Vicious Minds (Children of Vice #4)(9)

“What were you doing?”

She opened her mouth to speak before shutting it hard, glaring at me. “I don’t have to answer you.”

“If you didn’t want to answer, you shouldn’t tell me to come in the bathroom with you.” Before she could speak again, I asked, “What did my mom say to you? And don’t lie; I know it really wasn’t about paintball. Why was she talking to you for so long?”

“I’ll answer only if you tell me why you want to know.”

“What?” I frowned. “I want to know because I want to know.”

“That’s the only reason?” she questioned, coming closer to me and staring me down, her face bunched together like she ate something funny.

I made my eyes wide and stared back at her. “Yes. That’s the only reason.”

She laughed and pulled back. “You must really love your mom.”

“What?” And I was kinda mad I kept saying that. It made me sound dumb. “Why would you say that?”

“Well, you stood next to your mom before your dad. You only went to your father when she pet you on the head…that’s a sign, right? She pets your head and it means you can escape the grown-ups or whoever you’re talking to, right?” She was too curious and I didn’t know what to say…how did she know that? My mom and I came up with that for parties. “Now you came to find out what me and your mom were talking about. That’s why I think you really love your mom because you didn’t like that she was talking to me.”

“I never said that—”

“You didn’t look happy when she was talking to me.” Moving to a small couch in the corner, she took off her shoes and sat down cross-legged.

“Sometimes people think I don’t look happy, it’s just my face,” I replied.

“That’s a lie.” She frowned. “I lie a lot, so I can tell.”

“Did you call yourself a liar? You do know that’s a bad thing, right?”

She shook her head. “No, grown-ups lie all the time. Lying is only telling a story. If the story is bad, no one believes it. If it’s good, then people believe it. I think your parents are good liars too.”

She was right.

“Are you faking being a mouse?” I asked her. She bent over and picked up her shoe to throw at me. “Don’t!”

“Stop calling me a mouse!”

“I didn’t call you one this time!” I snapped back, and she paused.

“Oh…well stop using the word mouse,” she muttered, dropping her shoe back on the floor.

“I don’t have to listen to you,” I told her. “So that’s what you were doing? You were pretending to be quiet, so you could watch everyone else?”

“Maybe…but isn’t that what you were doing?”

She was right…again. That was weird. I never really met girls that were right twice. She was smart.

“I am mostly quiet,” I told her.

“Hmmm…I thought everyone here would be more fun to talk to.” She sighed and reached over, picking up one of the magazines to flip through. “It’s easy being quiet. No one asks you for anything and they forget you’re there. And once they forget you can listen to what people really think.”

“And that way you can hear the truth,” I said, moving over and taking a seat next to her on the couch. “People can’t forget I’m there, though…”

“Because you’re supposed to take over your family business.” She looked at me with questioning eyes.

I stared back, and she just waited. “You don’t talk like a kid.”

“Neither do you.” She shrugged and looked back at the pictures.

“You’re not going to ask why I don’t talk like a kid?”

“I already know. It’s because you’re not supposed to be a kid, you’re supposed to follow after your parents,” she said, turning the page and not looking at me.

“You know you still haven’t told me what you and my mom were talking about, right?” I reminded her.

“I know that too.” She flipped the page. Now I knew why Wyatt was mad at me…I did this to him all the time, didn’t I?

“Calli, what are you doing? Hurry up!” one of her sisters said on the other side of the door. She stuck her tongue out at the door before getting off the couch.

“Hold on!” she yelled, putting her shoes back on.

She walked to the toilet and brushed her hair behind her ears. Right behind them she had two small black dots…more birthmarks? She took the paper and unrolling as much of it as she could, shoved it into the toilet.

“What are you doing?”

“Flooding it.”

That made sense…not! “Why are you flooding the bathroom in my house?”

“So my sisters don’t come in and you can hide. We’ll run away so we don’t get in trouble.” She was just tossing more and more tissue into the toilet. She even got a few paper towels and tossed them in. “Thanks for leaving me with all the work.”

“Why should I help you mess up my house?”

She held out a paper towel towards me. “You and me are in the bathroom together. My sisters will tell my dad and my dad will get very mad, and then it will make a big mess, and your mom told me she didn’t want anything to take away from her precious princess Dona and prince Wyatt.”