T*Witches: Split Decision by H.B. Gilmour, Randi Reisfeld

traipsed down the wobbly stairs and hit daylight. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”
    “What’s the use? You won’t believe me. You still don’t trust me,” the diminutive girl answered, taking two steps to keep up with every one of Alex’s. “I came because I thought you were cool. And I wanted to see where and how you lived. And because there’s nothing to keep me on Coventry anymore. After you and your sister skipped out, the gang sorta broke up. Epie’s doing a bid in juvie. Shane’s gone straight. And Sersee’s licking her wounds —”
    “And you?” Alex persisted.
    “Me?” Mike shrugged. “Okay, coming clean? Nobody wanted me there. Not Sersee or Shane or even my own family — what was left of it.”
    “Meaning?”
    “I’m an orphan. Or I might as well be. My moms split when me and my sibs were babies. My pops tossedme out when I was ten. Said I reminded him of Delta, that was my mother’s name. Said I was nothing but trouble and never would be anything else.” Michaelina looked away, but not so fast that Alex couldn’t see the girl’s nose getting red and her eyes misting with tears.
    “So you came because —” Alex had a sudden thought. “Do you think your mom is on the mainland? Is that why you’re really here?”
    Michaelina was honestly perplexed. “Uh, no. Why would I do that? I like my freedom. A mommy figure isn’t what I’m looking for. Okay, my turn,” she piped up, completely over her emotional moment. “I get to ask you a question.”
    “Knock yourself out.” Alex surrendered, her gray eyes sweeping the street, looking for whatever trouble might be brewing in this trouble-prone stretch of town.
    “When you did sell out?”
    The question startled her.
    “When did you become conformo?” the pixie went on. “You grew up in a poor neighborhood, but you hate this one. You’re all scared of it. You’re laughing at the way I’m dressed, just the way people used to laugh at you. You put up this front of being indie girl, but you don’t even want to believe I’m here on my own, doing things my way.”
    Alex fished for something to say. All that came outwas, “How are you affording this? Where’s the coin coming from?”
    “I borrowed some,” Michaelina said carefully. “And I put a tiny spell on the landlord to make him think I’d be good for it. Besides, I thought I’d do the righteous mainland thing and get a job. Unless you disapprove of that, too? I mean, the Barnes are probably sharing the bling-bling with you.”
    Alex’s back went up. She’d refused to take any more money from Cam’s folks than she absolutely had to — even if they were now her legal guardians. No designer duds, no cool computer, new CDs, not even a magazine subscription. Her most prized possession was a guitar, Dylan’s old one. Even her bike had been Cam’s castoff.
    Apparently Mike hadn’t read her mind. Or wasn’t interested in her defensiveness. “So when did it happen? When did you become your sister on the inside, too, instead of your own person?”
    Alex’s attention was suddenly diverted by a clamorous metallic sound. Three little boys were coming toward them. They were kicking a can. Their bantering voices, which she heard from far off, sounded oddly familiar, though she knew she’d never seen the boys before.
    Michaelina was oblivious to the trio. “You know I’m right,” she insisted. “You used to be a free spirit —”
    The voices. They belonged to the kids who had been playing with fireworks on the Fourth. They were the boys she’d helped Cam save.
    “When did you get sucked into playing the game by someone else’s rules?” Mike nattered on. “When did you stop being
you?
”
    Alex heard the question. She turned away from the ragamuffins and tried to scramble her thoughts so that Michaelina wouldn’t know she’d hit a nerve.
    Despite her insistence on not owing anyone anything, in the past year she’d gotten used to living well — under