Unbound (Unbound, Book 1) ~Formerly Casting Power~

Chapter 31

"What would you know about decorating?" The girl turned with slow motions to face me with her hand on her hip and a condescending glare. "Obviously, you share the same taste as your mother."

Everything about her screamed that she went out of her way to be noticed by others. She wore a long black trench coat overtop of a slip of a leather mini and too-tight tank top. A spiked choker hugged her neck and she sported knee-high boots with three-inch heels that laced up the front from foot to knee. Her make-up was plastered like icing on a cake without appearing the least bit sweet, and her hair was left down in greasy strings in a dyed, burgundy mess.

She was lecturing me on taste?

"Chelsea, please don't start," her friend, Ben, pleaded. He was as neat in appearance as she was sloppy. A dark suit was layered over a white dress shirt with a gray tie, his long hair clean and pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck, and his shoes shone with recent polish. The sharpness of his features and narrow eyes were pulled into an apologetic expression, embarrassed at his friend's—girlfriend's? —behavior.

"Don't what? The girl should know that not everyone is going to fall at her feet just because of who her mother was. Everyone heard her in that circle—she disavowed magic."

"If I had ever expected for people 'to fall at my feet', I would never have disavowed my power, Nimrod. All I want is for you to leave. I invited people here so that they could pay their respects. After you disrupted the circle and are now criticizing my mother's decorating of all things, I don't believe that you belong among that group of people."

"I respected her, Sweetie, but she is dead. I think her decorating is rotten, so I am saying it. Just keeping it real, you know?" Her tone was light, her expression like a bitch in a fight—cruel yet satisfied with the damage her verbal hits could inflict.

Suddenly, the way she spoke hit me as familiar, and I realized that she was the girl that had been arguing with my mother the day she'd forgotten to come to get me from school. That made me angrier. Had they reconciled? Why was she here?

"Oh? Well, how about you go somewhere else and keep it real?" I stepped up so that we were face-to-face. "I don't want you here, though you were right—she's dead. That means that this is my home now, and I want you to go. Now."

"That's not going to happen."

"I'm sure that's true in your mind," I said, nodding. "My mother has been dead for a few days, and you are already bagging on her? That's how you show your respect for someone who helped with whatever problems you may have had? She died before she could finish with you, didn't she?"

"Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that?" She looked ready to branch away from using words and utilize the fists clenched at her sides.

I hoped she would try.

Nancy and Jules came up and stood on either side of me. I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows at Chelsea.

"I think that I am the daughter of the High Priestess who just passed away. You need to show both me and the memory of my mother more respect." I said with as much authority as I could muster, though it must have come out as more of a ramble I was so breathless by the end.

The people close to us started to pay attention, and soon, the entire room was silent.

"You're just a snot-nosed kid who doesn't know when to shut up."

Nancy laughed at Chelsea's assumptions and the woman's expression furrowed into anger. Julian looked confused, as did most of the other people watching us. Nancy's mom and dad looked worried, more for the woman who had pissed me off than for my well-being. Since I assumed that everyone wanted to see my abilities, and I'd have to start somewhere, why not now? Then nobody would bother me about it again and I could be happy with denying its existence.