Foolish Mortals

Chapter 11

in-cip-i-ent

inˈsipēənt

adjective

in an initial stage; beginning to happen or develop

synonyms: growing, emergent, dawning, inceptive, initial, inchoate, developing

"Hello, beautiful." I looked in the mirror at myself, and took in the damage. Oddly, I looked worse than yesterday. "Prancing peacocks peed on the prepossessing portrait of Peter Pan." 

My voice was better, at least. Lots of soothing tea yesterday had lowered the croak-factor from all out crow mating call to more of a gentle huskiness. Kinda sexy, actually.

I dabbed concealer over my bruised cheeks, then layered on foundation. I made my face a smooth canvass of pale, then dabbed on a slight tinge of pink in each cheek from an eyeshadow container. Then I surveyed the results in the mirror. I wouldn't be winning any beauty contests, but then again, with the too-square chin and too-large nose, that had never been an option.

A dash of pale pink lipstick helped my cut lip look more natural, and a few swipes of mascara helped conceal the lingering bloodshot look of my eyes. As good as it was going to get. Feeling mischievous, and with a real smile on my face for the first time in a few days, I decided to send a text off to Liam. I thought of the word of the day, and decided I missed sharing those with him. Even though he hadn't been in on the sharing, it still felt like some kind of a ritual that I'd let go to the wayside lately, with all the drama. Drama that he was going to explain to me.

Looking forward to your incipient honesty, Liam. I hope you're going to wear your truth-telling pants, because I have a lot of questions.

I smirked and tucked my phone away, then went to the kitchen. I hadn't consumed anything yesterday except a bunch of honey in my tea, and found myself suddenly ravenous. As I began pulling out ingredients for breakfast and cracking eggs into a pan, I began making a mental list of all that I would pester Liam to disclose. I still wanted to know about that damn door, but now there were other, more pressing issues. I mainly wanted to make sure I wasn't going completely insane and hallucinating.

As I sat down to eat my eggs and toast, I pulled my phone out again and poked Devon's name on my contact list with my thumb. It rang a few times, then he answered.

"Hey, Jack. You okay?" His voice sounded groggy with sleep.

"Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. Just wanted to see if you were okay." It was only half a lie. I wanted to see if he was freaking out about seeing some sort of unnatural thing, too. But you know, that was secondary.

"It's cool." There was a shuffling sound and he grunted as if hauling himself to a sitting position. "Yeah, I'm good. Just been sleeping. Got some great pain meds from the hospital, man."

"Awesome." I grinned and shook my head. "Your text said nothing serious. Your bass-playing fingers okay?"

"Such a mercenary," Devon said, but I could hear the note of teasing in his voice. "Yeah. Just got some crazy bruises on my back. That bitch was so strong, Jack. She must have like... martial arts training or something, taking us out like that."

"Hmm. Yeah maybe. Sorry I dragged you guys into it. I didn't mean for you to get hurt."

"Wasn't you beating on us. Don't worry about it. We were all drunk and... You know, whatever."

"Yeah." I paused and cleared my throat, phrasing the next question carefully. "Did you see how she got away?"

"Nah, I was out cold." Devon laughed, then groaned. "Damn, that hurt. Anyway, I think Robbie was still awake. He said something weird happened, but wouldn't tell me more."