A Rose as Black as your Heart

(18) Dinner With Demons... This Could Be Hell

Chapter 18

“Hey, Alexis!” Rose bounded up to me, far too bright and happy for a Monday morning. She smothered me in a hug which I returned, still slightly wary.

“Hey, Rose. Look, can I talk to you?”

Rose, noticing the serious not lingering in my tone, leant back from the hug, frowning. “What’s up, Lexis?”

“Nothing. Well, something. Can we talk privately?”

“Sure,” Rose agreed easily, but suddenly someone rushed over to her.

“Ro-ro!” they squealed, and engulfed her in a hug. Rose blinked in surprise through a cloud of perfect golden hair.

So much for private conversations.

“Hi, Jessica,” she said, sounding almost uncomfortable for Rose standards.

“OMG, how are you?” the blonde girl squealed, nearly chocking the life out of Rose. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in age!?”

Rose patted her pack. “It’s only been a few weeks.” They broke apart, and Rose remembered herself long enough to smile at Jessica. “How’ve you been?”

“Great, thanks!” Jessica gushed, and began to rabble about some holiday she’d just got from. Fabulous. I sighed, and gestured to Rose that I was leaving. Rose narrowed her eyes and drew a hand across her throat, threatening me a painful death if I left her. I rolled my eyes and folded my arms, waiting for the blonde girl’s nattering to end.

“-and it was sooo great, you guys should have been there!”

“Wish I could’ve been,” Rose said blandly, and then gestured to me. “Jessica, this is Alexis, my awesome friend from Canada. Alexis, this is Jessica. We’ve known each other for forever.” Something about the look on Rose’s face made it clear that this didn’t exactly thrill her.

Jessica glanced at me, pushing her designer sunglasses up on to her forehead to study me. Her blue eyes raked me up and down before deeming me imperfect and unworthy of her attention. “Nice to meet you.” She dismissed me with a wave of her hand. I caught the sight of glossy red nail varnish glimmering on her fingers.

“You too.” The insincerity in her voice echoed in mine. “I’ll see you later, Rose.”

“No!” Rose reached out and grabbed my arm. “Jess, can we talk later? Only I need to talk to Alexis.”

Jessica shrugged her delicate shoulders, and a Gucci handbag swung from the crook of her arm. “Whatever. I need to catch up with Daniel, anyway.” She swaggered off on five inch bright pink heals. Her shorts were so high they could’ve passed for a belt, and they revealed tanned legs about five miles long.

“She’s friends with Daniel?” I asked Rose incredulously, and felt a stab of irrevocable irritation that this perfect blonde Barbie had known him ‘for forever’.

“She’s in his year, and his mum is friends with ours.” She leant closer so Jessica couldn’t hear. “Plus, she’s one of those girls who throws herself at every semi-hot guy she sees. Including Daniel.”

Personally, I thought Daniel graded a lot higher than ‘semi-hot’, but I didn’t say so. “For some strange reason, that doesn’t surprise me at all.”

Rose snickered and linked her arm through mine. “So what did you want to tell me about?”

“Oh right, that...”

The bell gave a nasal shriek and Rose groaned. “Jesus, talk about bad timing.”

I sighed. I didn’t want to evade the ‘demon conversation’ for any longer than I could. Besides, I still needed answers. And lots. I’d just stumbled on a whole new world I’d never seen before.