11 | déjà vu

A BRONZE AUTUMN DUSK WRESTLES into a soft blue night, the horizon painted peach and indigo beneath each gust of wind that whisks the leaves off of their branches in showers of gold and copper; spillages of dying trees swept across a washed-out sky.

Midnight pitches an obsidian trance that bleeds through the floor windows, while the chandelier hanging overhead scintillates with light, rainbows refracting off of prisms in sprays of diamonds. Though stars tattoo the sky in their glimmering thousands, the blazing light falls short of the room that exudes a sunset glow, gently illuminating the blood-red carpet and coruscating against flutes pooling with plum wine, their colour spilling onto the tablecloth as white as snow.

Rebel's nails are painted a majestic royal-blue tonight, matching the dangerously short dress hugging her curves and accentuates the assets that has everybody under her spell. They contrast greatly; a white strip cutting across each of their surfaces as she taps them against the table, catching the light. Just the intensity of her stare, drawn out in navy eyeliner, has her guests falling silent, each one attracted to her like a moth to a flame.

Her parents are an impermanent addition to the scenery, slipping in unnoticed like the wind and making sure everything reaches their daughter's standards as she is the prize in their eyes. Formalities are barked, half-hearted greetings and thank yous that simmer on the tongue long after they disappear into the night, haunting the rest of the city like ghosts.

They pretend not to notice the hundred hidden people exposing their skin to the freezing night air, and as the door slams shut, inhibitions fall to the ground like the shedding of dresses.

The formal dinner is rushed to the floor, the table spinning up with a bar in its place. The liquids are jewel-like, liquids in every colour beneath the sun shimmering in glass bottles bewitched to a dark gold underneath the rosé light.

Music billows in the resplendent room, caressing the warming air and filling it to bursting point, filtering into the fathomless chasm awaiting outside. Candles, burning bronze, light the way to pool water shimmering with golden light, and fading tan lines on exposed skin; girls whose dresses dip to their chests and ride up to their thighs, and boys whose muscles are chiselled in shadow, glossed with a sheen of chlorine and perspiration that sparkles on their skin.

Majestic shrouds of gold and silver ripple in the pool, a dragon's cave of precious metals reflecting off of a moonlit sky. In the oil-spill darkness and low lights, everything is painted in shades of gold, right down to the sapphire on Rebel's throat and scarlet streaked across her devilish smirk.

Thick ropes of velvet bind the Witches' area, where the elite are housed. Rebel sits in the centre, crown and sceptre present on the throne made of the bones of every person that has fallen to her feet and is left at her mercy. The smile on her lips is sinful; deadly and cutthroat, but she cares little, fingering the gem at her throat as if it is a toy. I've never seen it before, but the way that firster looks at it, I know it is a gift from her. That girl sees the same pride I do, in having Rebel wear her gift, day and night.

The chair to her left is empty, the placard hanging uselessly across its back reading Ivory Blue. A champagne flute is set on its arm, and a fusion of gold and silver trembles beneath the moonlight.

I take a seat, victorious in a short silver dress that is effulgent against my skin and pearlescent beneath the light like the piano locket around my neck. One of her choice, down to the matching heels and soft colours of makeup. To have her acceptance once more basks me in a balmy glow that courses through my veins like the sunrise breaking out across the horizon, though the sun has long dissipated into the earth and charcoal clouds have taken its place, framing a crescent sliver of moon.

Once again, she tethers me to the exclusivity of Witches and IPs; I am a planet orbiting the sun, and without the gravitational field that ties me down, I am certain that the distant galaxy I would find myself in would never compare to the splendour of being associated with a queen.

The seat beside her is a privilege, and I have sold my soul to be here again; I've sold my freedom, but beside Rebel Montenero, I have never felt more liberated.

Her whisky-washed gaze crosses my body once, as if checking I haven't disobeyed her, before a small smirk touches her lips. I take it as a compliment, shifting closer to her, my lips dipping to her ear.

"Who will it be tonight?"

The line falls from my lips with ease. Though weeks have passed since the night I last said it, it has never felt less foreign on my tongue. That line is mine, like this night, this place, this time, is mine.

She smiles, and dimples edge their way into their cheeks. "Why, Ebony Blue, of course."

I blink, not quite able to process the implication in my wine-hazed brain. "Eb―Ebony Blue? He's not an IP."

"I've wanted him on my list for a while," she confesses, eyeing me. Her breath is hot, and we're close enough that it coils against my cheeks. "Things got in the way, but he's here now, tonight, and he's due a night that he'll never forget."

Muted, I nod, but truthfully, her words―as harmlessly as they are said―are scary. My brother, who is barely sixteen and nowhere near matured enough to handle Rebel, could be destroyed.

He knows he shouldn't be here in the first place, so if he accepted Rebel's offer to become an IP, then it's his personal vendetta against me.

"Of course." I don't hide my smile, one that has morphed into the mirror of hers after years of practice. "He's perfect. If he's new, he needs to prove his worth as it is, and what better way?"

"Agreed." Rebel Montenero's exuberance is unforgivingly sinful. "Shall we?" She stands, offers an arm for me to link to, joining us together as one.

"We shall," I say, the wind caressing my skin as we leave the velvet area and pick our way across the grass, Ebony firmly in our sights.

He's mingling with some of the other lower rank IPs, swishing a cider in his hand and bringing it to his lips on occasion. Anyone can see he's not really into it, and despite not being young in comparison to some of our guests, he is the newest, and that makes him a target; someone to watch.

"Ebony Blue." Rebel barks his name, and his guards rise as if on cue. But he is not one to dance with the Devil, so when she beckons him, he approaches.

"Rebel Montenero." His voice is soft, skimming the distance between him and us. He wears the outfit of any new IP―a formal shirt and jeans, complete with the added thickness of nervousness. Unlike many of the others around him, his skin is covered, and the dewy appearance to his face is only caused by perspiration. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Well, Blue, it's your lucky night." She winks, extending an arm for him to take in the depths of the night. Hand outstretched, waiting for him to lock his fingers with hers and take up her offer, just like nearly every boy before him.

But I know better than maybe even he himself that he's afraid. He doesn't want to do this, but he hasn't got Archer's defiance nor his strength of wit, and he can't say no to Rebel.

Because nobody denies a Montenero.

Archer might be nobody, but Ebony is not, and he still stares at her offering hand with furrowed eyebrows, as if weighing his options.

"What are you waiting for?" Rebel starts to sound impatient, and her once steady arm begins to shake with the volume of her emotions. "It's your chance to prove yourself, don't you see?"

He does see, and I see too. It's Rebel who is blinded, to the sickness that's pushing his shoulders forward. If he accepts, it'll be the pressure that forces him, and if he doesn't, she will make sure to ruin him.

Tonight, Ebony Blue is left with little choice.

His eyes, once fixated on her hand, move to me. Bronzed, like mine. It's like looking into a mirror, and seeing my own fear reflected in them. My fear has always been of rejection, of fading into the background and not knowing who I am, but while I can't sense what his is, I can feel it. I can feel how scared he is, but Ebony Blue is never really scared.

He wants me to think he is, because he wants me back under his thumb. To be manipulated and lied to, because even the flutter of butterfly wings can create a distant tornado.

Our gazes burn into each other, but then he's mouthing something to me, and mine falls to his lips instead. "If you were a real Witch, you would just walk away."

But all I can think is if you were really my sister, you would stay―but if he really cared about that, he wouldn't have lied. Maybe he'd believe me, and maybe he'd actually show he cares and support me, instead of making me live through a nightmare that already has its claws embedded into my skin.

Ebony Blue cares about himself and Archer more than me, and tonight marks the night where I know we will never be like how we used to be.

It's better we're done now.

So, I walk away from my brother and Rebel, and I don't look back.

The walk back to the Witches' area is surrounded by silence, and I decide it's a bubble, keeping out everyone hell bent on ruining me. Tearing me down and rebuilding me as the person they want Ivory Blue to be, when there is only one to speak of. I'm Rebel's, no one more and no one less, and I don't belong anywhere else but here.

Everly pours me another drink, and I bring it to my lips with urgency, downing it in one and tipping the bottle until I'm rewarded with another. In the distance, I can't tear my eyes away from Rebel and Ebony, but as bodies turn to ice around me, I realise I'm not the only one who is fixated on them.

When hell breaks loose, I become aware of the blood pounding in my ears, the sound of which dominates the dying sounds of the party all around me.

Witches evacuate from all around me. Everly Reach holds Rebel Montenero back, while Marcus Dee and Jake Hardman have Ebony Blue by the arms, lifting him off of the ground, just as Tyler Brown's arms are like a python around my brother's body, encircling his torso and crushing his throat.

Red slashes across Ebony's cheeks and his features screw up in agony.

Even from a distance, I can count each droplet of blood falling from Rebel's nails and staining the grass red.

Ebony made his choice, and she has truly ruined him.

Before I know it, I'm tearing across the garden, fighting through the stampede. My heels wobble and sink into the soft mud, but I stay on my feet in a desperate bid to find myself over there.

By the time I arrive, the boys have let Ebony fall, leaving Rebel to stand over him. He continues to bleed and she continues to grin, and I'm little more than a bystander, watching, like everyone else.

"Your brother was stupid to say no," Everly spits, and it reaches him, like acid against his flesh. Like the remnant alcohol in Rebel's glass, the rest writhing in Ebony's blood. There are murmurs of agreement, all around me, and no one seems to notice the other boy crouched by Ebony's side.

Rebel is enraged at his appearance, but Archer Finley couldn't seem to care less.

"Jesus, Eb, this looks bad. We should get you checked out." Archer adjusts his beanie, before sliding his arms beneath Ebony, trying to help him to his feet. His eyes never leave wound marring his cheek, but my spine bristles when he speaks, ice prickling up my skin at the thought of him acknowledging me in this place, in this time, where it's supposed to be mine and yet I can't seem to feel anything at all. "Didn't you have somewhere else to be tonight?" He asks, giving up and scooping my brother into his arms.

JJ. The name is unspoken, and yet we both know it as well as each other. But I stay silent, because Rebel's hand is now crushing my own, and I can't let her down. I think she means more to me than even myself.

"It's okay. I can see now where your priorities lie, Ivory Blue." Archer edges out my name as though it's laced with poison.

He still won't look at me.

And I can't decide whether that's a good thing or not.

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