Page 111 of Chaos

He’s as hard to kill as Rasputin. Everyone is also whispering about how half the Thornewood population disappeared overnight.

Say what you want about the army that’s overtaken Thornewood—they kept this mission to take the bullet factory a secret—even from the half of the army that stayed behind.

An evil part of my brain whispers as I walk Auden to school in the main ballroom, that Yorke doesn’t trust me to be practical, and it rips open a scar I don’t think I’ve ever verbalized before out loud—Jimmy didn’t trust me to be practical either.

And another one whispers back that it’s hypocritical to even be upset. I didn’t tell him about my side hobby poisoning Ben.

But the rational part of me understands.

Yorke took the information that he had and saw that I can’t leave Sheila with a baby on the way, and that letting Lavinia Hope and her army come to Thornewood would be a disaster.

So he made a plan.

I can’t fault him.

I sacrificed myself for him once, too.

And look where it got us.

I landed in hell, and came back miserable, and it didn’t save him. He took me being gone almost as hard as I did, and caused a host of new problems.

Like Ben refusing to die by poison. I head back to the greenhouse and fill my little jar again, and head to the kitchen.

When I get there, Shasta and Plumberger are menu planning. She leaves him over a pot in the pizza oven and joins me at the worktop where we do our baking.

“French toast day,” she says with a rictus smile.

“Okay. Can I help?” I say loudly so Plumberger and all the other kitchen workers will hear, settingmy bag down on the counter.

“Yeah,” she says. “Ruby’s vanilla … and powdered sugar.”

I imagine dusting straight poison directly onto Ben’s portion. I hope he’s been spewing from both ends into the same bucket. And there’s no chance it’ll get on Cain’s or anyone else’s plate. “Perfect.”

Shasta turns to Plumberger who’s been watching us closely. “We can handle the French toast. You do the bacon? The Shoeless Duchess chef woman suggests broiling it in batches over a pan to collect the fat. We can use that for tonight’s veggies.”

“Fine.” Do his eyes flick to my bag? I would almost swear they do, just for a second before he turns away, and promptly commences barking at the sous chefs to start cutting the bacon.

“I’ll grab the shortening.” I tug open the industrial door to the massive fridge and pause.

Tani said she found Nando on a room service cart. I can imagine it all too clearly. Frozen, skin purpling, growing freezer-burn frost, slumped over the cart.

And I get hit again with that memory of Mitsy as Shane and I sorted vegetables.

Her pretty little face twisting up.Gross.

Thatgrosscan’t have been about keeping Ruby in the freezer, not unless she could read the future.

So why say it?

What was gross?

Unless she’d already seen another dead body in the freezer?

I keep thinking about it as Shasta and I make the batter for the French toast, cracking precious eggs into the milk, as we dip the dried bread into it, Ruby’s vanilla scenting the air around us.

Renata said Nando had been dead for more than a month, but Len said the body was fresh.

Unless, the body had been frozen for a long time.

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