Page 209 of Heartless Legacy

Does she know? Has he shared with her what happened and why he’s refusing to eat anything he hasn’t purchased or prepared himself now?

She continues. “I haven’t eaten food from the community serving line since I came back. My personal chef makes all my meals and I watch him do it each and every time. That’s the only way I can eat when I’m here. Otherwise, the thought of eating food people have free access to sickens me, because that’s how they used to drug me.”

Holden finally speaks. “Me, too.”

She stabs the cucumber salad with her fork and studies it. I expect her to put it in her mouth, or give it to Holden, but she turns to me instead. “Open.” My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. She snickers and says, “Don’t look so shocked. If my cook was bribed, then I want to know about it. You foaming at the mouth would be karma since my food aversion started with your sperm donor.”

I open for her to insert the fork, then press my lips together as she drags the tines out of my mouth. I make a big production of chewing and swallowing, then open my mouth wide and wiggle my tongue so she can see I didn’t hide the food under it.

“Want me to eat anything else, Nem?”

She feeds me a fry next. I chomp on it close to where she’s holding it, letting my tongue graze her fingertips. “Next?”

“Holden, do you want him to try anything else that you want to eat?”

“What I’m thinking about eating right now doesn’t need a taste tester. But please continue with the food foreplay.”

She spins back around to face him. “If you don’t eat the food I’m providing here, you won’t have the strength to eat anything else on my private menu. So clean your plate, pretty boy.” She hops down from the table and goes back to hers like the last few minutes never happened.

Holden lifts his book and digs into his salad. He grunts in agreement when I say, “I’ll be her taste tester whenever she wants.”

Thea

I’m starting to feel like my whole life has been one big illusion to hide a conspiracy, and I have never been more proud of my mother’s unstable behavior than I am right now.

“There’s something I have to tell you.” I say to the three Coxsuckers on my couch. “But before I do, I want you to remember I don’t owe you answers, and I’m choosing to share this instead of keeping it to myself.”

“What is it, Pet?”

“Fountain Bluff and Knights Ridge are cities my mother always talked about moving to.”

They all look confused at my announcement. “You know, the places you found those team building clues.”

Holden says, “Go on.”

“Mom kept saying over and over again that those places would lead to a new life for me. That the towns were chosen to keep me safe.” I swallow around the lump in my throat. “I got older and dismissed it all as drunk ramblings. But the whole time she was doing this.” I say, pointing to the jewelry box.

Finn says, “I’m not following. What do you think your mother did? Pawned this jewelry box?”

Of course they’re not following. They don’t know what I know. They’re still giving me blank stares, so I explain, “My favorite doll and the name Holden found on the documents in the safe deposit box are the same. Imogen S. Cloudpuff.”

Now they’re looking at me like I’m crazy, and Pax says, “Why don’t you tell us what you’re seeing that we’re not.”

They’ve helped. Not him. He carried a few binders, but Holden and Finn have helped, so don’t I at least owe them an explanation about what they’re really searching for?

There’s a chance they’ll double cross me, but I have an advantage, now that I know what I’m looking for. “I think the team building challenge is actually the lead in to the bloodline challenge.”

Right on cue, negative nut sack says, “That’s a leap, since the team building challenge includes all year groups.”

“I understand whyyou’dsay that, considering your family’s history with the bloodline challenge.” I retort.

Turning to Pax, Holden asks, “What’s she talking about?”

I’m actually shocked when Pax answers, “My father accepted the challenge one year, without his Trium. He says he found the item, but someone stole it from him before he could turn it in to the council.”

Finn asks, “What does any of that have to do with what’s happening now?”

Wolfe clears his throat, stepping further into the room. How long was he eavesdropping? He comes to stand next to me, his presence bolstering me to say what I need to say. Turning over the parchment from the box, I say, “Rumor has it that my mother was the one who stole whatever he found right before she disappeared.”

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