Page 81 of Heartless Legacy

My smile grows wider. “Exactly.”

He huffs out a sigh and explains, “Finn, she’s at the bottom of the leaderboard, so the council won’t assign her to anyone. She’ll have to wait until she’s made acceptable scores before she’s put back in rotation.”

That wouldn’t be a problem if she was just a random legacy daughter, instead of a prospect. But it’s also a good thing that she is. She can’t request a companion, because of her scores, but that also meansnobodywill get to have her. None of the elitist families will want her. Well, except for me and Holden. I’d take her low scores and all, because I know her ranking isn’t her fault. It’s a penalty for her absence.

Holden goes on to say, “The rules are clear about that.”

“Are they?” I don’t know where the question came from, but once it’s out, I realize I don’t know what the rules are regarding the companion process. I never bothered reading up on them because my father handled it.

Holden’s stopped walking. I turn to find him staring at me. I do a quick scan of the path to make sure nobody else was around who may have overheard me questioning the way things are done. God knows the drama that would cause. We’re alone, so his sudden stillness makes no sense. I step closer, trying to read the look on his face. Did my question break him?

“Holden?”

He gives a slight shake of his head, his finger tapping against the side of his leg. It takes a second for me to recognize what he’s doing. He’s thinking. His fingers moving against his leg instead of his phone, because we know there’s no reception out here.

It was a crazy, impulsive question, but maybe not? He turns and starts back towards The Tomb. “Why are you going back?”

“I need to go to the archives.”

I don’t think I’ve ever been in the archives. It’s basically a shrine of league contracts and history books. “Okay, have fun with that.”

He walks back towards me and grabs my arm, shoving me down the path. “We’regoing to the archives.”

“Um, pass?”

“No pass, Finn. If you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do, we need to make sure we know the rules.”

“I’m not-” I close my mouth. He knows me so well. Didn’t I ask, because I’m hoping there’s a loophole? A way to manipulate the situation to get what I want? “Fine.” I huff out a sigh. “I hope it has ventilation down there.”

Chapter 50

Holden

Thea wants space, and Finn and I are pretending to give it to her. In the dining hall, Finn alternates between sitting with her and with us at our table, but his presence hasn’t had much of an impact on getting her to forgive us for Pax’s transgressions.

She spends a lot of time off campus. During the week, she’s at the beach, or diner or hotel, with her family. On the weekends, she disappears into thin air. There’s something else going on with her, and I’m determined to find out what. Is spying on her an invasion of her privacy? Yes. Do I care? No.

I’m outside the library, tucked against the side of the building, hidden by the shadows of the trees when she takes a call on a phone I can’t get access to. She refuses to share her new phone number. It’s not even listed on her school records or Prospectus account. If it were, I would have hacked into it by now.

She answers the call with a chipper, “Hey.” After a pause, she says, “Sorry, I’m just not feeling up to it tonight. I think I’m gonna work on some homework at the library, then head back to my dorm to get some rest.”

The call ends and I lose sight of her as she walks into the library. I pull up the camera feed and watch her enter the bathroom on the second floor. Five, six, ten minutes pass. My chest tightens, my stomach knots when she doesn’t come out. I move to another camera angle as I head inside. I finally spot her on the camera at the mezzanine level she prefers to sit at. I walk through the door. The tightness in my chest eases until she pops up on the camera that points to the back of the building.

What the hell? I stop next to the check-out counter, swiping between browser tabs. The camera feed of her inside the building is fake. It’s not looped, but there is a slight delay. The time stamp on it is thirty seconds behind the other one. I turn facing the mezzanine even though I know she’s not there.

Someone’s deep faked Thea into the feed. Who the hell did it, and why? I think back to the call she was on right before she walked inside. She told the person she’d be studying all night. But on the outside camera, she’s dressed in all black, her hair pulled into a high ponytail.

Where the hell is she going? She’s already made it to the school gate by the time I catch up with her. She continues down the road on foot, heading away from campus. Two miles later, she climbs into the passenger seat of a waiting car. I memorize the plates and run back to campus to get my car.

It took a while to track the vehicle Thea’s in. Now that I’ve caught up with her, I wish I hadn’t. I’m parked down the road right before the turnoff, so I won’t be spotted and monitoring her on the cameras I reconnected around the perimeter of what’s left of the building. I wanted to capture anything suspicious. This counts, not that in my wildest dreams would I have ever expected to see this. I’m caught off guard and it takes me longer than it should to even understand what I’m seeing. No, that’s notright. I understand. The problem is, Idon’t want to seewhat I’m seeing.

Thea stands at the end of the driveway, staring up at what’s left of the charred hospital. Her shoulders heave before she slowly sinks to her knees. Each rack of her body pierces my heart. I wanted answers. I was trying to find any connection I could to the school.Thiswasn’t it. Thiscouldn’tbe it.

A car heads towards me from the opposite direction and makes the turn onto the single access road. It appears on camera a few moments later, stopping a few feet away from Thea. A tall figure gets out and immediately drops to the ground next to her. I recognize the man. It’s Deacon Wolfe.

I knew I was right to be suspicious of her whereabouts. What was it she’d said to Pax? She’d been detained against her will all summer.

It sickens me to even think that she was here, but I know it’s true. It’s the only thing that explains why I couldn’t find anything on her. Why the timeline of her arrest and return makes little sense. At least part of the time Thea was away, she was here in the hospital facility that doesn’t exist.

---