Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
He does love you, Hailey. Oh, to be loved in a small town. Not just by one man but by two—Oliver perches an arm on Jake’s shoulder, and his grin drops down to me. It’s a little dreamy, but I’m certain I’m awake.
Even my dreams have never felt this peaceful and happy.
“Nice of you both to show up five minutes late,” Rocky says dryly.
“Thirty seconds late,” Phoebe corrects, jutting a finger at him.
He seizes her wrist. Just to hold her hand. “I see we’re playing the lying game.”
“We’re here now,” I chime in. “Fully intact. All truths.”
“Yeah, just in time.” Rocky arches his brows. “Nova was thirty seconds from calling Search and Rescue.”
“That was you,” Nova retorts, blowing on his cold palms.
Jake and Oliver laugh.
Rocky flips them off with his free hand, and Trevor swipes the flask from Olly to raise it in the air.
“Toast first,” Trevor says.
No one knows where this is headed. He might just want to drink. Rocky has been trying to get our brother to lay off the alcohol.
Then he decrees, “To the dead.”
Oliver is amused. “Is this a circle of remorse? Are we paying respects to the people we’ve offed?”
“Not so fucking loud,” Rocky chastises.
Phoebe scowls. “I’m not toasting to that creep.” Her dad.
Nova looks like he’d love to light this conversation on fire. Rocky, not far behind.
“No one is asking you to, PG,” Trevor snaps, then he slowly catches all our eyes around the circle. His arm goes back in the air. “To Rocky’s family.” He motions his flask over to the row of chipped headstones beside us.
All of Brayden Wolfe’s siblings, his mother and father, who’d been moved into the rear of the cemetery to be hidden and forgotten.
“To my family,” Rocky says to our brother. “The one that’s alive.”
My eyes mist as Rocky looks at me. He mouths, Sister.
I mouth back, Brother.
Trevor smiles, then drinks to that, and Oliver steals the flask back before my brother downs the whole thing in one gulp.
“Let’s get this over with,” Nova mutters, crouching to pick up a large shoebox on the mossy earth. Everyone but Jake begins to dig in pockets or grab things they’d set aside on the ground.
Rocky, a manila envelope. Trevor, a plastic grocery bag. Oliver, a waterproof container. Phoebe has her things in her purse, and I dig for a makeup pouch in my messenger bag.
The midnight hour has my mind buzzing.
A waxing moon as our light, we stare around at one another and exchange softer, fond expressions of our strange adolescence and lifetime spent together. Every city, every town, every short and long job.
Our story, as it’s been written. “And so,” I begin, narrating the legend we created as kids in a graveyard, “there once was a silver-tongue.”
Rocky’s dark smile crests. He places the manila envelope in the shoebox Nova outstretches to him.
“A seductress,” I say to my very best friend.
Phoebe grins, then dumps her old burners into Nova’s box.
I add, “A getaway.” Nova lifts the shoebox, showing he’s already placed his fakes in them.
“A chameleon.” I smile over at Oliver, who wags his brows at me, then pops open the stuffed waterproof container. He slides out checkbooks, burner phones, credit cards with fake names, and photo IDs into Nova’s shoebox, then raises a finger and says, “Attendez,” in a smooth French lilt. Wait.
We do wait for him as he reaches back into his peacoat pockets, digging out another stack of plastic IDs and passports. Jake gives him a look, like What the hell? Which only causes Oliver to grin. “I’ve been many people, Koning.” He places the rest in the box. “Sorry for the intermission, Hailstorm.”
I try not to blush when he winks at me, and I clear my throat to say, “A mastermind.”
Nova extends the shoebox to me, his shadowy smile present.
Before Phoebe and I moved to Victoria, we got rid of most of our fake IDs. But I kept one just in case we needed a quick exit. A backup plan. I plop my old burner phones, a credit card, a checkbook, and one fake ID inside.
Done.
I release a breath and turn to Trevor. “A psychopath.”
Trevor overturns his plastic bag into Nova’s shoebox. Putting his fakes with the others.
I finish, “And a king.”
Jake bends his head, pressing a kiss to my hair. He doesn’t have any forgeries to dispose of. He’s never had a fake alias. A fake name.
The irony is that all our names are fake. None have ever been real. Except, these are the realest versions of ourselves, here in Victoria, and maybe that’s why it’s easy to give Nova our old, fake identities one by one.
Those we’ve kept around for side jobs and emergencies. Those we don’t really need anymore.
Phoebe asks Nova, “How are you destroying them?”
“Incinerator,” he replies, putting the lid on the box. Our old identities are going up in flames.