The wicked witch of PR
1309 Words
Jordan
I have never walked to a meeting as slowly as I do now. I woke about an hour too early and swam to clear my head. Greer says that it always helps him. Now he’s not talking to me. Neither is Silas. Not only did that gossip site post photos of Noemi and me, but the nasty rats amongst the crowd that still somehow are allowed to call themselves ‘journalists’ sunk their claws into her. Her and Valentina. What ensued next still has me sick to my stomach, and the guilt kept me up all night every night for the past five days. Disgusting.
They managed to find out Noemi’s name even though my parents tried everything to prevent that. Then, they dug into records. And it didn’t take them even a week to find the court documents and learn about Valentina. That’s when things got nastier than they have ever before. From allegations of holding Noe as my s*xslave to speculations about Wren being bought through a trafficking ring… horrible sh*t. And we have to put a stop to this now. In a way that lets all of us come out of this harmed in the least possible way. No retraumatizing Noe and Valentina anymore. Which is why we need help. Good thing we have the ‘PR-Witch’ on our site.
When I round the corner as slowly as possible because I’m definitely not ready to face the music, an agitated voice draws my attention.
“No, Henry! That’s not how this works…… Well, then, you should have filled out the paperwork. Like I asked you to. 6 MONTHS AGO!”
Cece holds her phone in one hand, agitatedly signing with her free one.
“Make her?! Clem is 11, Henry. I’m not going to ‘make’ her do anything!… No. I’m going to hang up now.” Her brows pull together in a frown, and she glowers at her smartphone. “Fill out the paperwork. I’ll call the school and tell them you can pick her up.” My cousin pushes her dark hair out of her face.
“No. No, stop. Leave Clementine out of this! We will not be the parents that involve their kid in petty fights because they got divorced…. Yes, you are being petty. I—- Henry? Henry!”
Huffing, she drops the phone in her pristine leather tote. “Bastard.”, she grumbles. “Goddess, when is this sh*t going to be over…”
“Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart. Why do you have to go and shake my confidence daily?” Cece’s head jolts up, and a smile spreads on her youthful face, the anger gone in milliseconds. All shifters have good genes, but my cousin takes this to another level. She’s 28 and regularly gets ID’ed at the bar and has people turning their heads when she rolls up to PTA meetings for her fifth grader.
“Jordan.” Cece hugs me quickly, her expensive perfume trailing behind her. Everything about her is curated to be the opposite of her Mom. Where Blanca still opts for all leather, jeans, and anything you could spill blood on or that can get scuffed with a butterfly knife, you will never see her daughter in anything but a skirt. I don’t even think she owns a single pair of pants. OK, maybe that’s overdoing it, but I haven’t seen her in one in years.
Cece’s light brown eyes regard me for a long moment. “Are you OK, Jo?”
I swallow past a small lump and force a smile. “Sure. Feel guilty as hell…”
Letting out an uncomfortable laugh, I point toward the door to the conference room closest to us. “But avoiding it won’t make it any better, right? I messed up, and now I need to fix it.”
“I’ll help. I already know how.” The confidence in Cece’s voice calms the bickering ones in my head. And I know if anyone can do it, it’s her. My cousin is great at her job. Or why else would she have her own PR firm representing all the high rollers in the supernatural world? NEVER make the mistake of underestimating her. The mini skirts and 6-inch heels? Don’t matter. You don’t want Cecelia Hartgrave to show you how unladylike she can be. She might not look it anymore, but she still IS my uncle’s daughter. Hide your knives, people!
“So let’s get this started.” Looking at her wristwatch, Cece pushes past me to reach the door first. “Zeke called. They have a situation as well. Apparently, some dragon shifter went a-wall, and they’re scared he exposed them to the locals.”
Mmmh. I don’t know if that should make me feel better, but I’m sure I could get together with the poor guy. We’d have a lot to share about how it feels when everyone around you will always judge you based on one action, one stupid thing you did, from now on.
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I tell myself I’m an adult, but I feel like stuffing my fingers in my ears and starting to hum as loudly as possible, looking at everything in the room except my brothers. Both of them are glaring at me. Well, Silas more so than Greer. Noemi is just silent, her hand on my brother’s arm, but what really gets to me is Valentina looking deep in thought. All four of them had as many sleepless nights as me by the looks of it, Noe rocking Wren on her lap.
After about 5 minutes of this silent staring, Cece takes a long breath.
“OK, boys. This all sucks, but let’s agree to try and meet halfway. We need to figure out how to fix this!” Her eyes flit from me to Silas, then to Greer. When no one says anything, her brow raises in discontent.
“This doesn’t have to turn into Buzz-Gate.” She looks at Silas pointedly when he snorts. Yeah, comparing this to when the five of us fought over an old Buzz Lightyear toy, my dead name’s sake left, is probably not the best idea. My brother just looks at his nails, his nostrils flaring.
“For Goddess’s sake, we raised you better than this!” Mom huffs, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “We’re a family, which means we talk to each other about anything. Pouting in a corner is accepted for a period of time, but after that, you open your mouth and TALK about it… That goes for all of you.”
“Well then.” Silas leans in, his light green eyes now fixed on me, and I square my shoulders. He might be younger than me, but seeing his respect for me slowly dying in his gaze right now is a pain I hoped I would never experience. It feels like someone thought melting silver in the pit of my stomach was a good idea. Like you do on new years to do this at-home fortune-telling sh*t.
I get it, though. I jeopardized what is most important to him. My gaze moves over to Valentina, her eyes surprisingly soft when she meets mine. She’s my friend and doesn’t deserve the slandering she got over the last few days. For the second time in 14 months. I feel bile rise in my throat just thinking about the article that came out yesterday… or was supposed to. My parents stopped it. Some sick reporter managed to wrangle an interview with every one of the guys, including ‘boy George,’ that Valentina (and to some extent Noemi) helped put behind bars for the rest of their lives in most cases.
“Let me start by saying… WHAT THE F*CK happened there, JO?!”
- Writer
