Page 74 of Heartless Legacy

I miss her glares and flipping me the bird. I miss her doing shit to piss me off and irritating the other legacy students. I miss arguing and fighting with her. I miss. Her.

I watch as she disappears through the doors, keeping to the outside of the swell of bodies. I finally turn my attention back to the wall where Holden was standing. He’s gone and looking towards the front of the room, I see Finn is too.

I wait for the hall to empty a little more before following suit. My delay wasn’t long enough, because Eloise is hovering in the hallway. Fighting the urge to shove her away, I once again don my mask, saying and doing what’s expected of me.

Thea

“Hey little cousin.”

I roll my eyes at Ryland, and the cocky smile he’s wearing on his face. I noticed his name was in the top ten of his year group. “We’re not related, so don’t call me that.”

His smile drops as he says, “As far as the family’s concerned, you’re Hailee’s daughter. She took off with you and spent years raising you as her own. Just because she’s your aunt by blood doesn’t change that.”

I’m shocked into silence. That’s exactly how I feel about the situation. It’s nice hearing someone else voice my thoughts that way. Everyone acknowledges mom raised me for as long as she did, but it’s like they also want to pretend those years of my life were spent with a babysitter and not with someone who was the only parent I had.

“Thank you for saying that.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Thea. It’s a fact. Besides, everyone thinks of Moira as family too. She stopped coming around as much when Hailee left. I guess our family reminded her too much of the big sister she lost. Or maybe she was afraid we’d figure out what they did.”

His smile is back in place. “But you and I won’t have that problem. We’re gonna spend lots of time together.”

“We are?” I snort. “I didn’t see you at all last year. Hell, I didn’t even know you existed until a few weeks ago, but you knew about me, and never introduced yourself. So why are you trying to be all family oriented with me now?”

“Fair point, and in my defense, I wasn’t here last year. I took a year off from school for an internship. I heard what happened to you and would have come back sooner, but I couldn’t walk away from the job I was doing. I finished up that assignment and now I’m back.” His eyes darken, his jaw clenches, and he says, “No one’s gonna fuck with you anymore.”

“You can’t promise that, or even promise that no one will try. You heard what they said in chambers. In sixty days, the bottom five people are being transferred to a guardian line.” He laughs like I’ve just told the funniest joke in the world. “What’s so funny?”

“You are. I’ve read the reports, and I’ve seen your previous scores. We both know that sixty days from now, you won’t be anywhere near the bottom five.”

I wish I were as confident as he sounds. I’m not sure how I’m gonna deal with the challenges this time. They were already dangerous and complicated enough, and that was before I added another layer to my trauma and paranoia.

We’ve reached the security office and I nod at the guard as I retrieve my phone from the faraday bag. Ryland holds out his hand. “Here, gimme your phone.”

“For what?”

“So you’ll have my number.” He says, pulling it from my hand to text himself from my phone. “Use it if you need me or just wanna hang out.”

I’m about to tell him that won’t happen when he does something that makes my heart clench. It’s quick, yet unmistakable. He presses his pointer finger to the back of his wrist and taps on it. One tap. Four taps. Three taps. It’s the same thing he did in the dining hall. The same thing mom used to do when we were in court, and she couldn’t talk to me. It was our special family code that meant,I’m watching out for you. I love you.

I haven’t left my protection in anyone’s hands in a long time. I don’t trust hearing I love you’s from people who haven’t done a thing to prove it. Words are easy. Actions are hard. Sasha, I know she loves me. She’s been in the trencheswithme.

My mother might not have been able to care for me, but I know she loved me. Ryland hasn’t done anything to earn my trust. But that code gives a connection to my mom that I’ve been missing. So instead of deleting his number. I save it to my approved contacts list.

Chapter 46

Finn

Who the fuck is that guy with Thea? He looks vaguely familiar, but I’m not sure where I’ve seen him before. I step out of the alcove as he puts his number in her phone before leaving with three other guys. I think one of them is a third-year prospect.

Thea’s staring at his back like he’s a cool new discovery. He was up in her space, and she allowed it. I know she has a knife on her somewhere. Her go to move is to whip it out and threaten to stab people for getting too close. She cut me when I touched her phone, but she did neither of those things with this guy. Instead, she entertained his antics, and now she’s making googly eyes at his back.

Does she like him? Was she agreeing to team up with him for a challenge? I hope she hasn’t forgotten that she can’t trust any of the prospects. Even third years will do whatever it takes to steal her points and get her kicked out. I’m torn between going over to her and going after the guy and turning him into buzzard food. No one would notice if he went missing, right? They’ll assume he ran away like they did with Thea. I’m sure I can get Holden to fabricate evidence that he ran off with a girl or a guy or something.

My need to talk to my girl overrides my desire to sever his femoral artery. I follow the crowd out of the building and along the path to the parking lot, and wait for Thea by her car.

She sees me and rolls her pretty blue eyes as she walks over to the driver's side door. “Finn, I’m not in the right headspace for your bullshit today.”

Thea’s competitive so it makes sense that the results of the meeting have her stressed. I hate that she’s upset. “Don’t worry about those scores, Pet. You’ll be back on top of the leaderboard next month.”

---