Page 52 of The Alpha's Pen Pal

“So. Haven Kenway,” Sebastian said after a brief silence.

“Wainwright,” I corrected, even though I hated that name.

Maya coughed from the backseat, and I glared at her.

“Sparkles, you could change your last name to ‘Skywalker,’ and you’d still be Haven Kenway to us.”

“Sparkles?” I asked.

“Well, you’re covered in glitter, so…”

I glanced down at my arms, and sure enough, the fucking purple glitter from my costume was everywhere, dancing in the sunlight from the window.

“See! I told you!” I yelled, turning to Maya.

“But it will look so good on stage!” she whined. “Tell her, Sebastian!”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Sebastian said with a laugh.

I turned forward with a huff and crossed my arms, the tail of my braid wrapping around my neck from the force of my movement.

“What is it you’re trying to show me, Sebby?” I asked, changing the subject. Maya inhaled from the backseat, and Sebastian gave me a look. “What?” I asked.

“Usually, I hate when people call me that, but…”

He kept giving me that weird look. “If you get to give me a nickname, it’s only right that I get to give you one,” I said with a shrug.

He just continued to stare at me for a moment, then turned his eyes back to the road.

“That’s fair,” he grunted.

“So, where are we going? What is it your brother won’t tell me about yet?”

Sebastian shifted in his seat. “Well, when we didn’t hear from you for a while, Wes sort of… panicked.”

I nodded. “I saw the letters he wrote that I never got,” I told him in a quiet voice.

He glanced at me and nodded, then continued. “Our parents, and Nolan’s parents, worked together to try to adopt you.”

My arms loosened in front of me. “What?” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he said. “Felix and Fiona—Nolan’s mom and dad—they were never able to have another… kid… so when they heard social services had removed you from your home, they were more than willing to step up and take you in. They started thinking of you as their daughter before they’d even finished filing the paperwork.”

I swallowed against the lump forming in my throat and turned away from him to look out the window so he wouldn’t see my eyes getting glassy.

All that time… all that time, I thought everyone had abandoned me, but there had been people fighting for me all along. And one of them was the person I’d just pushed away from me.

“Obviously, that didn’t work out,” I mumbled.

“No,” Sebastian sighed. “It didn’t. And Wes… well, he went ballistic.”

Maya gasped from the backseat, and I peeked at her to find her staring at the back of Sebastian’s head with wide eyes.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He was so upset. He yelled at everyone, and… and then he ran off into the forest for a few hours,” he said. “After that, we tried to find you. We hired people to search for you. But legally, there was only so much we could do outside of waiting to hear from you. And that never happened.”

I whipped my head around to him as he parked the car. “I swear, I—“

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