Page 16 of The Omega Trials: Part Three

“I could eat those every day,” he agrees with a warm but pained smile, one I feel in my bones.

“You guys ate together a lot?” Sinclair asks with genuine interest.

“Most weekend nights,” I respond.

“There was a year when we were homeschooled, and we had every meal together. Our parents would rotate, someone taking breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day,” Bishop recalls, polishing off his last bite.

“Homeschool?” She sits up as if fascinated.

“Didn’t last long.” Titus half-scoffs, half-chuckles. “Our parents would probably be in jail for murder if they didn’t send us back to school.”

“Yeah, that would have been a real bummer for me.” She flashes an almost shy smile at him, and I’m pretty sure a touch of pink brightens his olive cheeks.

Titus blushing, my god. It makes me want to grin ear to ear, but I try to play it cool, knowing he will only clam up if I do. I like how things are right now. Ireallylike it.

Sinclair picks at her cuticles as the four of us walk down the abandoned school’s corridors, her brow slightly furrowed and eyes fixed unseeingly on the ground. Before I pry, I try to suss out her emotions through the bond.

Nervous. Guilty . . . and something that feels a lot like embarrassment.I understand why she’d be feeling the first two, but not embarrassment.

I sweep her hand and draw circles on her palm with my thumb. “What’s in that pretty head, baby girl?”

She scrunches her nose then admits. “I feel like I need to tell her the truth about us and the Trials. She deserves to know why someone tried to kill her.”

“But?” I ask, sensing her reservation.

“What if . . .” She stops walking, bouncing her foot up and down anxiously. “What if her heart can’t take it?”

I almost laugh, but the genuine concern in her face stops me. I push her hair back, cupping her face with both palms. “You survived hell and all its monsters.Your mother rose from the dead. And the rest of the women in your family have spent decades successfully hiding right under the noses of the most powerful shadow organization in the country. What makes you think your grandma isn’t just as tough and twice as stubborn? It’s going to take a whole lot more than a little lie to kill one of you Ash women.”

She bites her lip, fighting a grin. “You make some good points.”

“Of course, I do.” I let go of her hand to wrap my arm around her shoulders instead, hooking her tight to my side. “Stick with me, baby. I have all the answers.”

She laughs and continues walking, but not before giving me a good ol’ elbow to the ribs.God, I love her.

I stop before going inside the science classroom. “Wait, if we are going to tell her that we don’t actually work for old Mr. Barnes, does this mean I have to give up being the hot pool boy?”

“I thought you had all the answers?” Titus mocks, pushing past me inside.

“Well, if it’s up to me—”

“It’s not. Let’s go.” Sinclair chuckles and grabs my arm, pulls me in after her.

Doc is the first to greet us. “Miss Cora’s awake for now. But it’s almost time for her next dose of pain meds, which will have her out for a while.”

“Where’s Celia?” Sin asks next, looking around expectantly, as if her mom is going to jump out and scare her.

He gestures toward the back door. “Having a smoke.”

The sterile plastic tent from surgery has been taken down and her grandma is sitting up in a hospital bed, looking out the big windows facing the schoolyard.

“Hey, Ma.” Sinclair pulls a chair closer to the bed and swivels the bed’s attached table into place. She sets a take-out bag down. “Brought you something.”

“You’re too good to me.” The old lady’s voice is far raspier than the first time I met her, but the light in her eyes for her granddaughter still shines just as bright.

Sinclair helps her with the bag, pulling out a slice of pecan pie and a Styrofoam soda cup full ofsweettea.

“Don’t let him see you bringing this in here.” She shoots the doctor an accusatory but playful look.

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