Party, Party

Chapter 46: Little Star

Deam's POV

Spades looks as though a truck had just hit him.

Hard.

Like through a couple buildings hard.

He stumbles backwards as if he's a matchstick and Clover is a lit flame. My daughter squirms in my arms, leaning forward as if wanting to touch Spades with her tiny hands. She squints awkwardly, before frowning and shaking her head.

"No green eyes, mama." Clover mutters disappointedly.

"D-Deam..." Spades stutters. Stutters. "What... What is that thing? Who's is that thing?"

I sigh. Well, it's better than the reaction I was actually expecting—which included a bloodbath and me, fighting off whatever sword came to Clover's neck.

"Let's go to the park." I offer.

***

"Your. Fucking. Kidding." Is the first thing Spades says after I explain—mostly—everything. "You have. To be. Fucking. Kidding."

We sit side by side on a park bench, one not too far from the devil's circuit but far enough that we had to take two trains. Clover is crouched in the corner of the noisy playground, waving around a stick in a childlike manner as if using a sword. She stumbles around in her navy gum boots, leaning on the swing set to right herself.

Spades shivers at my side. I told him of what happened to me after he killed me. After I left the HQ to start my world wide adventure and journey into motherhood. He winces at the term 'mother', fingers curling into a fist when I tell him what he had been expecting to hear.

"She's Atlas's kid, alright." He mutters as Clover threatens another child with her stick. "Fucking hell, Deam. I don't know what to say."

"I want her to meet Atlas."

"I know what to say to that! Are you out of your fucking mind?!" The other parents in the playground drop their jaws at Spades's profanity, but he keeps going. "Wait, that was silly of me. You are out of it. Fully out of it. Deam, Atlas is a warlord—a Minister, now. There's no knowing what he'll do."

"I also took his sister, Althea Solani."

"STOP MAKING IT WORSE!"

I shrug, unknowing of how to respond. "She's quite the charmer, unlike her brother. She was happy to come with me."

"You kidnapped his sister! And technically, his kid!"

"Your making it sound a lot worse than what it is."

"I'm making it sound better than what it is." He grimaces. "He will kill you. And her. You know he's still engaged—"

I shake my head.

"Well, he's engaged. To Angelique." He says. "He's a Minister now. Angelique's family jumped right on it. And now you're back in the picture, unmarried, with his child. A child who is 3 years old already."

"2 and a few months."

"That's not the point. Look, I fucking hate the new system. Nox used to be feared. Now I have to have to train rookies on the daily in hopes I can lessen the weight society has put on the Minister's shoulders." He says Minister like a dirty word. "But with that weight comes expectations of Atlas. Those include no scandals—" He eyes Clover. "—and no dramas."