Outlaws - Yolanda Olson Page 0,3
a couple of inches. Her skin is the color of fresh cream, with light brown freckles gently caressing most of the surface. Sylvie’s hair looks like a newly found black obsidian stone; shiny and always well-groomed. The slightly darker shade of her eyes forces me to remember what the sky looked like before all I could see was the teal, and I like to lose myself in them from time to time. Unlike her sister, her frame is completely different. Whereas Tallulah has wide hips, Sylvie’s are narrow, and where her sister fails in parts of her being ample, Sylvie seems to overcompensate.
Tallulah can be loud and demanding.
Sylvie rarely speaks to anyone other than me and gives everything she has.
I don’t spend my days comparing them since it’s not my place.
Especially since the differences only now seemed to settle in.
“What’s on your mind, Kester?” she asks, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“Hm?” I ask, glancing up at her. I don’t know how to tell her what I’ve just been thinking, so I decide to change the subject, “Do you think he’ll be angry if I knock on his door tonight?”
Sylvie’s eyes go wide.
She drops the spoon in her bowl and shakes her head vehemently.
“Don’t push him. He’ll send for you when he has time.”
I scoff as I stand up, hand my bowl to Sylvie, and grab my jacket.
“Thanks for supper,” I say, using the back of my hand to wipe my mouth. “Don’t stay up too late.”
Before she has a chance to say anything else, I’ve got my jacket on, the hood pulled down over my head, and walk out into the night hoping that the whispers won’t follow me home.
Chapter Four
It looks like a goddamn palace compared to everything else, I think scornfully as I take a deep breath.
After I left Sylvie’s little humble abode, I tried to convince myself to go back to my place, but instead I find myself standing outside the door of the Abbas’ home, hands buried deep in my pockets, anger coursing through my veins. The rage is enough to keep me warm and allows me to hold my ground.
He has so much, and everyone here has so fucking little, and somehow he thinks that’s okay.
I honestly don’t care if I ever have a warm meal again, new clothes to wear, or even a way to heat the home I share with his daughter ever again. I don’t plan on staying here much longer to let any of that weigh on me, but the way he manipulates everyone else …
I close my eyes for a moment as I turn my face away from the door. I can hear the whispers, the taunting, the hateful words of everything that I’ve had to endure so far and take a steadying breath.
Maybe Sylvie has a point.
Maybe he will send for me when he has time to talk. It could just be taking longer than I want it to because he has to make space for me on his daily schedule of being worshipped like a fucking god before he decides that I’m good enough for a private grovel.
Opening my eyes, I extend a hand and place it on the doorknob.
I could easily turn it and walk in, but what would that achieve?
It would make me look too foolish, too childish to wait for my “turn” and then he’d never give me the time I’ve been basically begging for.
Letting my hand drop to my side, I scuff the tip of my boot against the ground before I turn around and make my way back home.
Eventually, he’ll have no choice but to see me.
Tonight just isn’t the right time.
“I’m home,” I mumble into the darkness.
The chances that Tallulah even noticed my absence are slim to none, yet I always announce myself when I walk in. I guess I just don’t want her to think it’s someone other than me.
Not that anyone would ever enter our home uninvited.
It would be deemed a crime in some archaic rule book that I have yet to see or lay my hands on. But I guess the words we can’t see are usually the ones that hold the most meaning. It always becomes a matter of faith, and there are only two people here that are lacking in that department.
Sylvie and me.
I wonder if she’d leave with me.
Running a hand back through my hair, I walk toward the sitting room and shrug my jacket off, tossing it on the couch. I inhale deeply before