Maddie stood there, frozen, as a flash of regret burned her cheeks scarlet. The tubs had since thumped onto the ground with a bang, mountains of ice cream pooling around her black heeled boots. Leah stood there, sopping in a dozen fruity flavors of rainbow dessert, as she spluttered out a string of profanities.
"You little–" hissed Leah, before another drop of mint chocolate chip dribbled down to her lips. "Ugh!"
As much as Maddie wished she'd hadn't been so hasty to lose her temper, she couldn't hold back a snort at the sight in front of her. Leah's uniform was completely ruined, and you couldn't even tell what color her hair was from all the ice cream and sorbet piled on top.
"Stop. Laughing." she growled, grabbing a paper towel from a nearby shelf and scrubbing at her face. Her cheeks burned so severely it was almost as if she was emitting a ruby light.
"I can't believe you. I was only testing you, you idiot!" she shrieked, voice muffled by the towel she was so vigorously wiping herself with. "Sonia totally owes me. Oh my gods."
Maddie backed away from the myriad of flavors pooling merely inches from her feet with a disgusted grimace. "Yeah, right. Testing me? For what, anger issues? I don't need therapy, you know–"
"Huh," Leah let out with a scowl. "Yeah, I thought it was stupid too. Blame Sonia. Old hag is always up to something."
Maddie let out a groan, pulling at the locked door handle in an effort to leave. Every time she turned her head, Sonia was up to something. Why did she know so much? Where she lived, what she was doing, what went on at parties. The only thing she didn't know was what Lucian had done. And she wouldn't be in the dark about that for much longer, either; chances were, everyone had found out.
"Sonia is being ridiculous. I don't need any therapy, and I don't have any issues." Maddie said, fiddling with the handle once more. Outside, she could hear the constant clinging of the door bell, and she wished she could be one of the reasons why it rung. Camille and Elle chasing her there had only made her want to leave, and now this had happened too.
"Not so fast, Mean Ole Maddie. You aren't going anywhere while there are still a million different flavors dripping on me." taunted Leah.
Maddie sent her an icy glare. "If I help you clean up, you tell me what else Sonia is doing, and then, I get to go."
"Alright," Leah said, rolling her eyes. "But you don't always get to call the shots. You don't play fair. Do you usually have everything go your way?"
"Yes, I do."
"Don't get used to it." Leah muttered, grabbing another handful of tissues and throwing them onto the ground.
"Don't order me around, either." Maddie murmured in exasperation.
Once again, Leah rolled her eyes, and ignored her. Crouching down, she started scrubbing at the floors with a sponge, and in a few minutes, for the first time in her life, Maddie was holding a mop.
"Do you really expect me to–"
"Yes."
With a groan, Maddie set to awkwardly rubbing the mop on the floor, whilst Leah continued her scrubbing. It took a five full minutes of wavering tension before they'd finished, and Maddie threw the mop to the side with a shiver.
"That was awful." she muttered.
"Usually is." Leah grumbled, shoving a hand in her pocket and wriggling, before her fingers grasped a shining key. She jiggled it into the keyhole, and the freezer door swung open with a groan. Maddie got out of there as fast as humanely possible, clutching her shiny purple purse in relief.
She looked around the cafe, but Elle and Camille were gone. They'd left a five dollar bill on their table, and Leah snatched it with a faint murmur under her breath. Maddie looked at her expectantly, swaying a little on her boots as she continued to stare. Leah rolled her eyes, sliding onto the leather seats of the booth with a huff.
Maddie followed, tapping her fingers on the marble table with her lips pressed together as tight as the laces of a corset. She'd never felt so unnerved in her life. In truth, she never really spoke to people below her social rank. To put it nicely, it was... different.
"Are you going to tell me about Sonia, or should I leave?" Maddie said, her fingers reaching down to her purse to slip out a crisp, ten dollar note and slide it over.
Leah's sharp features drew into a scowl, her vivid hot pink hair curling at her chest, with her electric emerald eyes like steel, shining in the dim lighting of the room. Her milky skin was dotted with freckles and there were small diamonds studded on her ears. Her brown eyebrows furrowed, the creases in her pearly skin almost permanently etched in place.
"Sonia's worried about you. She found out about what happened at school much faster than the media, or the police – she's got lookouts everywhere. Let's just say she's not confident in your... sanity." she let out.
"So she's spying on me?" Maddie hissed.
"Well, think of it how you like." Leah shrugged, her monotone expression masking her features in a look of pure boredom. Just like before, the icy cool nonchalance was back. And just like before, it wasn't real. Not to Maddie, anyways.
"Leah, darling – don't play pretend, alright? I'm not here to hurt you. But I need to know what's going on. It's not fair to shut me out; I'm a part of this too. Your little magical community." she mocked.
Leah blew out a gust of wind in frustration, tufts of her hair landing onto her face like slabs of ice falling onto the pavement in the winter. "You and your ego. I'm not scared of you. With that attitude, you'll only end up chasing people away. No one is going to buy your queen bullshit, alright?"
Maddie blinked back at her in shock. Her gaze lingered before she let out a sigh, and a her lips tugged into a sly smile. "Finally. You've opened up. You're a hard shell to crack, you know. I could tell you despised me from the start of our little meeting. Don't have to hide it."
"I really do hate you."
"Trust me, I know."
Maddie arrived home after an hour, with Leah's number in her contacts labeled as Ice Queen. Her contact list was small, barely anyone rather than Elle, Camille, Alex, her parents, friends from the The Hamptons of last year, and Leah; who'd now replaced Lucian. In all honesty, she was glad to have met someone, anyone new. It was refreshing. She'd grown sick of her clique, aside from Alex. The only people remaining were her Hampton friends, thousands of miles away. Besides, she wasn't going to be seeing them for a while.
As she stepped inside, she noticed there were no mauve and gold-streaked stilettos at the entrance, nor were there bulky brown leather loafers. Like usual, both her parents were gone. The only thing she couldn't say about them was where. The only pair of shoes there were her own, a few seconds later.
She climbed up the shining wooden stairs to her room, humming under her breath. It was spotless; courtesy of the house maids she'd barely ever spoken to. Once inside, her fingers were sprawled against the lock of her closet, aching to slip on something soft and satin. Two minutes later, the pristine closet doors flung open. A sliver of ebony peeked out from the rest of her clothes, and she pulled it out to reveal a midnight, shining romper.
She slipped it on with ease and plopped down onto her bed. Her schoolbooks and pens were scattered about the duvet, whirls of thick, blurred letters dancing in her head. It took her a few times to decipher the questions of her textbook themselves, before she got down to pressing her pencil in the paper. Then, there was a sickening crack.
Again, and again, and again. Each time, she pressed the lip of the pencil onto the paper only for it to snap, or simply shovel through until the paper was torn. Wonderful. But she couldn't let her grades float past her in the ocean of chaos; her only shining ribbon of pride, aside from the one on her satin pink Elie Saab dress, would be gone. Not to mention her reputation for being something other than a Barbie doll.
In all fairness, it was rare for teenagers to care for much more than themselves these days. Maddie was trying her best, even if it would take her an eternity.
Good thing I'm immortal, she thought. Although, before any more trails of death-thoughts could proliferate in her mind, she settled with her computer and got to work.
For what seemed like hours, she sat reclining on her bed, typing up her assignments onto her laptop as she shuffled under her fluffy blanket every few minutes. She'd beeped for the kitchen service from the intercom planted above her wooden side table, and in five minutes her narrow, gem-cluttered fingers were wrapped around a steaming warm mug of sugared coffee.
It was only when her phone buzzed with a text message from Leah that her web of tranquility and concentration had unfurled. Yet, the possibility of a beaming smiley face she'd expected to have greeted her had diminished when she caught flecks of the word Sonia glowing almost mockingly on the screen. Amongst other inky blurs of letters, of course.
Ice Queen
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Sonia's called a meeting for next week on Sunday, right before our training session. Arrive early, 2:00 PM sharp. Bring some Sakai, and water. You'll need it.
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Promptly ignoring the message, she continued her work and rapid typing. She was writing a Humanities essay on the lower economically developed regions of the world, and the daily lifestyle they faced. Lord knew it was hard to begin. Maddie didn't know a thing about living in financial worry, nor clamoring for a meal. But, soon enough, it wasn't too difficult to picture.
Once she'd finished, her cobalt eyes scanned the document once more, before a satisfied smile settled onto her lips. For the first time in a long time, she'd gotten something done. Sooner than later everything would be back on track. She sincerely hoped so, anyway.
After all her work was done, she sat on her bed in slight confusion. What was she supposed to do now?
The only thing that came to her mind was to do something active. She had been sitting around for a while and hadn't gone to the gym or for a morning jog ever since the discovery of her totally magical life. Literally.
In a hurricane of haste, she leaped off the bed with her papers left a strewn on her ocean blue sheets. On the side table she placed her now empty cup of coffee. For the second time that day, her closet doors flung open. The sports-wear section, admittedly, wasn't much. It was at the back of the mini-room, a small circular rack of options, all in vibrant shades.
Regardless, she pulled out a marble printed sports bra and a pair of black leggings. She hadn't used her bright fuchsia Nike trainers in weeks – and even more practically useless pairs of beautiful trainers sat on various white shelves. She eyed them with raised brows. Was she ever going to use them?
Maybe I'll give some away.
With a shrug, she padded into the bathroom to get changed. With ease, she slipped on her clothes in discreet excitement. It had been forever since she'd gotten some form of peace, surrounded by the whistling nature, by herself. She knew of a gated forest nearby, one she'd been to with her father years ago. Back when he had time for her, she supposed.
In a matter of moments, she was slipping past the main door of her house and onto the cobbled street. Aside from the occasional fluttering of leaves and the distant speeding cars, there was no one outside that evening. She plugged in her earphones and began running, her pace soon falling back into the foreign cycle with recognition.
Despite the icy breeze that swept across, in a matter of moments she felt a burning sensation in her lungs. Her feet slapped upon the pavement like slabs of ice in the winter, and it want long before she'd crossed streets she'd rarely been to, and for a second she worried she'd gone the wrong direction. But then, she saw the old wooden sign hung nearby a dusty street lamp. There was a small drawing of a forest, and an arrow pointing east. She followed.
Soon, she reached the evergreen forest around fifteen minutes away from her house. It was hidden behind a golden, creaking gate, embroidered with crisp leaves and scribbled graffiti. It's shining paint was peeling off. It most likely had been for a long time.
She slowed her steps, absorbing the liquid sun as it streamed through every crevice of the glittering trees that loomed above her, drooping down almost as if in greeting. Wisps of the wind hurled towards her porcelain skin, and her cheeks were kissed with a ruby glow, accompanied by her bottled breaths.
With her exhalation came a trail of milky condensation, pouring from her lips and fading into the forest air. In the distance, she could hear the chirping of birds ringing, bouncing off the damp leaves high above and sweeping across the rich soil of the perimeter. Shards of flower petals were dug into the earth at her feet, occasional twirling bright vines at the foot of gnarled tree trunks.
But one thing was out of the ordinary: the footsteps slowing to a stop behind her.