Desecrated Beauty (Twisted Fairy Tales #1) by Kyleigh Castronaro Page B

get off the hook about talking about it.”
    “I know, but I don’t have to talk about it tonight right?”
    “Right.” Quill smiled and watched Rose move over to her and sit down. An awkward silence fell over them as the sisters stared at each other, both trying to come up with a topic of conversation they would both be willing to discuss. Their former lives were off limits and their present lives seemed to be just as taboo.
    “So, how did you find me then?”
    “I didn’t. Not on purpose.”
    “Oh.”
    “We were looking for the people you were auctioning off tonight. I used a few of my old tricks to find out where they were taking the prisoners and I went alone to the auction house. When you peered out the window to me, that was the first time I even suspected we were so close to each other and there you were - right in front of my face.”
    Quill smiled tightly and reached out touching her sister’s face in an uncharacteristic tender gesture. As quickly as it happened she dropped her hand.
    “I’m sorry I let them have you.”
    “You couldn’t have taken me with you if you tried.”
    “I think you’d be surprised how resourceful I could be.”
    “I know how resourceful you are, but you had to go alone. If both of us had left, he would’ve noticed us both gone. I distracted him so he didn’t notice you were gone until you were gone.”
    “I don’t like how you say distracted.”
    “It doesn’t matter now Izzy- Quill. ” She sighed, “ I’m not sure I like that name for you.”
    “It fits who I am now.”
    “Exactly who he wanted you to be.” Quill stood up defensively, frowning at her sister.
    “I’m not his robot.” Rose’s lips puckered like she was holding a remark back. She wasn’t everything her father had trained her to be. She used her training against him, for the Desecrated. She was working for the enemy to bring him down. There was nothing similar to the woman she was now and the robot she would’ve become.
    “Not a robot,” Rose said gently, reaching out to her and touching her arm as if trying to bring her back to reality. The logical voice in the back of her mind told her that her sister was trying to show her something she was too stubborn to see herself, but that was just the trouble… She was too stubborn.
    She would never want to see whatever Rose saw and now, looking down at her little sister, she just saw judgment and pity.
    “You need to sleep,” she declared with a sharp tone, moving over to a pile of clothes she left in a lump. She shrugged her jacket off and undid the leather corset, letting it drop. Her t-shirt underneath was sweaty from body heat and exertion so she tugged that over her head as well, wiped what she could of the blood from her chest and discarded it. Fishing through the pile she found a grey raggedy sweater. It was the least attractive thing she had. Therefore, it was perfect.
    Pulling it over her head it hung off her shoulder in tatters and she covered it with her jacket for now. He wasn’t going to ever separate her from the comfort of her well-worn leather, even with the new rips in it.
    She was zipping up the jacket as she turned around to face her sister. Rose was staring at her and worrying on her lip, knowing she had upset her. She wished, for half a second, she didn’t have such an awful temper but then… Hadn’t she also inherited that from her father too?
    She shook her head, refusing to acknowledge any more similarities between her two identities.
    “Don’t go.”
    “You need to sleep off whatever they’ve been giving you. I’ll see you later.” She smiled tightly as Rose touched her cheekbones with a frown. If they were giving her anything, and Quill was purely going off a hunch from the state of her little sister’s body with its gauntness and skeletal framing, Rose didn’t admit to it.
    “Okay…” She hugged herself and sat back down on the couch obediently. Quill scowled this time, hating the city and all its god