Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
He’s carrying my sister in a piggyback while she reads an old textbook. I’ve seen them do this half our lives. Her arms hang over his chest, and she grips the book low enough that he can see the pages, too.
I’m irritated that he’s acting like I didn’t just catch him with his pants down. So I decide to share my annoyance. I turn to Nova. “They’re fucking.”
He’s jarred and immediately eyes Oliver.
Jesus. I understand that look. “You knew?” I ask Nova. He’s the most loyal brother—because he’s not confirming shit to me without permission.
Oliver comes clean. “He knew.”
“Since we were fifteen,” Nova says. “I walked in on them.”
“Glad I’m not the first,” I say.
Nova shakes his head roughly at Oliver like he can’t believe he slipped. “You’re talking to Phoebe about this. I’m out of it.”
“What’s there to talk about?” Oliver says. “Nothing has changed.”
“I can’t look at you two the same,” I shoot back. “Things have definitely changed.”
Hailey is engrossed in her textbook. She mutters, “ ‘The earliest known accounts date back to thirteen thousand BC in southern France inside the Cave of the Trois-Frères.’ ”
Oliver sets her down as I ask, “Accounts of what?”
Her nose is still in the book. “Therianthropy.”
“Shape-shifting,” Oliver clarifies. “She’s been on a deep dive of old folklores.”
“And that helps us how?” I ask Hailey.
She’s not answering. She just plops dazedly on a leather chair. Flipping through her novel. Trevor lifts his sunglasses for the first time to inspect the state of our sister.
“No stone unturned,” Oliver says lightly, inspecting the mini armory in the duffel.
Nova is concerned. “She’s flipping over the entire ocean floor.”
I rake my hands through my hair, worried about my sister if she’s now cycling through irrelevant mythologies.
“She’ll find the tracks again,” Oliver tells me, more assuredly. “Let her derail. Addison never did.”
Nova tears his gaze off Hailey. “Probably for good reason,” he says darkly to me.
Yeah.
I don’t know.
“Has it started yet?”
The voice of Jake Koning Waterford steals my attention. He’s dressed down in jeans and a white Victoria Country Club T-shirt.
I plaster my surprised look on Nova, who sent out these invites. He says plainly, “He’s important.”
“No shit,” I mutter. We can’t do this without him. “Hope you like pizza, Jake.” I pat his chest and say, “Welcome to five hours of preplanning hell.”
“Five hours?” Jake asks.
“That’s being generous.”
“Everyone’s here?” Phoebe waltzes in with dried hair twisted in a high pony. Seeing her, I almost smile.
Nova packs the guns and zips the duffel up. “Team meeting. Now.”
Logistics are a major pain in the ass, but it’s necessary. Even without our parents to run the show, we’ve been trained on how to man the helm. We’re all camped out in the living room. Three pizza boxes cracked open on the square coffee table. Glasses of Fizz Life and bottles of water slowly empty as we formulate possible scenarios for what might happen when we pull the rope.
“Let’s go over scenario C one more time,” Nova says, setting down his cheese slice to grab his notebook.
“You’re burning those pages after tonight,” I remind him.
He glowers. “Who do you think I am?”
“Someone who needs to make lists on paper instead of in your head.”
Nova ignores me. The kitchen chair, which he dragged over here, creaks as he leans back and scribbles in his little book of crimes.
“Scenario C is the least likely to happen,” Phoebe says next to me on the brown leather couch. I have an arm over her shoulders. She licks pizza sauce off her finger. “Do we really think Claudia will sic her security on me?”
“She could,” Jake answers, relaxed on the other side of me. “My mother has had Jordan’s friends escorted out before.”
“That’s Jordan,” Phoebe counters. “I’m your guest, and she respects you more than your older brother.”
Nova cuts back in. “It’s a possibility. We need to prepare for it.”
“Okay, Dad,” Trevor says on the floor, lounging back on his hands.
“Nova’s trying not to get us caught,” I tell him. “Because when your ass is on the line, you’re going to want him to be five feet away.”
Nova goes silent. I can feel his deep surprise that I’d stick up for him.
“True, yeah.” Trevor nods to Phoebe’s brother. “Sorry, Nov.”
He nods back, brushing it off easily.
I wad my napkin and see Phoebe constantly checking on Hailey with side glances. I do, too. My sister nibbles on a cheese slice and reads to herself. She’s contributed to this discussion tonight, so my worries have slowly waned.
Oliver hasn’t sat down. He is a live wire. He stands and paces and forks a piece of chicken from a to-go container.
“Is he on something?” Jake whispers to me.
“Oliver was with me at Trent’s.”
“Fuck,” Jake curses under his breath and careens farther back as his muscles stiffen.
“You’re not responsible for your dipshit brother,” I whisper.