Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 38738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
I wasn’t understanding how that canceled out him being dangerous. I could tell Mel was thinking the same and seconds away from opening her mouth to stick her foot in it. I shot her a look that said to do otherwise. If Grace thought he was harmless, she had to have her reasons. She had me and Mel to stop her from doing anything too hazardous.
“When did you last talk to him?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“I wouldn’t really say we talk. He texts me sometimes.”
“Oh, really. What’s he send you? Pictures of dismembered bodies?” Mel joked dryly.
I rolled onto my side as a sudden thought occurred to me. “You gave him your number?”
“No, of course not! The number he texts me from was already saved in my phone.”
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to communicate with him at all?”
Grace frowned. “Well, it can’t be traced back to him. It’s one of those texting apps or something. I looked it up.”
She missed my point entirely. Bless her naïve heart. I hoped she never got so tainted by our world that it was snatched away. It was one of my sole missions to keep it safe.
“How does that make him trustworthy?” Mel continued to prod.
“That’s not what I’m saying. If they wanted to hurt us, they could have. It isn’t like the opportunity didn’t present itself multiple times.”
I sighed and sat up, running a hand through my hair. “She has a point.”
“If she has a point then so do I,” Mel retorted.
“Now you’re contradicting yourself. And I wasn’t finished. Yeah, she makes a good point, but they did lock our asses inside of a barn and make us do the Hokey-Pokey with our lives.”
Hearing the entry chime of an exterior door opening followed by a set of heels clicking across the marble floor, I held a finger to my lips. A minute or so later my mother appeared in the doorway of the cinema room.
“Hey,” I greeted her with a smile I hoped came off as genuine.
It must have because she returned it with one of her own.
“I knew I heard something in here. Have you been home all day?”
This was a question that didn’t need an actual answer. My family kept tabs on me religiously. It was a miracle she hadn’t found out about Sainte’s party. I still wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t figured out I’d been there. Pandora Serpine didn’t give anything away unless she wanted to. My mother was nothing but confident, level-headed, and ruthless.
If she wasn’t my mom, she’d be one of the rare few I found to be terrifying. My whole life I’d been told that I was just like her. While I couldn’t deny looking at her sometimes felt like looking in a mirror, our resemblance is where any similarities came to an end.
Our personalities couldn’t be more different.
I was more like my late Abuela. This had never been a point of contention between us until I hit my senior year. My parents trying to force my path put a damper on our relationship.
They wanted me to go one way and I was convinced I was going to go another. This bullshit with Lamia provided me a solid argument to back my budding resentment. I could never forgive them for how they treated her. I was slightly comforted by the fact that my Abuelo had gone on a trip shortly after and was yet to return. Even my older brother had put noticeable distance between them since that incident and he was the golden child.
I couldn’t be too ecstatic over their disagreement when Ciaran’s words implied my entire family was keeping something from me that I was entitled to know. Mel and Graces too, which wasn’t surprising considering their parents were best friends with mine.
He hadn’t said it was them directly, but they were the only ones that fit his roundabout accusation.
Nobody else owed me any kind of explanation. It made more sense every time I thought about it.
We’d found out which families those who perished at Sainte’s party belonged to, but nothing came of their disappearances.
All their social media accounts vanished less than forty-eight hours later. It was as if they’d been erased entirely from existence. That wasn’t something you could do with a few clicks of a button. Not unless you were doing it from a position of power.
Looking at my mother at that moment, I made up my mind about the phone. I couldn’t outright ask her about this or if she’d done something to my sister. Lamia’s name had become taboo in our house.
She’d been erased in the same way that Cooper, Elizabeth, and Max had.
It was infuriating. I burned with bitterness and guilt for not doing more to find her.
Logically, I could never go against my family and win. That didn’t take away the shame of being so powerless. At this point, I was desperate, and sometimes desperation called for dangerous measures.