The Ravishing_Ava Harrison and Vanessa Fewings by Harrison Ava & Fewings Vanessa

Author:Harrison, Ava & Fewings , Vanessa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: novel
Publisher: AH Publishing
Published: 2021-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

Anya

Choking on a sob, pummeled by the bodies around me, reluctantly moving with the sea of people as they swept me along, buffering.

Mom withdrew her hand.

Willingly let me go.

Her eyes turned dark as I witnessed her change of mind to save me. She hadn’t seen Cassius because she’d not dragged her stare from mine. She couldn’t have known he was there. She didn’t demand the float be stopped. Or even try to scramble off it to get to me. A thing I would have done to save my daughter.

But I wasn’t her daughter. I never had been. Because she’d never treated me like one. Her decision to let me go was unfathomable. She could see the fear in me. The desperation. Something had caused her to change her mind and I needed to know what it was.

Turning, shifting to face the other way against the sway of the crowd, I looked for Cassius in the swarm of bodies—he, too, was gone.

The freedom I’d craved now felt like a chokehold at my throat. Indecision flooded through me, causing a chill to surge into my veins, despite the crushing humidity.

“Cassius!” I yelled.

Desperate for him, terrified I’d lost him. Lost the one person with whom I’d ever felt a true connection. This didn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t I rush for freedom? Run toward Camp Street and onward past Lafayette Square; in forty minutes or less, I would make it all the way home to the Garden District.

Instead, I found myself shoving my way through the crowd, until I finally saw the corner of Bourbon Street. I ran to a storefront and shoved open the door.

It was empty.

Once inside, I took in the walls covered in tribal masks and gothic paintings, trinkets, and feathers, and voodoo dolls of all shapes and sizes. Religious statues were standing side by side with miniature skeletons.

And then I saw a person, but he didn’t move—it was a lifelike mannequin wearing a demonic mask. It had looked so real, elicited such a visceral feeling, as though familiar.

I saw the image of my father behind that mask. The truth spilling like a million shards of glass cutting into my heart. All this time I’d feared the wrong man. The reason Cassius hated my father was now glaringly obvious—my father had killed someone he loved—that had to be it. A chill washed over me, the hair prickling on my forearms. He’d tried to tell me, but I didn’t want to hear it. More importantly, I didn’t want to believe it.

Tonight, with my mother’s rejection, the veil finally lifted, and I saw everything differently, a sudden clarity. Deceit within my family home that begged to be known. Surviving it felt vital.

And poor Archie was still there.

Unable to catch my breath, unable to endure these profound representations of good and evil all around me—the power of darkness and light, I spun and yanked open the door, the jingling of a bell breaking the silence as I fled.

Out into the night.

Lifting my hem and sprinting onto Ann Street.

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