1. Novel

  2. Severed Heart (Ravenhood Legacy Book 2)

  3. Severed Heart: Chapter 3
Severed Heart (Ravenhood Legacy Book 2)

Severed Heart: Chapter 3

US PRESIDENT: RONALD REAGAN | 1981–1989
“SALOPE” RINGS OUT in taunt before I slam Celine’s car door, glaring back at the girl through my window before she trots off triumphantly. It’s the third time today, and I know she planned it. They always plan it.
“Ignore them,” Celine says with a sigh, tenderly running her manicured nails through my hair before pulling away from the curb. “They’re only mad because you are prettier than they are, and you have boobs.”
“I’ve had boobs since I was nine.”
“How could I forget? You showed them to me along with the rest of the family at the dinner table,” she laughs, and I roll my eyes.
“They’re mad because they think I kissed their boyfriends . . . and I did. I kissed her boyfriend”—I nod back toward the school—“Lyam, during lunch. He uses too much tongue.”
Celine gasps as I face her, wearing my own triumphant smile while clicking my seatbelt.
“You aren’t going to make any friends that way,” she warns.
“I don’t want to be friends with them,” I tell her. And I don’t. I don’t want to talk about boys all the time—or dresses, makeup, shopping, or going to concerts. I want to fish the river, and shoot, and make campfires. I want to be back in Levallois-Perret and living as Matis’s daughter. Not pretending to be Celine’s little sister—though no one believes it inside the family but Celine.
“You shouldn’t be kissing so many boys. Nine was not that long ago,” Celine scorns, taking a turn toward home. A home where the drapes have ruffles, the floors don’t creak, and the windows don’t have a thick layer of the filth that Maman told us to rot in. Every day, I wish for my life back in our house just outside Levallois-Perret, and every day, I live like a princess instead of a soldier. A home where we have house staff to do our washing and who keep eyes on my every move and then report them to Papa’s nephew, Francis, and his wife, Marine.
“Where is Ezekiel?” I ask, glancing toward the empty back seat as she turns up the radio to “Lucky Star.” Madonna, again. Always Madonna. I like Prince.
“He’s with Maman for the night, so you’ll see him when I drop you home.”
“Why is he with her?”
“Why?” She bulges her eyes, and I laugh, knowing very well what a tyrant my three-year-old ‘nephew’ is. “So I can get some needed rest,” she sighs and glances at me. “And I kiss one man,” she reprimands, refusing to let my confession go. “One man I’m hoping to be able to kiss tonight without a demanding audience.”
“This is why you’re boring. Already tied to one man forever, imbecile.” I poke like I always do, and she smiles—like she always does—never taking my insults seriously, even when I mean them.
Celine had embraced me the minute I was dropped at her front door. Handling my temperament easily because she never seems to get angry. I did all I could to get her to the point of hitting me back during my first few months in her house. Though there are many bedrooms, we shared a room before she moved out and eloped with Abijah. My suspicion is that we only shared a room because Celine decided before I got there that I was the sibling she had always longed for. During that time, I did my best to make her think otherwise. I stole her clothes and even claimed her favorite necklace as my own. When I did, she shrugged and said she would have given it to me if I had asked. Possessions mean nothing to Celine—probably because she grew up with so many of them.
At first, I hated that she never got mad, but instead of fighting back, she hugged me. She said I needed hugs. Though I don’t like her hugs, I let her hug me because I think she is the one who needs them.
Though Celine and I have become close, it remains different with her parents. Francis, a much older cousin I had never met before the night I came to live with him, now plays as a parent to me. Though I make Francis laugh, his wife, Marine, only tolerates me. I overheard Marine speak her opinion of me not long after I was dropped like garbage at their door.
“She came to us from the slums, and she acts like it. He did not raise a girl—he raised a future criminal who is rude with no manners.”
Marine’s view of me has not changed much in our years together. She still looks at me the way she did and declares all her efforts have been wasted because I am ‘still rude with no manners.’
Francis had come to my defense that night, as he often does now, by reminding her they were the only family I had left. Which I knew to be true because my uncle Aloïs—Matis’s only brother and Francis’s father—had also been a soldier but died in Vietnam. From what Celine told me through late-night whispers in our bedroom, Francis and Marine had been activists up until Celine became a teenager. I can only assume by her behavior that Marine was the one who put a stop to it, though I have my suspicions that Francis remains involved without her knowledge.
At the dinner table, Celine’s mother always silences Francis from telling stories about their time as activists. She also quiets Francis when he mentions Papa or his own dead father, Aloïs. But I refuse to forget my father or my promise to him to remember what he taught me. Most nights, to keep my memories safe, I stare up at my ceiling and relive the time with him after Maman left us—my happiest days. Most of the time, I pretend he didn’t die that night in the snow. That the British man lied and that my father didn’t sell me for a spoon of drugs. I pretend a lot because I still want to be with him—there. Always. Forever dancing in the wildflowers.
For me, this life is no life at all. There are no outdoor adventures, no fields of flowers to dance in or nearby rivers to fish from, and no animals to target and shoot. All of this city is concrete, and there are way too many eyes. Too many people. I don’t blame Celine in the least for leaving the house, though she foolishly didn’t move out of the city.
“The man I kiss is changing the world,” Celine chimes happily as I change the station, Reagan’s words, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” being played, again, as they have for the millionth time since the US President spoke them months ago.
“Yeah, yeah, and you’re going to help him,” I mumble.
Though they have now been together for years, Celine is always talking about Abijah. When we still shared a room, I would eavesdrop on their conversations when she would sneak him in at night. Sometimes, they would passionately kiss when they thought I was asleep.
When they weren’t kissing, he would tell her stories of our government and the corrupt people inside of it. Of a group he was in—Pardi Radical—and of the changes being made in leadership. He would often tell stories of his friend, Alain, whose papa was killed in a bombing, as well as their plans to change things together.
I would listen because it reminded me of Papa’s stories as Abijah reminded me of the soldier my papa was.
Celine hung onto his every word and got arrested with him weekly for protesting after she left home. Up until she got pregnant with Ezekiel, Celine was living more of a soldier’s life than I was. To my aunt and uncle, I had suddenly become the good daughter.
Even though I think most boys are imbeciles, I can understand why Celine fell so madly in love with Abijah. He’s not only a true street soldier but very, very handsome. With dark black hair, eyes that glow like fire, and a smooth, silky voice. He always speaks so excitedly about his plans that I sometimes believe him like Celine does.
“I told you I’m done helping him for now, for a much better purpose,” she says fondly, speaking of the other love of her life, her son, as she takes a turn I don’t recognize.
“Celine, this is not the way home,” I point out, glancing her way.
“It is for me.” She looks back at me, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. “You always ask me to take you to my apartment to meet our friends.”
I turn fully toward her in my seat, finally excited about something. “Today? We’re going right now?”
“Yes, but you have to promise to behave. Don’t backtalk Abijah this time with your politics. Just listen.”
“I promise,” I agree easily, anticipation thrumming through me at the idea of talking about more than shades of lipstick.
“Don’t make me regret this.” She rolls her eyes as Prince starts to sing “When Doves Cry.”
“I promise,” I tell her before I turn it up.
* * *
Standing just inside the tiny kitchen, I study the map Abijah marked as Celine’s laughter reaches me from their bedroom. Rolling my eyes, I walk along a table full of guns—most of them dropped on the tabletop as their friends came in. Celine’s giggles quiet when someone turns the record player up, as even more smoke fills the small apartment. Most of the nicotine cloud rapidly filling the room exhaled from the half dozen of their friends crowding their second-story balcony. Shivering due to the crisp fall breeze sweeping through the room, I scour the mostly unimpressive inventory of firearms before pausing on a gun that looks similar to one of Papa’s. Just next to it sits a large box of tools and tubs that have powder inside them. When I reach out to open one of them, someone whispers a “BOOM!” in my ear.
Jumping, I turn and see a man, or . . . boy. He’s somewhere in between, his eyes light brown, his hair as dark as Abijah’s. Studying him closer, I decide he is almost as handsome as Abijah—though his teeth are a little crooked when he smiles at me. “I wouldn’t play with that. It’s not a toy.”
“I wasn’t playing. I’m not a little girl.”
“You are Celine’s sister? Non?” he says in English.
“Oui, but—” I pause to think of the word. “I . . . curious.”
“Curiosity kills the cat,” he laughs, taking a sip of his beer. He is dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, but his shoes look new and expensive.
“Do I look like cat? You look like imbecile,” I utter, humiliated by my English again as I am most days. I’ve spent every year since Marine enrolled me trying to catch up with my fluent classmates because Matis never once put me in school when I came of age after Maman left.
The boy flashes me a full smile as if he knows something I don’t. “No . . . you, you’re a spirit-filled little girl.”
“I’m no more girl than you are boy,” I counter in French.
“Hmm. I see. Please, take no offense, little sister.” He might not be laughing at me now, but his eyes are, and I scowl at him before picking up a rifle I’m familiar with.
“This is old,” I say, “MAS 49/56, ten-round magazine. Standard-issue French army in the sixties. This is a relic that requires gas to shoot and needs to be buried.”
His brows shoot up in confusion. “How do you know this?”
“That’s my business. Who are you?”
“I guess you’ll have to stay curious, but I’ve got my eyes on you, little sister.”
“You can keep those eyes to yourself,” I snap, unsure why my heart is pounding so fast as he glances over my shoulder. I follow his stare to see a girl waving him over to her.
He lifts his chin toward her before he slowly brings his eyes back to me. My chest aches a little as he watches me for a few long seconds. “It was nice to meet you, Delphine.”
“I will not say it’s nice to meet you,” I tell him. “You better go to her, that is, if you like being told what to do.”
He laughs, sips his beer again, and keeps his eyes on me even as he walks toward the girl. Celine comes out of the bedroom, cutting off my view just after he disappears into the smoke on the balcony. The second he’s out of sight, I hate that I can’t see him anymore.
“Ready to go?” Celine asks me.
I nod and follow her toward the door, looking back one last time to see if the dark-headed boy is watching me. Abijah emerges from their bedroom just after and stops at the door, watching us go—watching Celine go. He’s just as obsessed with her, and in seeing it, I find myself wanting someone to look at me the way Abijah looks at his wife.
“Celine?” I ask, looking back at the balcony again for any sign of him.
“Yes,” she replies absently, seeming to be locked in the flames dancing in her husband’s eyes. As she does this, she smiles at him with confidence, and I know it’s because of the way he watches her—never taking his eyes away once, even for those who call his name. Anyone in the room can tell they love each other. They only have to look to see it. In watching them, I decide that I want to feel the same confidence when a boy looks at me.
“Celine, who was the boy who just went out onto the balcony? The one wearing the blue shirt.”
“The blue shirt? Oh, that was Alain.”
“That was Alain?” I gawk, shocked he’s so young because of the way Abijah speaks so highly of him—as if he’s someone of authority to respect.
“Hmm,” she confirms as we exit the apartment before taking the stairs down to her car, my attention lingering on the boy I just met. Alain must be at least sixteen—seventeen at the most. This means I would be forbidden from kissing him, and only makes me want to kiss him more.
As Celine pulls away from the apartment, I search for and find him on the balcony, only to see he’s laughing with the girl who summoned him. As we drive away, I decide I’m done kissing boys like Lyam.
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