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Sixteen | Battlefield

SOTC: Crying In The Club by Camilo Cabello

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House Christakos was chaos.

After another meeting with the Russians concluded days later, the model of how the wedding dinner would look was being set up. Servants, watched by guards, sped all around the open space of a Dining Room to situate three hundred tables, swatching different aesthetics. Aunt Polly strictly directed the staff, snapping for different ones every five seconds. Basil kept Damen, Eros, and little Felipe from five attempts at snorting flowers.

"It's all coming together!" Maria sang, clinging onto Xerxes's arm as they sauntered around the decorated tables. She looked like a kid in a candy store, and Xerxes resembled an emo kid on a field trip.

"She seems... pleased," Achilles stated as Calix, Ada, and I watched them from afar.

"Yeah, I guess so." Ada nodded, brushing her thumb against their intertwined hands. She then sighed. "I don't like to gossip, but she seems kinda..." Her sentence drew out before she sighed. "Mean. And I feel bad for saying it because maybe she just comes off that way and doesn't mean it."

"I think she does," Achilles said, turning to Calix. "Was it you or Basil that said she snapped at a maid?"

"Basil," Calix replied, leaning back to look at something by the entrance door but having to launch forward when a maid scurried by for a placemat.

A second later, Basil announced his arrival by slapping Achilles shoulders and whispering, "What up, daddy?"

Achilles distorted his face, throwing his fist upward. "What did I tell you about incest, son?"

"DADDY NO!"

I watched where Xerxes and Maria were again. Polly was by Xerxes while woman with a clipboard spoke to all three swiftly. All three seemed to listen intently, making different faces.

"Clara, how was your night yesterday?"

I turned back to Ada as she asked me this.

Nothing, Xerxes just hit me with an ominous message at 2 A.M that gave me literally no sleep afterward.

"Uh—" I started.

"Good afternoon."

My sentence was cut off by Xerxes arrival next to us. Calix raised his eyebrows. Basil's jaw visibly clenched at a pressure to break ever tooth drilled into his gums.

"Cousin," Achilles greeted him.

"Achilles," Xerxes returned, then looking at the one next to him. "Ada."

Ada greeted him with a nod.

Xerxes exhaled. "I don't mean to interrupt, but I've come for Clara."

What?

"Why?" Basil spat.

The tone was ignored from how Xerxes just turned to me and continued. "Follow me," he said.

"Alright, see you later, Clara!" Ada said brightly.

"See you later," I assured her with a grin. I caught Calix's eyes undeniably on me as I began walking with Xerxes.

Weird.

When Xerxes and I were yards away from them, he said to me: "We need to go to the flourist. It would've been with Maria, but she's stated her occupation with the placemats."