Priceless

didn’t answer, our conversation interrupted.
    O’Shea and his guards walked passed us. I wanted to make a smart remark; I knew that walk of shame. In fact, it had been O’Shea who’d walked beside me.
    But I couldn’t make the words form. He was as innocent as I was. Magic had a funny way of making humans believe the wrong thing.
    We were allowed to stay while the police did their investigation, they told us ahead of time that it would likely take all night. They had lights on tall stands lighting up the yard as if it wasn’t close to midnight in the middle of October.
    Milly helped me make a late—very late—dinner of pasta and steamed veggies from the garden. Neither of us spoke as we cooked, except for the “pass the salt” variety of conversation. As soon as the food was ready, I put Alex’s share in his bowl. He cleaned it in about thirty seconds flat—except for the carrots, which he left in the bottom of the dish.
    “Eat your veggies, Alex,” I said.
    “No, Yucky, poopy,” he grumbled, poking at them with the tip of one claw.
    Milly leaned over. “You can have some dessert if you eat them.”
    Two bites later, and he was waiting patiently beside the fridge for ice cream.
    I stood and scooped out some of the Tiger-flavoured dessert, the black and orange stripes visible even through the thick plastic tub.
    “I’ll stay the night. But then I have to go,” Milly said, finally breaking the silence.
    “You won’t get kicked out of your new club? Your new friends will let you come back?” I couldn’t stop the words; maybe I didn’t want to. She’d hurt me and I was not good at taking hurt, unless it was of the physical kind.
    She glared at me. “And what would you do if your parents came back, if they said you could be a part of their family, but you’d have to give me and Giselle and Alex up? You’d do it.”
    A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “No, I wouldn’t. They proved they don’t give a shit about me. Why would I choose them over people who I love and care about, and who I thought felt the same?” I stood up, grabbed the plates from the table and stomped over to the sink. “One thing I do want to know, how long before you told your new friends I was looking for India?”
    Her eyes filled with tears. “I never told anyone.”
    “Not even your new boy toy, whoever the hell that is?”
    Her tears turned into a flush. Bingo. “What does it matter?”
    I couldn’t stop the anger bursting out. “Because someone left a nasty message for me only hours after I spoke with you, and because whoever has India knows I’m coming. And the only person I told about the case was you.”
    Milly stood, her white pantsuit splattered with flecks of spaghetti sauce. “He would not have shared it. I trust him.”
    “Just like you trusted the last one? And the one before that?”
    Alex decided to chime in. “Before that?”
    Milly’s tears dried up. “You can be such a bitch, Rylee.”
    “At least I’m not a whore.”
    The world stilled around us. Never in all our time together had we let it go this far.
    She spun and stomped upstairs, the guest bedroom door slamming behind her. I let out a sigh and slumped into my kitchen chair. I needed to apologize.
    “Milly stay?” Alex asked, his tongue stained by the black colouring from the ice cream.
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    Slowly, I made my way up the stairs and tapped on the door to the guest room. “Milly, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
    No answer.
    Trotting back down the stairs, I made my way into the kitchen, glanced at the dirty dishes, and then decided to leave them.
    My bed called to me and I still had to practice. Here at home I had a large punching bag, weights, medicine balls, and a climbing rope, all set up in my bedroom, what had previously been three bedrooms until I knocked the walls out. The rope was one of the things I hated most. When I’d bought the house, what was currently my bedroom was open through both floors, which meant I had a ceiling about twenty-five feet high.
    I had two ropes hanging about five feet apart. I climbed the first one all the way to the top, reached across and slid down the second one. Then repeated the routine three times until my breath hitched in my chest. After that, came the punching bag, where I slid through my Muay Thai training. Then onto weights, then the medicine ball, and finally back to the ropes.
    The final climb burned my hands, the rope fibers stinging, the cut in