Avery Hastings [Feuds 01] Feuds (retail) (epub)

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.The glitter on her shoes drew attention to her slim ankles—but should she have worn heels that were a little lower? Fia had helped her select a navy dress that clung to her frame, and her chestnut hair spread over her shoulders in uniform waves.She thought her hair and makeup looked subtle enough; she just hoped she didn’t look like she was trying too hard.Davis smiled to herself as she remembered the gravity with which Fia had selected her outfit.Her sister’s eagerness to please was sweet—she so badly wanted to be grown-up.She’d asked Davis at least six times to take her along, even saying she’d bring a book so she wouldn’t bother anyone.Davis had kissed her cheek and promised her, as always, Won’t be long until it’s your turn.She wished she could tell Fia to slow it down a little, enjoy being a kid.There’d been a brief second when, exiting the house, she’d caught a glimpse of Fia leaning up against Terri’s shoulder on the sofa, Terri’s arm draped around her as they laughed at something on TV—and in that second, Davis wanted to swap places with Fia.Davis caught her reflection in the mirror—her eyes looked big and sad, and she righted it quickly, taking a breath and squaring her shoulders.She smiled at herself in the mirror, hoping the emotions would follow.She was just a few minutes shy of seeing her best friend in the world and having a night of fun.She needed this—a light, easy night with her friends.She turned sideways to catch a glimpse of her back.Fia had chosen well, she thought.She narrowed a critical eye, twisting to see better for signs of areas that needed improvement.Davis had always loved the lean sexiness of backs.They reminded her of old pictures of racehorses she had studied in history.The beautiful creatures had gone extinct fifty years before she was born, afflicted by a mysterious virus that some claimed to be a direct result of the last bad Tornado Decade.She always wished she’d been alive to see one, to sit on one’s back and fly through the city, away, far away from here.She straightened her shoulders.The shoulder blades floated, she knew, attached to the back by muscles and nothing else.This was what made the back so flexible but also so vulnerable.It was up to the ballerina to develop the connections that lay underneath.Discipline and strength were what kept everything from being too soft, from falling apart.She opened her purse and took out a small pill case full of her optimizers, shaking them into her hand.Davis swallowed the first pill, a little blue cylinder that was supposed to develop her spatial perception.Then she swallowed the purple one, the one that allowed her to take in more oxygen with every breath.Last was the pink pill, meant to help with brain cell regeneration.She might actually need a little extra regeneration-oomph that night, depending on how much she decided to drink.Just in case, she also took a yellow pill to help her more efficiently metabolize whatever Emilie had persuaded her parents to buy them.The counter ticked down from forty-two floors in a hologram above her.Emilie’s building was more than a hundred stories tall, but Davis wouldn’t trade it for her family’s more modest, sixty-story building if someone paid her.Davis’s bedroom window overlooked the river, but from Emilie’s you could see beyond that to the Slants.The elevator opened to a blast of cool air from the observation decks.Davis took a quick look around.As usual, Emilie had gone overboard with her party’s theme: Black Magic.An Imp waitress wearing a dark corset, feathered skirt, glittery black heels, and a white beaked mask carried a tray of steaming shots, the dark alcohol within the glasses smoky.A huge hologram of a pentacle lined one end of the roof, and the balcony was draped with sparkling red lights.Davis stepped around a cluster of velvet wing chairs: they were a nice touch, as were the gilded mirrors and brocade draperies that gave the roof deck the intimate feel it otherwise lacked.Trails of smoke seeped from every surface, obscuring Davis’s view but giving the rooftop an eerie effect, as though it was distinct from the building itself.Besides the absinthe, the servers were toting around trays of foie gras and champagne and wearing top hats and black bow ties.Emilie’s parents spared no expense for her legendary bashes.Emilie was notorious for using that money for a fully stocked bar, even though most of the guests were still a few months shy of the drinking age—eighteen in Columbus.Davis brought her necklace to her lips, eager to find Vera.The mouthpiece of her phone was hidden in a gold necklace she wore at all times.It bore her initials—D.M.—but it also masked her DirecTalk.All the girls she knew wore jewelry to hide their DirecTalks, but a lot of them switched it up from time to time.Most girls had a dozen gaudy diamond bracelets by the time they turned sixteen [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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