POV: Mira Borack
~~~
I'm going to kill both of them.
Either that or I'm going to lock them in a room together and let them kill each other because I can not deal with the two of them anymore.
It has been less than twenty-four hours since the shitshow of a party and Rowan is locked in either her room or in Charlotte's room or maybe Asia's but I don't know because all the fucking doors are locked.
Luke has also locked himself in his room.
Don't even get me started on when they emerged for food at the same time. They glare at each other while also pretending the other doesn't exist.
The silent treatment there giving each other is driving me crazy.
It's only eight in the fucking morning and I'm tempted to down a bottle of vodka, but I can't. Instead, I have to prepare myself for world war three in the middle of the living room I just cleaned.
"Are you sure she's even going to come down? She's been locked up there all night." Jack had a point but if there's one thing that Rown wouldn't miss even in her current state is planning a party.
Actually, I did most of the planning seeing as we didn't even know Maya's birthday was today until Matty informed me at midnight last night when he saw the birthday cake symbol next to her name on Snapchat.
"She said she would but who knows. And Luke will be of no help seeing as he is still locked in his room and only answers the door for Candy. So the rest of us are going to have to set everything up."
Maya had spent the night at her house with her dad and they were going out for a late breakfast, early lunch so that should give us enough time.
I started listing off jobs for everyone, Matty was, unfortunately, in charge of getting the food. Mostly because she steals so much of his food he knows what she likes. Jack and Lee were in charge of setting up the ballroom, which wasn't really a 'ballroom' like the ones in the movies, It was smaller and more of just a room to host parties, but anyway.
Jack and Lee would set that up the decorations, well once the decorations got here. I called Linc an hour ago and told him to get Justin and Cameron and pick me up some black and purple decorations. Of course, the first thing out of his mouth had been why.
I told him he had to and then hung up.
Then I had Candy and Mal delivering invitations, we decided to keep things a little on the smaller side as Maya hadn't been in town all that long and we didn't want to overwhelm her. So it was really only going to be us, and then some of Linc, Justin, and Cam's inner gangs.
And then that just left me with the job of making sure Rowan and Luke don't kill each other, lucky me.
Most of us were still surprised after last night's events but for the most part, we understood why they had to do it, and that they were just trying to protect Charlotte.
Luke on the other hand could not get over it.
Everyone left the living room and went to start their task when I heard someone coming down the stairs. I expected it to be Ro but when I turned I saw it was Luke.
he completely ignored me and walked right to the liquor cabinet, grabbed a bottle of vodka, and popped the top off. He downed a good deal of it in one chug and lowered the bottle, finally looking at me.
"If Rowan ever actually ever detaches herself from her sister's side tell her to answer her phone, her dad keeps calling me instead." His eyes were red and I'm not sure if it was from the amount of alcohol he's had or if Matty gave him weed.
"Why can't you tell her yourself? I'm in the middle of trying to set up something for Maya's birthday." The glare he gave me sent a chill down my spine
"Because I'm not talking to that lying fucking bitch." With that, he took his bottle and went back upstairs.
Did I mention the fact that I want to kill them both?
~~~
After a few hours, some yelling, and some death threats we managed to get everything ready. Rowan had never come down to help but I honestly didn't really expect her to, but I had hoped she would.
At the moment we were all just sitting around on the floor of the ballroom. Lee, Jack, and Matty, or as we like to call them The Problem Children, were in the corner trying to make a Tik Tok.
Key word being trying because the three of them kept bumping into each other as they were doing the dance.
Cam was talking with Justin and Candy and Lincoln was laying in front of me counting the balloons that were floating by the ceiling, " one-ninety-eight, one-ninety-nine, two hundred."
I kicked him in the side and glared at him, his counting was getting annoying especially since this was the third time he's done it.
He turned his head toward me, probably to complain, but he never got the chance because all of a sudden we all heard yelling, no arguing, coming from somewhere in the house.
When we finally reached the living room we were met with Rowan and Luke standing in front of each other. Rowan looked concerned and Luke, well he looked like hell and he had a new bottle of alcohol in his hand.
"Well if it isn't Miss Princess. Whatever have we done to deserve your magnificent presence? It's almost like you remembered that other people actually live in this house with you. Or were you too busy with your sister to care?" I was expecting her to retaliate but she didn't, she just looked at the bottle in his hand and then at me.
"Put the bottle down Luke. Why don't you sober up and then we can talk." Her voice was calm but Luke's expression looked as if she'd told a great joke.
"We should talk, really? How about no, and instead I down the rest of this bottle and then forget this conversation ever happened. Because you know when we should have 'talked' Rowan? We should have talked ten fucking years ago before you decided to lie to me for a whole fucking decade." He went to walk past her and I'm not sure if he lost his balance and stumbled or if she had reached out to stop him.
"Luke I know you're pissed but I really don't want to have this conversation when you're shitfaced.
Luke ripped his arm out of her hand and pushed her back, she fell and cut her arm on the table. When she looked up at Luke she had rage in her eyes.
It all happened so fast, one second she was on the ground and the next she was up and sent a punch right across Luke's face.
That was all it took for all hell to break loose, Luke swung back and missed then Ro got ready to swing again.
Cameron and Candy were the first to react, they bursted into action. Cam ran to Rowan and pulled her back from Luke by her waist and spun her so that he was in between the two of them with his hands still on her hips. Candy had grabbed Luke also and pulled him back, but he stumbled and Jack had to run to catch him.
~~~
"Happy birthday dear Maya, happy birthday to you!" Everyone cheered and clapped as Maya blew out the candles on her cake.
It had been a few hours since the incident with Rowan and Luke. After we split them up Candy brought Luke back upstairs and from what I know Rowan went downstairs to the gym and was taking her anger out on the punching bag.
But now all of us were in the ballroom to celebrate Maya's eighteenth birthday. Luke and Rowan were here and I was worried they might start fighting again but Candy was staying with him and keeping him away from Rowan and any more alcohol.
She was very adamant about not wanting to drive him to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.
The rest of the night we all just hung out and had fun, people were dancing to music or eating the snacks on the table.
One very amusing sight was Matty and Maya sticking their mouth under the Pepsi soda fountain and then running back to the table grabbing a cookie, eating the cookie, and then running back to the soda fountain.
I had been dancing with Scarlet and Crystal, I scanned the room and I didn't see Rowan anywhere. Luke was a little further away on the dance floor with Candy, so that was good. I excused myself from the dance floor and made my way back to the main part of the house.
I was going to go upstairs and check her room first but I saw Cameron standing outside Ro's library and office.
"Why are you just standing there?" He jumped a little when I talked and turned to face me.
"I saw Ro leave the ballroom and I wanted to see where she was going. She's only been in there for ten minutes." He nodded his head toward the cracked door and I heard the light sound of things being moved around.
"Go back to the party, I'll check on her." Cam nodded and then headed back to the ballroom.
I knocked on the old wooden door and then pushed it open. Rowan was sitting at her desk with her chessboard out.
"Oh no, this can't be good." It's never good when she brings out the chessboard, it means she's planning something. From what I know she picked up the habit from her mom when she was a kid, her mom would use it to explain to her what dad did and how to plan things out using a piece to represent a person and the different colors to represent a group.
In the time I've known her I've seen her fiddle with the board quite often, and every time I swear it's never the same pieces. It's always the same board but she has so many different sets of actual chess pieces that I'm pretty sure there's a box full on a shelf somewhere in here.
She was still dressed in her party clothes, a black two-piece outfit with a cropped black v-neck tank top and a mesh flowy skirt that had slits on both legs and was connected to a pair of black shorts.
She looked up at me as I shut the door behind me and took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk. There weren't many pieces on the board, a black queen, king, and Castel in front of another black queen that was on its side. On the other side of the laid down queen was a red knight.
"What do the pieces mean?" She looked at me again and then back down at the board.
"The black queen, king, and castel are me, my father, and my sister. The knocked over queen represents my mother, and the knight is the person who killed her."
I wasn't sure how to react to this situation, they had never found the person that killed Aspen, or even the name of the group that broke into the house that night.
"I want to find the man that killed my mother, I want to find the group of people that broke into my home and ruined my childhood. I'm going to make them regret the day they thought they could go against the Collins and get away with it."
"I have my sister back now and people are going to come for her. I no longer have to worry about keeping her hidden and now nothing is stopping me from looking for these sons of a bitches."
"Because I am Rowan Elizabeth Collins and I am going to bring down hell on earth."
With that, she takes her queen and uses it to knock over the red knight
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