Page 36 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

The town is a mere twenty-minute drive from the cabin, now that the tree is neatly chopped to pieces and branches cleared off to the side.

Delina stares out at them as they drive by, the frustration and awfulness of even the day before almost foreign to her, but they’re past it in a blink of an eye, the break in the foliage small.

“Okay,” Gurlien says, as soon as they’re into the small town, with its Americana stores and tiny cafes. “Chloe, you need the library or Charlies?”

“Charlies,” Chloe says confidently, hoisting her backpack over her shoulder once Gurlien parks on the sparsely populated street. “Internet’s better and we can get coffees.”

Without the biting wind, the rain drifts like an afterthought once Delina steps out of the car, but she pulls the jacket tighter around her chest as Chloe and Gurlien step into one of the indistinguishable cafes.

Mason catches her by the elbow before she can follow them in, just touching her jacket and not her. “Delina, one sec.”

In the chill air, his cheeks are pink, and the rain settles into his brown hair like a mist.

She jerks her elbow out of his grasp. “Yeah?” she says, and they’re actually in public, there’s some people across the street, she doesn’t know what could be said when out and about like that. There’s still so much she doesn’t know, an aching chasm of unknowing.

Maison hesitates, then leans forward, as if they were still a normal couple and they were discussing something idle. “If you don’t want to do the test they’re going to put you through, tell me, and I’ll get you out of there.” His grey eyes flicker up into the cafe, tracking Gurlien ordering something and Chloe opening the laptop and plugging it in. “There’s a chance it won’t be nice and friendly.”

The sarcastic, biting comment is on the tip of her tongue, but the tension still across his shoulders stops her from speaking it.

So she exhales, consciously, attempting to loosen up the knot of hurt. “It would help if I could make an informed decision on what it might be,” she says, trying to keep her tone just as soft as his but failing miserably. “I don’t like going into things blind.”

“I know,” Maison says, “I want them to be wrong. I don’t…I don’t think they’re wrong.”

Delina can’t think of anything to say.

“But if they’re not wrong, then we have more important things to deal with than a missed call into the College,” he continues, though his face twists. “I can do a lot, but I can’t defend against everything.”

The half answers itch at her mind, but she nods. “My mother was really that bad?”

“I read her research, she was insane,” Maison says, and it’s so close to his normal grumbling of people that it tugs at Delina. “Utterly batshit, made enemies right and left, couldn’t be trusted with anything. She tried to…” he trails off, conspicuously so,then sighs. “She’s lucky she didn’t kill you before you were born, there’s no way anything that she did was ethical. It’s a miracle you’re not…it’s a miracle you’re at all normal.”

“Can I read it?” Delina asks, and he raises an eyebrow at her, the hint of the dimple coming back for the briefest of seconds. “The research. So I know?”

He narrows his eyes at her, and it’s his expression like he thinks she’s making a foolish choice, but he’s not sure he wants to dispute her on it.

How many of those decisions on disputing things like this were because they threatened his own mother if Delina left him?

“I don’t think you’d like it,” he says instead, then steps ahead, opening the door to the coffee shop for her. “Ask Chloe to download it.”

The inside of the coffee shop is far warmer, so Delina sheds the rain jacket as she sits next to Chloe, who studiously ignores her, tapping away at the computer

“Anything I can help with?” Delina asks, sinking into the overly comfortable chair. No coffee shop chairs should be this comfortable.

“No, it’s not that complicated,” Chloe says, tapping away. “I’m only doing this because Gurlien’s afraid he’ll get caught.”

Maison drifts over and joins Gurlien next to the register, the frown still on his face.

“Did…did your College do this a lot?”

“You’re gonna have to be way more specific,” Chloe says, still tapping away.

“Keep people prisoners?”

“Oh you have no idea,” Chloe responds. “Anyone they might consider dangerous, they either lock up or they leverage things against them.” She throws a nod towards Maison. “My bet is he’s too useful, so they went with the leverage. Or his mom is also something strange, but I feel like that would’ve been mentionedby now.” She glances up at Delina, brief, before her brown eyes return to the screen. “Like I said, they’re dicks. They’re just the dicks in charge.”

Delina glances back over at Maison, where he and Gurlien are obviously arguing in whispers while waiting for the coffees to come out. “I take it they didn’t get along well in school?”

“Gurlien got along well with absolutely nobody, and Freddy always avoided all his classmates when he could,” Chloe answers, and it’s so much information on Maison, so much she doesn’t know. “Sure, he was nice when he had to interact, but you know, it was obvious he’d rather be anywhere else.”

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