Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
“I worry about you, too,” I say honestly. “I don’t want you to get so wrapped up in my drama you can’t pay full attention to yours.”
“Your drama is my drama.” He takes off his pants and I watch eagerly. “Calling it drama makes it seem trivial.”
“That’s the point,” I say and sit up, unbuttoning his shirt so he can get into bed with me faster.
“I got more info on Abigail Williams.” He picks up his phone as he gets under the covers. “And a photo.”
I snuggle up next to him, nerves fading just by being in his embrace. Abigail Williams was blonde and average-looking. I don’t really know how the Blackwood line looks beyond myself. I have a darker complexion than the Russos, and more than once Larissa liked to remind me how desirable her blonde hair and blue eyes were.
“If a Blackwood needs to be the one to destroy the key, she could be distantly related to you,” Xavier says. “It’s more than possible. She was born in New York, closer to where your family is from.”
“Yeah, which would be crazy.”
“We can have her genealogy traced.”
I shrug. “What’s the point? She never had kids, right?”
“There are no records of any children.”
“She’s dead. Whatever distant family line she may or may not have had doesn’t matter anymore.”
Xavier puts his phone down and we settle against the pillows. It’s late—maybe? My concept of time makes no sense anymore. At this point, I just sleep when I’m tired. My eyes close and I snuggle closer to Xavier, not realizing that I’m drifting to sleep until Xavier gently says my name.
“Leo is on the phone,” he says and my eyes fly open. Inhaling, I sit up and take the phone from him.
“Hey,” I say, putting it on speaker. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Considering. I just got home. It’s weird being here alone.”
“Aunt Darcy and Danielle aren’t there?” I ask, automatically calling Marco’s sister “aunt” like I used to. It might take me a while to break that habit, unlike how easy it was to stop calling Vivian and Marco “mom” and “dad”. It never really felt right saying that in the first place.
“No, they have Gia, though.”
“Hang on, let me get Antonio.” I get out of bed and grab a robe to put on over my t-shirt and shorts. I knock on Antonio’s door, expecting to find him awake. When he doesn’t answer, I crack the door, prepared to wake him, but he’s not in there. “Well, hang on even more,” I tell Leo. “He’s not in his room.” I pause in the hallway, listening, and hear very faint voices coming from downstairs in the basement.
What?
Xavier, who is dressed now, comes with me downstairs into the theatre room. Antonio and Devon are playing video games and they look so freaking human and normal it throws me for a loop.
“Leo’s on the phone,” I say and Antonio immediately puts his controller down. Devon pauses the game and we all gather around.
“Okay, you’re on speaker,” I tell Leo. “We’re all here. Go ahead.”
“Don’t get too excited,” Leo starts. “I don’t have much to report. I did FaceTime Gia and she is okay.”
“Thank God,” Antonio sighs. “Where is she?”
“Ocala, with Aunt Darcy and Danielle. They’re visiting Grandma.”
“I thought she died,” Antonio says, looking at me. “Didn’t she?”
“I think Marco likes to pretend that she’s dead,” I reply, knowing Xavier is going to ask about her later. Grandma Jean was raised in the Order, like the rest of us, but she hated the idea of her grandchildren being forced into it. When Marco basically told his own mother to fuck off because he cared more about what the higher-ups in the Order had to say than she did, it created some expected tension. They avoided each other until things got so awkward it was better to pretend she had died of dementia or something like that.
“They’re going to go to watch some fancy jumping horses tomorrow or something.”
“The World Equestrian Center is there,” Devon tells us with a shrug. “It’s kinda cool. I’ve been there.”
“Gia will love that,” I say. “All little girls love horses.”
“How is she?” Antonio asks. “That a pretty fucked up night for a kid.”
“It was a fucked up night for an adult,” I mutter quietly.
“Yeah,” Leo agrees. “She’s going to need years of therapy to unpack this one. She believes that Toni is a vampire and now she wants to be one, so that lie didn’t work like they thought it would. Mom told her Toni was already a vampire when he kidnapped her—”
“Seriously?” Antonio rushes out, and I can see the anger and hurt on his face.
“She didn’t buy it,” Leo goes on. “You ate food. She saw you. The kid isn’t dumb.”
“Not at all,” I say, feeling proud of my little sister. “Then what?”