"We were flying, but we never get far."
- Getaway Car, Taylor Swift
A.N.: let's see how many Taylor Swift lyrics I hid in here-and how many you can spot. ;)
(For 13k reads, tysm!)
Avery being hurt and trying to hide it was a miserable disaster. It's Saturday and ignoring everyone and everything is starting to fail. I wake up in pain when I get a call from Alisa.
"Gown shopping. Now."
Three words.
"Do I have to? I already have a dress."
"You already know the answer to that." She clears her throat as she delivers this painfully obvious fact.
"How much time do I have?"
"Little to none. We're in the hallway."
I pull on a white dress with an oversized black bow (O17) over in lieu of my silk pajamas with black tights and heels and throw a long coat over it all. Running as fast as I can in heels, while applying red lip gloss and throwing my hair into a careful chignon, I just make it to the hall as Oren is escorting Avery out to the car, wearing a high necked shirt.
"Hey." She shoots me a look.
"Hi." I smile sweetly, then stopped when I saw who else was in the car. Thea Caragillis.
"I know you weren't planning on going shopping without me," Thea says, by way of greeting. "Where there are high-fashion boutiques, so there is Thea."
No amount of vintage dresses gives you any dignity.
I look toward Oren, hoping he would kick her out of the car. He didn't. "Besides," Thea tells me and Avery in a haughty little whisper as she buckles her seat belt, "we need to talk about Rebecca." Her eyes bore into mine especially deeply.
The SUV has three rows of seats. Oren and a second bodyguard sat in the front. Alisa and the third sat in the back. Thea. Avery and I were in the middle.
"What did you do to Rebecca?" Though I was sure Rebecca had told Thea about our little chat, that question was directed towards Avery.
"I didn't do anything to Rebecca." Avery defends herself and I slip out of their conversation to scroll on my phone.
"Why are you even here?" Avery's question catches my attention. "Not in this car," She amendes, before Thea can mention high-fashion boutiques, "at Hawthorne House. What did Zara and your uncle ask you to come here to do?"
"What makes you think they asked me to do anything? You should ask Little Miss Hawthorne that question."
It's obvious in Thea's tone and in her manner that she is a person who'd been born with the upper hand and never lost it. There's a first time for everything, I thought, but before I could lay out my case, two sets of eyes turn to me and I think of jumping off of very tall somethings.
"Please Thea. There is no need to force the consequences of your own poor actions onto me. Remember the last time you were left unsupervised? Tolerate it."
Avery slouches back in her seat. "I have an entire mall in my closet." She shot Alisa an aggrieved look. "If I just wore something I already have, we wouldn't have to deal with this."
"This," Alisa echoes as Oren got out of the car and the roar of the reporters' questions grew louder, "is the point."
Oh Avery, I think pityingly, when you are young they assume you know nothing.
As we enter the store that has closed down for us, Thea whispers in my ear "You know, it's such a shame you're fücked in the head."
"Don't pretend it's such a mystery, think about the place that you first met me." I whisper back into her ear. The garden at the Easter party where I punched her. No one calles me "Little Miss Hawthorne" or fücked in the head and gets away with it. "Besides," I continue, "I keep my side of the street clean and you wouldn't know what I mean."
"Green." Thea pulls an evening gown from the rack and her lips away from my ear. "Emerald, to match your eyes. Trinity, you'd want a golden dress."
"I already have a dress," I practically spit back, "and this trip is for Avery."
"My eyes are hazel," Avery says flatly. "Do you have anything less low-cut?" She asks the attendant.
"You prefer higher cuts?" The sales attendant's tone is carefully nonjudgmental.
"Something that covers my collarbone," she replies and shoots a look at Alisa. "You heard Ms. Grambs," Alisa said firmly. "And Thea is right—bring us something green."
We find a dress. A green dress that reminds me of something.
The paparazzi snaps their pictures as Oren ushers us back into the SUV, sending off flashes like a rainbow with all of the colours.
As we pull away from the curb, Oren glances in the rearview mirror. "Seat belts buckled?"
Mine is. Beside me, Thea and Avery fasten theirs. "Have you thought about hair and makeup?" Thea begins to interrogate Avery.
"Constantly," She replies in a deadpan. "These days, I think of literally nothing else. A girl has to have her priorities in order."
Thea smiles falsely. "And here I was thinking your priorities all had the last name Hawthorne."
"That's not true."
I don't enter their conversation. The players are gonna play, play, play.
Without warning, the car swerves. Avery and Thea look panicked, but I remain calm suddenly, the meaning of the trip falls into place."Hold tight," Oren yells.
I pull my handgun out of my coat pocket and slowly wind down the window.
"What's going on?" Avery asks in a whisper. I spy a flash of movement out of my window: a car, jerking toward us, high speed. Avery screams.
Oren swerves again, enough to prevent full-scale impact, but I hear the
screech of metal on metal.
Someone is trying to run us off the road.
Before the car can fully get away, I slide the barrel of the gun out of my window and fire, transporting the bullet from my gun into the rubber of the tire.
Oren lays on the gas. The sound of
sirens—police sirens—breaks through the air.
Oren roars into the left lane, ahead of the car that had attacked us. He swings the SUV around, up and over the median, sending us racing in the opposite direction.
There is more than one siren now. I turn around, toward the back of the car, and I saw the car that had hit us spinning out. Within seconds, the vehicle was surrounded by cops. Thanks Nash, for making me get my hunting license when I was fifteen, and Granddad, for teaching me to shoot a gun at seven.
"We're okay," I whisper. I don't believe it. My body is still telling me that I would never be okay again.
Oren eased off the gas, but he didn't stop, and he didn't turn around.
"What the hell was that?" Avery asks, her voice high enough in pitch and volume to crack glass.
"That," Oren replies calmly, "was someone taking the bait."
I keep my mouth shut.
What would you do, if we never made a sound?
Learn all there is to know, Granddad.
A.N.: Good luck finding the references! Ily and have an amazing week!
<3!
Sky(lar)