Curiosity rose to know what was in it. But at the same time, I was past caring.
More bullshit. More games.
None of it mattered because I was playing a different game. One they wouldn’t understand until it was too late.
Jasmine scooted her wheelchair back a little, giving Matthew access to the table.
He smiled in thanks, placing the heavy box before his father. Marshall stood up and opened the lid while his son sat back down.
I sniffed, trying hard to clear my nostrils of blood. The pounding headache made everything fuzzy—a struggle to completely follow. I wanted to be coherent for whatever was about to happen.
No one spoke as Marshall removed reams and reams of paper and stacked them in neat piles on the table. The more he withdrew, the more aged the paper became. The first pile was pristinely white, neat edges, and uniformed lettering from a computer and printer.
The next stack was thin and cream-coloured, smudged edges, and the fuzzy blocks of a typewriter ribbon.
What is going on?
The third was yellowed and crinkled, shabby with torn edges, and the spidery scrawl of human penmanship.
And the final stack was moth-eaten, the colour of coffee, and swirling calligraphy of an art lost long ago.
That colour...
Its coffee bean shade was similar to the Debt Inheritance scraps Cut had given me at my welcome luncheon.
Could it be...
My attention zeroed in on Cut.
“Do you hazard a guess as to what that is, Nila?”
I shivered at the fatherly way he said my name, as if this was a family lesson. Something to be proud of and honoured to be an exclusive member.
I don’t need to guess.
I cocked my chin. “No, I don’t.”
He chuckled. “Come now. You already know. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jasmine huffed. “Just be honest. For once in your life.” Her voice dropped to a harsh curse. “Don’t make this any worse, for God’s sake.”
Whoa...
After everything she’d done. After cuddling up to her father after he shot Jethro and Kes and promising me a world of hurt for being responsible for such a tragedy, she had theaudacityto make it seem as if I were unappreciative and uncooperative.
Not going to fly anymore.
Screw being meek and quiet.
I’d tried that.
Now, I snapped.
Turning to face her, my hackles rose. The claws I’d grown when I’d first arrived unsheathed, and I wanted nothing more than to drag them across her face. “I’d watch what you say to me...bitch.”
The room sucked into a dark hole, hovering in space, glacial and deadly.
