to do.
“I guess we’ll need a fairy godmother then,” I said.
Her smile dropped, and she scrunched her nose. “Because I haven’t done enough for you?”
“We’ll need to call in every single favor,” I said. “If we want to take down Godzilla, we need Mothra. Starting with…”
We turned to the four men keeping us captive.
I mean safe.
“You have nothing I want…” Grim said. My gut dropped, but then he stood off the wall. “Your prince, however.”
“I…” My throat caught, imagining what Grayson was going through. “I can’t make a promise for him.”
Gemma stepped up. “There is one way you can guarantee it.”
Gemma looked at Grim, and he laughed caustically. “Rich Girl, you are really pushing it.”
Sixty-Seven
GRAY
Story’s ghost wrapped around me. Her raspy whisper melded with the salt air flowing like moth-eaten lace into the room.
Nudge.
My head throbbed. My mouth thick with cotton and the taste of whiskey and lemon suckers.
Nudge.
“Is he dead?”
“Kick him again.”
I opened one eye. The room was different in the day, the shadows gone and the ghost with them. Three teenagers stood in a triangle above me, blocking the ceiling with their heads.
I’m still seeing ghosts.
“You look like shit,” Jo said.
Not ghosts, St. Germaines.
“Fuck you,” I grumbled, throwing my arm over my eyes. It was too bright in here, the salt air too bitter.
“No thanks,” Jo said.
The whiskey bottle in my hand felt too light.
Empty.
Goddammit.
I exhaled, sitting up against the wall.
Jo held a cigarette between her fingers, and reminded me a little of my sister Gemma—but without the mask mother forced her to wear.
Dark. Lonely.
It seemed Charles received all the aristocratic features of our father. And fuck, it was hard to tell what was going on underneath all of Keller’s hair.
“Come to fetch me for my grandfather?”
They all shared a look. “Not quite,” Jo said. “So we’re actually on the same side.”
I laughed.
And then I kept fucking laughing, until my throat hurt.
“He’s lost his fucking mind,” Charles said.
“It’s just people who say that to me tend to be fuckheads.”
“Told you he wouldn’t believe us,” Jo said. “Show him the thing.”
Silently, Keller reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, handing it to me.
When the time comes, Grayson Crowne will help you. He’s not the boy you think he is, not the boy his grandfather is trying to make him be.
Sincerely,
Woodson Hale
I slowly sat up, eyeing them. “What the fuck is this?”
“You tell us,” Jo snapped. “For our entire lives, we lived with a shitty stepbrother who never spoke to us, then right before the Holidays, our mother gives us this note, tells us not to come, and then she fucking dies. We loved Woodsy. So…reluctantly…we are inclined to listen to him.”
I shifted. “He was like a father to me.”
“Us too.”
Silence spread. We stared at one another, and I could almost see the walls we’d built crumble.
They’re your competition now, Grayson. Thank your father for that.
I saw beyond that moment that had shaped the course of our lives. I never even knew they had a relationship with Woodsy. I knew nothing about them, really.
How much longer was I going to let my grandfather’s insidious thorns dictate my decisions?
“Then why the fuck were you with my grandfather?” I asked.
“We know he killed our mother. We’ve known he killed our father for years. So for years we just…” Jo trailed off, exhaled. “We waited.”
“And what are you waiting for?”
“We want justice,” Jo said. “We want his ass in jail.”
I laughed. “Beryl Crowne in jail? It would be easier to catch a falling star.”
“So what’s your plan then?” Jo asked. “Audition for the world’s mopiest Heathcliff? Cuz sorry, bruh, but my brother’s already got you beat.” She threw a thumb behind her, to her brother with the shoulder-length hair hiding everything but his eye, leaning against the window—Keller.
Keller kicked Jo behind the knee and she stumbled forward.
I worked my jaw. “My plan was to kill him.”
Keller raised his hands. “Thank you. I’ve been saying this for months.”
Charles and Jo shared a look, then Jo continued. “Mother deserves justice. Our father deserves justice. Your baby mama—”
“My wife.”
“Your wife—doesn’t she deserve justice? Your baby? Killing him is too kind. I want him strung up. I want everyone to know what he did. I want the world to see the ugly. Right now if you search his name, only his charity works come up. People think he’s good. If you kill him now, he’ll die a martyr.”
I slowly sat up, resting my throbbing head against the cool window.
She was right.
Fuck.
“My