Dateless and Deadly

Chapter 19

Chapter 19:

“What the hell are you staring at,” punk rock guy said as he tried to sit up. His tough attitude became a little less threatening when his upper body swayed a bit and he had to grip one of the slightly burnt branches beside him for balance.

“Unghh,” I said.

His eyes narrowed as he looked at me with menace. “You better stop staring at me, witch,” he growled.

I just shook my head, wanting to explain it to him but not able to. I compared our features and realized that we had the same cheekbones and, though this one was harder to spot, our earlobes were the exact same shape.

“Cass,” James said, gripping my arm and trying to pull me away from the threatening guy sitting in the grass.

“Cass?” the guy asked, as he immediately sat up straighter, giving me a closer look. “You’re Cassandra Cole?”

I nodded.

“Do you,” he swallowed before continuing. “Do you know me?”

I shook my head and for some reason his eyes got a bit darker. I could feel the anger come off of him before his curiosity took over again.

“My name is Harper and you, Cassandra Cole, are my little sister.”

“I’m not little,” I said without thinking, still staring at him. Harper. My brother.

He chuckled, not taking his eyes off me. “I don’t suppose you are.” He groaned as he pushed himself into a standing position. This time he was steady and he didn’t need the support of the barely there shrub to keep him standing. I rose with him from my crouch and we were standing face to face. He was the exact same height as me and our eyes met directly.

Someone cleared their throat behind me but I didn’t pay it any attention. Harper and I stood in front of each other, staring. “You have tattoos,” I said pointing my chin out trying to gesture to his bare shoulder.

He glanced down at the tattoo of a phoenix that ran down the length of his arm. “Yeah,” he said grinning. “You?”

I shook my head.

“So you’re our brother?” Sam asked, suddenly standing beside me. For a second I was confused. What was she talking about? Harper was my brother, not hers. He was clearly the very image of my mother who was the exact opposite of her mother─

Oh my god, I’d never told her about our parents.

“No, I’m her brother,” Harper said, gesturing towards me.

Sam followed the gesture and looked at me, confused. “But I’m her sister, so you must be my brother too.”

“You have different mothers.”

The words that felt like a drop kick to my stomach were spoken by the woman who was striding out of the house behind us. Calypso was a tall woman (though not quite as tall as me) with long red hair and pale gray eyes. Her frame was willow thin and her features popped out of her face unappealingly. She looked gaunt, like she hadn’t eaten a proper meal in decades.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Sam shouted, facing off with the best seer in the world as she came closer to us.

“Don’t try too hard to wrap your pee sized mind around it, dear. You’ll get a headache,” she said in a mockingly gentle tone as she raised a hand and ran a finger down Sam’s cheek before giving it a light smack.

Sam’s perfectly glossed lips twisted into a sneer as she swung her own hand up to remove the unwanted touch but was too late and ended up swatting the air. “What the hell is she talking about, Cass?” Sam ground out, staring at Calypso but addressing me.