleeve of his navy blue oxford and gripped it tightly. “All-girls could be…. could be rough…. Could be traumatizing. It would push her right to my mother.”

             
He thought over my words carefully, taking them in, chewing on them and then visibly deciding that they were helpful. “Homeschooling? You really think I need to remove her from society completely?”

             
“No,” I answered quickly. “Not completely. But enough so that you can keep an eye on her and help her mature. She will
never
be like my mother. She has you. It won’t happen to her. But it won’t stop either, what happened last week will never stop. She has to learn to…. handle it.”

             
“What is this Ivy? What has its claws on my little girls’ life? On your life?” Smith’s voice broke on his last question. I could see how sickly worried he was for Honor, how desperate he was to protect her from our mother and everything she represented. “Is it something I can stop?”

             
“It’s uh,” I obviously couldn’t reveal my secret twice in the same weekend. “It’s just bad genetics. Honestly, Smith. Just think about homeschooling, please?”

             
He nodded his agreement and before he could ask me anymore questions or before my mother spent one more second alone with Honor, I bounded down the steps and rejoined my family.

             
Homeschooling, although dreadful, would protect Honor. And right now that was my only goal in life. I wondered how different my life would be if I had someone to protect me.

             
And then I thought about Ryder and how desperate he was to help me.

             
So maybe my bad did balance out after all.

             
Maybe I did have someone special looking out for me.

Chapter Thirty-Three

              The next day at school I felt this weird mixture of strong hope and eternal despair. My situation was depressing. Nix was scary as all hell. And he was back early from Greece. My future loomed bleak and ominous on the horizon.

             
But Ryder gave me this smile when I walked up to the school this morning that was secret and meaningful and…. possessive. His eyes grazed over me from head to foot as if he were searching for something physically out of place. And then his powerful silver eyes met mine and held them, connected me to him and transferred some of his indomitable strength to me.

             
I could smile then. Breathe again.