Nightfall (Devil's Night #4) - Penelope Douglas Page 0,250

cousin, Octavia. She was the only one he smiled around.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked him.

He shrugged.

“Everything okay at school?”

He nodded but still wouldn’t look at me.

“You got plans for trick or treating with your friends tomorrow night?” I prodded.

Slowly, he shook his head. “I don’t really like candy.”

“Come to Coldfield, then,” I told him. “I can find a place for you with the actors.”

He sat there, and I saw the muscles in his jaw flex.

“Or… maybe working the animatronics in the tombs?” I taunted. “Something behind the scenes?”

He looked over at me out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t meet my stare.

But he didn’t shake his head, and I decided to let him save his pride.

“I’ll pick you up at three tomorrow,” I said.

He nodded.

Good. He might not like to be around people, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still find his place in the world. Teachers were concerned years ago he might be on the spectrum, possibly Asperger’s. Not that it affected his education. He did well in school.

Socially, he just wasn’t where other kids were.

But he was able to socialize in situations where he cared to, like training with his grandfather or spending time with Octavia. He refused to see a specialist, and Kai had no interest in forcing him to be everyone else’s version of normal. I mean, look at us, for example. If we were the measure of what was normal back in the day, Mads was better off not changing.

I started to climb down, but then I heard his voice.

“What’s L’appel du vide?” he asked.

I stopped and stared up at him, his dark eyes like black pools.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Kids at school,” he murmured.

I cleared my throat and looked around for his parents, knowing this day was coming, but never expecting I’d have to explain this to anyone’s kids but my own. Had he asked Kai?

I came back up a step and looked at him, eye to eye. “L’appel du vide is what binds our family,” I told him. “It’s an idea that connects us, because we all believe in it.”

“Like a religion?”

I hesitated for a moment, not sure if that was how I’d describe it.

But I nodded. “Kind of,” I replied. “Michael, Rika, Winter, Damon, Emory, me, your mom and dad… It’s how we realized we weren’t alone in the world.”

“Am I a part of it?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Is that what the kids at school say?”

He looked away, back to Octavia out on the lawn. “They’re too scared of me to say anything.”

I groaned silently. We were afraid of this. Mads was certainly unnerving without any help from us, but our names also intimidated people well enough.

It was all well and good that we’d found each other and made our family together, but to outsiders it probably looked… Well, I had no idea how it looked. All I knew was the more powerful you were—the more successful you were—the more enemies you had, and people would always try to tear you down. Our kids would hear stories about us. Stories about our businesses and Devil’s Night and the catacombs were being made up right now, no doubt. They would have to deal with the pressure of our legacy.

Or not.

“You’re whoever you want to be, Mads,” I told them. “Don’t ever forget that. Don’t look at the world through anyone else’s eyes but your own. Not mine, not your dad’s…not anyone’s.”

We wanted to build something new—something that would last—but we always knew times would change, and our children would want a reality of their own. Mads might not want what we’ll leave him, but if he did want it someday, he’d look great in a mask.

No pressure.

He gave me a tight smile, as much as he could force himself to muster, and I smiled back, climbing down the planks.

Indie and Jett sat on a picnic blanket, gabbing away, while Finn and II laid on the grass, tapping away on their electronics.

I shot up one more glance at Mads, watching him watch Octavia battle a tree trunk with her sword, and tipped my head farther back, seeing the clouds almost black as they damn near touched the trees.

I headed back inside, searching the house for the adults. We were still expecting Alex, Aydin, Micah, Rory…

“Emergency services will be standing by should Tropical Storm Esme turn,” I heard Banks announce as I headed to the study.

I rounded the doorway, seeing her sitting behind a desk with bookshelves displayed behind her, and