“I’ll drop a pin,” she rushes out. “Just give me five minutes, and after, if you want me to leave, I will. Just…” she trails off, her voice breaking again, and I hang up before she can start crying in earnest, emotion choking my own throat.
A second later, my phone dings with her location. She’s less than half a mile away.
I stare at the pin, then at my reflection in the dark window glass. I look like someone who’s just crawled out of a shallow grave– sweatpants, hair in a bun, eyes red from exhaustion. My first thought is that I should text one of the guys, tell them where I’m going… but then I remember why they’re not here. If I tell them I’m going to see my mother, they’ll probably just decide it’s the perfect opportunity to kill us both and bury the bodies.
I shut the laptop, throw on my jacket, and pad through the empty apartment. I don’t run into anyone in the stairwell, and when I push open the back door of Sutton Hall, it’s just as voidof people. Though I still feel the searing heat of watchful eyes on me as I trudge across campus, hands tucked deep in my pockets and my head down against the wind.
The walk is long and cold. My nervous system is so fried, every lamppost I pass has me bracing for impact, but nobody attacks. The campus is quiet, almost peaceful, which only makes me more paranoid. When I reach the gate, I a black Mercedes idling at the curb beside the empty guard shack. I’d recognize it anywhere.
I stand just inside the fence, arms crossed over my chest, steeling myself for whatever the hell is about to happen. Then the car window glides down, my mother leaning across the passenger seat, face half in shadow.
She looks like shit. Instead of her perfectly coiffed hair and painted face, her hair’s pulled tightly back, oversized sunglasses perched on her slender nose, even though the sky’s dark. She stares at me like she doesn’t know whether to smile or throw up.
Slipping between the wrought iron pickets, I heave a sigh as I walk over, opening the passenger door and sliding in without a word.
The inside of the car smells like her, the flowery scent of her expensive shampoo hitting me right in the chest. She turns to look at me, blue eyes going glassy behind the sunglasses.
“Hi, baby,” she coos.
“Don’t,” I snap, but I’m already tearing up, and it’s humiliating.
She reaches for me across the console, and I let her hug me. Her arms are thinner than I remember, bony and desperate, like she’s afraid I’ll vanish if she doesn’t hold on tight enough. I try to resist, but as soon as her cheek touches my hair, I’m sobbing for real, shoulders shaking in her embrace.
She holds me until I’m all out of tears, then finally lets go, smoothing my hair back from my forehead.
“I’m sorry Ava,” she whispers. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I wipe my nose on my sleeve, glaring at her. “For which part?”
She winces, then shakes her head. “There’s a diner in Norfolk. Let’s get some coffee and we’ll talk.”
I nod weakly, and she puts the car in drive, pulling away from the curb. The ride is short and tense, the hum of the heater and the click of her perfectly manicured fingernails on the steering wheel filling the silence. I half-expect the Kings’ black SUV to come screaming up beside us at any moment, but we make it to the diner without incident.
The inside is sparse, just a college kid with a laptop and a guy in camo gear eating donuts at the bar. Mom leads us to a sticky booth in the back, and I collapse into the vinyl seat, my body feeling sore and hollow.
She orders two coffees– black for her, cream and sugar for me, like she actually remembers how I take it. For a long time, she doesn’t say anything. She just stares at me, like she’s memorizing my face for the last time.
I can’t take the silence any longer. “So what’s the story, Mom?” I ask, trying and failing to keep the edge of bitterness out of my tone. “You really didn’t know about the Dollhouse?”
She exhales, pressing her hands together like she’s praying. “No. Gideon told me you’d be safe at Corvus. He said he wanted to protect you from his enemies. That’s all he ever told me.”
“And you just believed him?” My voice is sharp, but I can’t help it. “Why didn’t you ever answer my calls? Youabandonedme.”
She flinches. “I know how it sounds. But I swear to you, Ava, I thought I was keeping you safe. I never would have agreed to any of this if I thought you’d be…” she trails off, choking on a sob.
I want to call her a liar again. I want to scream at her for being so stupid, so desperate, so weak. But the pain in her eyesis real. She’s falling apart in front of me, and I don’t have the energy to be angry anymore.
“I didn’t want this life for you,” she sniffles, dabbing at her eyes with a paper napkin. “But now that you’re in it, you deserve to know the truth. About everything.”
“I’m listening,” I murmur, hands tightening around my coffee mug.
My mom draws another deep breath, as if steeling herself for what’s to come. She straightens her shoulders, dabbing at her eyes once more before they lock with mine. “When I was around your age, I ran into some trouble,” she begins, voice low. “I racked up some debts, and dug myself into a hole I didn’t know how to get out of. Then a friend told me about the Dollhouse.”
She exhales slowly, voice calmer now. “I signed a contract. Three years of service, and my debts would be paid. I’d walk out of there at the end of it free and clear, and with a little extra to start over.”
“A contract for what?” I ask, even though deep down, I already know the answer.
“The Dollhouse has different…tiersof assets. I was a Raven.”
