AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Not forever, but maybe JC for a year and then he can apply somewhere else. Somewhere … not so far away.”
I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished. “No way, this is epic for him.”
“It is, but—”
“No buts.” I stomp my foot like a brat. “Make him go!”
My uncle lifts a brow and I feel the frown taking over my face before I know it’s coming.
“I’m different,” I argue what I know he’s thinking. “I suck at school and hardly passed. Honestly, I don’t even know how I did, but Ben? He worked his ass off. He can be persuaded, I know it.”
“You didn’t even want to go to the school tour they invited you to, and that was basically your free pass to party at a college for a weekend, so how the hell am I to convince Ben to move hours away from home when all you guys ever talk about is staying close together?”
My brows pull at his words, and he looks at me funny.
“Wait...” I tip my head. “Daragan State is the same school that sent me that invitation for the senior campus cruise?”
“You know what, I think I’m confused,” he says, turning toward the counter to pick up his phone. “Never mind me, so what are we in the mood for, hmm?”
He starts talking about ordering late night DoorDash, so I nod and head back to my room. Uncle Marcus has a habit of doing that. It’s almost like he gets his timelines confused.
The small trashcan under my desk that never gets used, because I never do homework, stares back at me. The same two pieces of paper from a few months ago are still sitting at the bottom, the envelope hiding the very invite my uncle is talking about.
Digging around the candy wrappers, I lift it out and drop my ass on the floor to read it—something I didn’t do when it was first delivered.
Uncle Marcus has a bad habit of piling mail on the kitchen counter, so I had found it by accident one week when we were cleaning. I unfold the thick embroidered paper.
“Dear London V. Crow.” I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Not sure where they got the V from. No wonder I stopped reading before I even started.” Grabbing a sucker from my pocket, I tear off the top, stick it in my mouth, and start again.
“Dear London V. Crow, on behalf of the Daragan Admissions Department, we would like to formally invite you to attend Daragan State University’s Annual Senior Campus Cruise as a visiting future scholar. Should you like what you find during your time here, consider this your acceptance letter. At Daragan, we pride ourselves in academic excellence and— Well, there you fucking go,” I break off from the printed words, glaring at the paper. “Reason number two I didn’t read this thing.”
Academic excellence?Please. Maybe this was meant for an actual person named London V. Crow. I don’t even have a middle name. Not that it matters. I missed the response date by a mile and am the furthest thing from academic excellence.
But Uncle Marcus was right, even if I get the sense that he pointed it out by accident. This is the same school that wants Ben.
What are the chances...
* * *
My eyes burn and I blink back the flames, feeling for the first time the steady stream of hot tears rolling down my cheeks.
The moment my lids flick open, I’m no longer sitting in my old room in my hometown. The memory fades into darkness and then I’m left alone under the blinding light of my newest hell—a magical holding cell at the center of Rathe. My real hometown.
The realm I was born into.
I’m a fucking Gifted. Not a human like I’ve lived the last eleven years believing.
It’s as debilitating of a thought as it is a freeing one.
Finally, I understand why the moon calls to me and why everything is better under the blanket of midnight. I know now why I woke at the same time every night, waiting for something that never came. I know why I could never find peace or comfort in the human world no matter how hard I searched for it.
Because it wasn’t my world and I never belonged there in the first place.
The only time I didn’t feel like a girl in someone else's skin was when I was with—
My fingers twitch. I look to my hands, the glass urn a soft murky green, like the color of cat's eye marble, not so unlike my best friend’s eyes. They were the prettiest shade of hazel when he smiled. Not that the person who picked it out knew that.
Ben’s body was turned to ash not thirty minutes after it went cold.
