Page 51 of The Hallows Boys

He sighs. “Nothing, Kai.”

I slam my hand down on the table hard, but he doesn’t even flinch. He’s used to my bullshit by now, and it pisses me off that I can’t make him jump anymore.

“How is it that you found absolutelynothing?” I growl. “Nothing on the Blackmores? And how did we not fucking know that Sage is the heir to the entire goddamn town?!”

I catch a brief glimpse of him rolling his eyes in my peripheral vision, which makes my fist clench. “Maybe if you had let me take a nap before you sent me on a fucking witch hunt, I would have been able to find something.”

I resist the urge to grab his hair and bash his face into the table. “Where is Becks?”

“Probably passed out on the mountain of books I left him with at the library.”

I stand up, throwing my hands in the air. “You went looking for information at the public library?! What did you imagine you could possibly find there?”

He looks over his shoulder at me, laughing. “Contrary to the weird make-believe world you have inside your head, I am not an FBI agent nor Sherlock fucking Holmes, asshole.”

His laughter makes my blood boil, so I stomp past him. “I’ll do it myself.”

I hear him stand from the table to follow me through the park, his feet dragging on the ground and making leaves rustle loudly with every step. Every hair on my body stands up as irritation bubbles through me.

The longer his feet kick up dirt and leaves, the more annoyed the noise makes me.

I spin around, stopping in place to look at him. “Are you kidding with this?”

He almost walks clear into me since his eyes have dropped closed, but jumps to a halt at my voice. His gaze finds mine, humor lining the darkness of his eyes. “Are you typically this irritable after fucking all night? I feel bad for everyone you’ve ever–”

I punch him in the jaw without thinking before he can finish his sentence, making his head fly back. When he turns to look at me again, he’s grinning from ear to ear, like he’s about to start laughing at me. I punch him again, to really drive my point home, and he grunts.

He rubs his face as he slowly turns to face me, his eyes narrowing and his mouth popping open so he can flex the muscles in his jaw. “Kaiden, are you done?”

I smirk, and when he catches the expression on my face, he starts laughing. I chuckle, licking my lips.

“Do you feel better?” he questions, rubbing his jaw.

I shrug, still grinning as I turn to keep walking. “A little, thanks.”

He huffs a laugh, following me without a word. We make our way down Main Street until we reach the library where Vinny has apparently left Becks to crack the case.

Vinny pulls the heavy wooden door open, the hinges creaking loudly as he does, and I walk through to find Becks. Leading the way to the back where there’re tables lined up, we find Beckham with his head on top of an open book – dead asleep.

I pick up one of the books off the stack he’s made and drop it down on the table to wake him. His head pops up quickly, his arms lifting and spreading out in front of him like he’s going on the defense. “I’m awake!”

I pull out the chair opposite him, sitting down while Vinny sits next to him. “Good morning, Becks.”

“What time is it?” He looks around, rubbing a hand down his face as he tries to grasp his surroundings.

“It’s almost 2 in the afternoon,” Vinny answers, pulling the book Beckham was just asleep on top of to see what he was reading. “Find anything interesting?”

Beckham yawns loudly, making my nostrils flare with annoyance. He stretches his arms over his head, shaking out his hair. “Not really. Lots of bullshit about the founders. The Blackmore family rotated in and out of government jobs, positions of power, until the sixties. Mayor, City Council, Sheriff – shit like that.”

“What about after the sixties?” I ask, leaning back in my chair and looking at him.

“Seemed to just blend in after that.” He shrugs. “Almost like they disappeared.”

“What about the current Blackmores?” I question.

“Current? As far as I can tell, there are no current Blackmores, unless they scattered.”

“Okay”—my eyebrows pull down, and I lean an elbow on the top of the table—“but we know Andrew Blackmore was here in the early 2000s because he founded the games. So they were clearly still here then.”

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