The Numbers on Our Arms

Chapter 31

A light grey cloud flooded over the moon when the light glow dissipated from around Seraphina and Kayden.

Quickly, she looked around to see her near the wall of her family's estate, set in masonry stone. As her eyes hit her own home of the modern large bay windows and cubic architecture.

"Thank you." She smiled up at him.

"It's fine." He scratched the back of his neck. "I probably should get out of here quickly."

She glanced to some of the scanning light attached to the house. "Yes, you should. I'll see you on Friday."

The orange aura surrounded him and his body vanished from sight. Then she focused her gaze upon her own home for this summer. As planned, she was on her room side of the house, so she sneaked through the gardens: through the trees and flowerbeds, hedges lining off areas with other monuments and up to where she had left her bedroom window open.

She grabbed onto the rope line she had left out and hauled herself up the rope until she got to the top of her window and rolled inside. She hauled the rest of the rope inside and stored into her empty bottom draw of he wardrobe before she pulled out her own pyjamas.

She turned around to begin to strip off her clothes when her eyes caught on an darker shadow in the corner of her room near the door and she froze. Her ability flashed on as the power rushed through her veins and she ran over, pinning the person to the wall.

She turned her ability off to not over-exert herself only to see her mother standing there. "What are you doing in my room?"

"Seraphina, what are you doing climbing in and out of windows?" she responded.

Seraphina gritted her teeth and growled. "Get out of my room!"

"No, I won't," she replied. She pushed Seraphina away only to be frozen in place.

She clasped her fists by her side. "I said get out of my room now!"

Her mother's eyes shone wide as she brought her arm up to her throat. She let her go out of the time-freeze before she stepped out of her grasp.

"We can discuss this tomorrow," she told her, her voice shaking. "We're having the first day of wedding preparations next morning. I expect you there for ten – dressed."

"But I have a soulmate?" she hissed back.

"What? You're late-bloomer soulmate?" she questioned with a hysterical laugh to the end. "You haven't mentioned any sort of relationship yet. I doubt you have actually met him."

"I have met him. We're together," she replied back.

"Right," she replied sarcastically. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow."

She left the room, the door slamming shut behind her.

The sheets were drawn over Seraphina's body as the sunlight streamed over her face. Her eyes blinked over, trying to find a way to avoid the sun, before she covered her eyes with her hand and turned over in her bed. She sat up and out to her windows.

She had left the blinds open last night, forgetting in the stress of the moment, and now she looked out of the window of her second storye bedroom to see a group of servants on ladders. Locks and chains were attached to her windows where they would have opened – to prevent them from opening from the inside.

She gritted her teeth in frustration. It would take too long for those locks to rust fully in the elements – over a year – and she wouldn't be let to go around that side and be able to break them herself. And if she did, they would be replaced fairly quickly – or at least she guessed that. There were eyes everywhere here.