Back to Red: Part Two

**Be sure to read both the Prologue and Part One in this series.**

Anzhelina sighed. “They’re gonna kill you, Sandy.”

Cassandra remained quiet as she stared at her now folded hands. With some reluctance she pulled her arms back just enough to separate her fingers from each other and examine her slender digits. A flex of her joints and all ten curled like claws before they were relaxed back into a natural position with a slight curve in their pose.

“Just for saying that, they’re gonna kill you and then Cicero.”

Nothing.

“And then me and then Asher and then probably Kand–”

“I don’t intend on telling them.” A quicker tighter clenching of her grip formed fists for a few seconds before she released them and looked over at her half-sister, “Do you?”

Up went those ash brows, the blonde was quite surprised that Sandra managed to ask the question. This was the woman who didn’t dare ask for help or admissions of loyalty from anyone. The potential refusals or silence itself would have been too much for her. Yet here she was in her kitchen asking her sibling to finally pick a side. And to do so convincingly. A remarkable shift.

“Gray said they may be considering doing a deal with Sandulf.” Angie’s hands ran through her own hair to smooth down some of the sections before she retied her bob into a short ponytail. “You know what that means for me and for Asher.”

Back to Red: Part One

Please click here (Back to Red: Prologue) to read the first post in this series. Part Two has been posted.

And here Cassandra was, laying on her kitchen floor staring at a clump of dog hair she had somehow missed whenever the last time was that she had swept. What have you done, Cassandra? What have you done? It wasn’t Zoraida’s voice that she heard echoing within her thoughts, but rather her own.

Giving Cassandra a moment to collect herself, Anzhelina folded in the blade of her knife and tucked it back into its hiding place. Satisfied that she had put her sister in the right frame of mind to receive the message, the blonde stepped forward and began snapping her fingers in front of Sandra’s face.

“Hey, hey! Focus.” Angie’s tone was indifferent to the writhing going on underneath her.

It hurt a lot less than Sandra expected. However, it did surprise her that the assault had such an impact on her breathing. Her chest was left feeling as if it was hydrolocked like one of the many poor souls who foolishly forged ahead on a flooded Bayshore Boulevard. The risk of danger had looked deceptively minimal. Was she bleeding into her chest cavity? Was the increase in fluid preventing air from filling and expanding her lungs? Is that what was happening? Thunk-thunk, thunkthunkthunk. The arrhythmia pounded against the inside of her ribs and triggered a half cough seizing her lungs again as she struggled still to breathe. Could blood be pouring out of her that quickly? Maybe she was already in shock. Her arms felt so heavy, like lead really. The buzzing tingle that swept over her shoulders, down those languid limbs, and ended in her fingertips almost made it feel like there had been an assault on her nervous system. She had to question whether she had any control whatsoever over them, yet somehow she managed to pull them in tighter around her midsection.

Timing

“Tampa, you’re killing me. You really are.” Cassandra muttered as she spotted the rather steep angle of the entry into the car park behind the 1950s-themed restaurant.

So much for slipping quietly in through the back. Even still, the main entrance was only slightly less sharp of an incline, but thankfully it lacked the bumper crunching dip from the cement slabbed street. When it rained any decent amount during the summer, cars often stalled half way onto Dale Mabry because of misjudging how deep the pool of standing water was at the exit.

“Piove sempre sul bagnato.” The brutish Aston Martin lumbered along in first gear taking a very long and graceful angle up into the parking area as its owner measured her luck against the looming cold front building off in the distance. Most of the local news stations had their models predicting the twenty degree drop in temperature from the seventies down to the fifties to arrive sometime tomorrow morning. Sandra had a feeling that the storms would instead arrive in the middle of the night.

The car weighing over four thousand pounds dragging itself up from the boulevard was forced to stop suddenly because of a couple of straggling teenagers who were too consumed by whatever was on their phones to notice their surroundings. The woman cursed their generation spitefully in the language of her grandparents. “Coliogni. Dai cazzo!” Thankfully none of them heard a word as she had kept her self in seclusion with the windows up.

Memories and Mimosas

Memories and Mimosas Playlist

“Hey, hey, sorry I’m late.” Kandajha in her delightfully vibrant athletic wear had sprinted across the wooden boardwalk to the deck where her aunt, Cassandra was admiring the view of Old Tampa Bay.

With the rather large cup of coffee nearly to her burgundy lips, Cassandra paused just enough to lean to the side to accept the kiss to her temple from her twenty-one year old niece. She was the walking image of Spring regardless of whatever month was on the calendar. Cotton candy pink lips and nails, black and Robin’s Egg blue stretch leggings and top, a koolaid purple zip-up hoodie and a pair of Sketchers that somehow incorporated all the aforementioned colours. That beautiful mane of thick chocolate curls was tossed over to one side and looked just as beautiful and voluminous as ever. Kandy was pure sunshine and vitality.

“I’m surprised they let you through wearing that getup.” The corners of Cassandra’s darkly painted mouth perked slightly as the pair shared a knowing little smile with each other. “Looks like the kid at the front of house still fancies you. Are you finally going to let him take you out then?”

Kandy brought her chair around more to Sandra’s side to afford herself a better view of the quiet beach and serene waters just a few hops away. Plopping down in the chair, she folded her hands in her lap and propped her feet up under the table on the chair position across from them. A somewhat heavy sigh came from the young girl.

“That’s my sigh of disdain. Is he not quite your thing?” Sandra perked a brow taking a healthy drink of the dark roast seasoned only with a pinch of salt.