Bloodcurse

Charlie

"Who the hell are you?"

There's no getting out of this without making it sound insanely weird in the process, so I may as well rip the band-aid off. "My brother is kind of dating yours."

Charlie's mouth twists in disgust. "Urgh. Could have gone my whole life not knowing that."

"How else would I have explained?"

She scowls. "Not at all?"

"Charlie-"

"You still haven't told me your name."

I sigh. "It's Kamil."

"Well, Kamil," she says venomously. "If you tell my brother anything about this, I will remove every single one of your fingernails with pliers, do you understand?"

Blinking slowly, I eventually manage to nod.

"Good."

She bumps her shoulder harshly into mine as she pushes past me and continues to walk down the corridor. I stare after Charlie for a while before the elevator doors slide open in front of me and I walk inside distractedly.

Charlie...

Of course I knew she was sent to a boarding school after juvie, but this one? Why didn't she stay in Indiana, or anywhere else that's closer to where her parents live? I guess they really wanted to put some distance between them and their daughter. That's kind of awful to think about.

On top of all this, Charlie's obviously keeping a big secret from her family; one that she couldn't possibly hide anymore if she ever went back to see them.

She must be a senior, too. I haven't seen her in any of my classes, at least not that I remember - and I definitely would. I only recognized her because she looks a lot like Grayson. They have the same hair, the same eyes, even the same energy. The most notable difference - not counting the obvious one - is that Charlie is a lot smaller than him. It's a shame she hates my guts, I could have really used another friendly face around here...

When I arrive on the ground floor, I'm still baffled by the fact that I've unintentionally met more of Grayson's family than my own already. They're kind of like the Weasleys - plentiful, widespread and red-haired. Only they're a lot less personable.

Charlie. Wow. I can't believe she's here. I want to talk to her again, but I'm not sure how I would go about that. It's all I can think about as I follow the white arrows on the walls and tiptoe along the line on the floor until I make it to the library - a whole fifteen minutes early.

Seeing as I have to wait, anyway, I might as well do some semi-professional super sleuthing myself. After fishing my phone out of my bag, I quickly log into the library's Wi-Fi and open the browser app.

On a whim, I decide to try 'Charlotte Sommer', and there are immediately a few hits. She has several social media accounts, so I pick one at random.

There are a lot of pictures of Charlie showing off her outfits, some short videos of her doing her makeup to niche pop songs, and even some candid shots where she's smiling. Her page has thousands of followers, and I scroll through the list of them randomly until I come across a profile picture I instantly recognize.

Grayson mentioned that Adam and Charlie used to be close, but seeing that they're friends on social media is surreal, nonetheless. I tap on Adam's name and am instantly directed to a page that looks like it's mainly used for networking. I've never seen my brother in a suit before now. He's smiling into the camera next to older men and pretty women who look like they could either be their daughters or their second wives.