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I need to talk to Dorian.
“Well, can you have him talk to me, then?” I asked. Ares’s head was shaking at this point. I angled in front of him. “At least have him return a fucking text.”
“He doesn’t have his phone.” He braced his big arms. “His parents took him off the grid, and they took the phone too.” His eyes lifted to the sky. “I don’t even know why I’m fucking telling you this.”
I was glad he was.
And he was leaving now.
Actually, he left me standing right there, and I was well aware if this guy went in a full sprint, there was no catching up to him. He could lose me with little effort.
So I stayed.
This really seemed hopeless, beyond hopeless. If Dorian didn’t want to talk to me, listen to reason, what voice did I truly have here? His friends were loyal to him, his brothers, and Bow was his sister. Those bonds had formed well before me and were generational. Even their fathers were tight.
These people were the epitome of family, and there was no listening to reason here.
Ares stopped a few feet away. “Go home, little. Because there’s certainly more for you there than will ever be here.”
I blinked, the tall boy sprinting away. He left me there, and eventually, I headed back too. I was going to go to my house, but he was wrong when he called it a home. My brother and I didn’t have one of those. We had a house, and even that was temporary. It was on loan from our guardian until we grew up and moved on. We didn’t have what I could imagine Ares and the rest of Legacy had.
Maybe someone like my brother and me never would.
Chapter Eight
Sloane - age 6
I bounced the ball hard down the hallway. Mommy put down my brother, Bruno, to take a nap, so I got real bored. I didn’t like being bored. I liked to play. I tried to make noise real loud on purpose, but Bruno was a heavy sleeper.
Why can’t he just wake up!
I listened outside his door, but I didn’t hear anything. Shrugging, I decided to take the ball upstairs. I might play Barbies or something until he wakes up. I started to bounce the ball again, but sat down. I rolled the ball across the hall for a few moments. I’d get my Barbies soon, but this was fun. The ball kept hitting my bedroom door and would roll back. That last time I rolled it, the thing wouldn’t roll back, though.
I got on my knees to get it when I heard Mommy’s and Daddy’s voices. They said my name.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Mommy said, and I crawled on my knees until I got to their door. I pressed it open with my palm, but could only see Daddy’s back. Daddy was a big man.
He sighed. “You have to. You have to and you know that. For her sake.”
I let go of the door, sitting down. I tried to see around Daddy, but couldn’t really. I could only see Mommy’s feet between his big legs. She sat on their bed.
“You know what people tell me when I take her out?” Mommy gasped. “They tell me how beautiful she is. How I need to put her in pageants because she’s so stunning. She is stunning…”
Mommy’s voice sounded funny. It sounded sad like when her and Daddy fought. They’d been fighting a lot lately. Especially when I started school last year.
I played with my bracelet, a dangling charm on it. I didn’t remember when I’d gotten it. Mommy and Daddy had given it to me when I’d been real little.
“It’s not fair,” Mommy stated. It sounded like she was crying now. “What kind of people are we to do this to her?”
“We don’t have a choice.” Daddy’s voice was quiet. “And, Marilyn, you have to keep it together.”
“She’s going to know. As she gets older, she…”
The floor creaked under me, and Daddy whipped around. Daddy and Bruno looked a lot alike. They both had dark brown hair like Mommy. I didn’t have dark brown hair. Mine was almost black. Mommy said I looked more like my grandmother. She was an immigrant from Mexico. I didn’t know what immigrant meant, but I liked that I looked like her. I told people that whenever they asked. I looked like my grandma. I wished I’d gotten to meet her. She died before I was born.
Daddy pulled his hair out of his eyes, blinking down and looking at me. Hurriedly, he closed the door behind him, and I saw Mommy with her face in her hands.
She had been crying. She had her mouth in her hands before Daddy closed the door.
