Page 140 of Twisted Legacy

I head towards The Rock, wanting to grab a quick bite before I leave campus. The students are back and so are their parents, which means Canyon Falls Annex is bustling with activity.

I’m taking a drive down the coast today. Getting away from the campus and the town is the easiest way to avoid running into Joshua, and anyone else dick riding the stabbed birds. I’ve had two more random people come up to me and ask me about the man who calls himself my grandfather. They were marginally nicer about it than the first guy, but the questions were still intrusive and annoying.

Moira and Scott have been keeping me in the loop. The League will hold a vote soon to determine Joshua’s status. It sounds like they expect the vote to break in his favor.

I just hope whatever they decide, he leaves me alone. I want nothing to do with that shit. Sitting at the legacy table and going to their parties is about all I can handle. Especially when it’s clear to me that women have no say about what they do and who they spend time with. Their sole purpose is to make the man look good. I’d be the worse arm candy in the history of the world. But he doesn’t seem to understand that -so rather than repeating myself- I’m avoiding him.

Speaking of arm candy. Eloise stomps over to me. “Are you still here?”

“Depends. Are you still an annoying shrew? Oops, I guess you are.”

Breathe. Deflect. Evade. That’s the defensive sequence Wolfe and I are working on. It’s supposed to translate to all parts of life. I breathed when she walked up to me. I deflected the question back onto her, and now it’s time to walk away and evade.

I’m inches away when she yells out, “We’ll see how funny you are when The League makes the announcement that your reject family is getting shoved back into the dungeon of obscurity. No matter how many hands your grandfather shakes, it’ll never be enough to wash away the stench of shame and betrayal your family is covered in, or that you’re tainted goods.”

Family back in obscurity sounds amazing. It means I can go back to living my life in the shadows. It’s the tainted goods comment that sticks in my craw. “What did you say?”

“Oh, come on. We all know that littleattackyou keep alluding to was bullshit. We’ve seen you throwing yourself at everyone around here. Why don’t you just admit that you snuck out on Mayhem Night to hook up with Zeus and things got too rough? Then you lied and said he attacked you. It’s clear to me you attacked him first. You have a history of fighting when things don’t go your way. Zeus lured you out there as a prank and then you freaked out on him. Poor Zeus was just defending himself.”

“Yeah, victim blame. There’s clearly not enough of it already happening in the world.”

“Am I making it up, though? The thing about you fighting? You assaulted me, after all.” She steps forward and shoves her phone in my face. “And then there’s this.”

There aren’t supposed to be any cameras at Club Dredd, but someone managed to get a few minutes of video footage of me ringside before one of my fights before security caught them. I remember that night. I had a good time.

“This little revelation is supposed to upset me? It’s a fight. I was there watching and so were a lot of other people. It’s not the first fight I’ve gone to, and it won’t be the last one.”

“You’ll fit right in with the lower legacy families. You know, the ones who are servants and coffee runners to the upper bloodlines, because none of you would ever meet the standards for any other level.”

I leave her standing there, smug superiority etched on her face. I text Moira when I get to the car.

Me

“You didn’t tell me these bird people have respectable jobs like assistant and culinary chef.”

Moira

“???”

Me

Eloise just told me the bird people are going to vote to make your dad a servant or coffee runner. I don’t see anything wrong with those jobs. If you would have pitched that, I might’ve started sitting at their stupid table sooner.

Moira

Legacy families hire someone else to clean up their mess and fetch their food. It’s not other legacy families, no matter how lowly they are

Me

Yeah, I worked that out for myself. She’s always trying to get a rise out of me

Moira

Don’t let her. Don’t let any of them. Remember our goals

Me

Stay under the radar, graduate, get the hell out of this town

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