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But If I do—if I let the full weight of what happened yesterday sink in, their betrayal, the sound of Isaac’s voice, the hatred in Roman’s eyes, their brutality. If I let it all in, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back.
And I have to go back.
Right?
“What is she doing?” The quiet, deep rumble of Kon’s voice pulls me from my thoughts and I find my eggs half-stabbed to death. A flash of a memory of Roman and I weeks ago when he’d said something similar pulses through me, but before I can let myself dwell in it, Chase distracts me.
His head snaps up and whips to Kon, whose gaze is thankfully not on me. I follow his line of sight at the same moment Chase does. Against my will, a smile tugs on the edges of my lips.
“Come on, little baby. Eat for Mommy. That’s it. Open up for the train,” Oli coos. “No, no, no, Goose. Don’t eat Robert’s eggs. You have your own!”
She’s got the duck, the chicken, and Robert all lined up in a row. The goat’s sitting a few paces behind them, silently observing everyone. I have no idea where the mouse is, but judging by the way Oli’s sweatshirt pocket keeps bouncing around, I have an idea.
“What?” Chase asks, a wide, adoring smile etched across his face. He blinks slowly and turns to Kon with a shrug. “She’s feeding them breakfast.”
Kon’s eyes narrow as she waves a fork of scrambled eggs through the air and into the chicken's waiting beak while making airplane noises.
His mouth drops open, then closes, before opening again. Meanwhile, my heart rate picks up at the confused but calculating expression on his face.
Oh, no.
“Does she not know?” he drawls. Oli pauses mid zoom. My head shakes, but it’s not enough to stop in the incoming tragedy. “Feeding them eggs is cannibalism. That’s fucked up.”
Chase gasps. I make some sort of noise between a choke and a gag. But Olive goes glacial. Like a scene from a horror movie, she slowly turns to Kon, her face drawn tight in an unreadable expression.
“What do you mean?” she mutters, her voice colder than I’ve ever heard.
Kon shoves a heaping bite of hash browns into his mouth before jabbing his fork toward the chicken. His little clipped beak is struggling around his food, but he looks happy. A far cry from how Oli found him a few months ago.
“You do know where eggs come from, right?” he asks, lifting his brows, and my knee bobs. “The chicken’s eating its children.” The room goes silent.
Oli turns to stone, her brows dipping an inch. Her eyes flit from me, to Chase, to Kon, to the animals, then back to her brother.
“What exactly do you mean?”
Chase shoots up, knocking his chair to the floor behind him. “Nothing!” he cries, shaking his head. “He’s joking.” He smacks the big man's shoulder hard enough for the sound to echo off the walls, but Kon barely moves an inch. “Aren’t you? Tell her you’re kidding.”
“I’m not—” Kon starts, but Chase slaps a hand over his mouth, silencing him.
“It’s the only protein I can get her to eat,” he hisses. “Shut the hell up.”
Kon glares up at the other man and bats his hand away but says nothing else. Instead, he huffs and stabs his own eggs so hard, I’m worried about the plate’s safety.
“What’s he talking about, Chase?” Oli asks again, her voice full of an innocence that makes my heart ache. She’s not stupid or uneducated, but the world she chooses to live in is a safer one hand-crafted by those who love her. “You said the eggs came from a vegan farm in Canada.”
I swallow thickly, suddenly finding my coffee incredibly interesting. Kon makes a sound of irritation around his fork before murmuring something in Russian.
“So many farms,” he grunts. “Can’t keep ‘em straight.”
Her head cocks to the side, excitement lighting up her pretty baby blues. “There are more farms?”
Kon chuckles and takes a deep drink of coffee. He juts his chin at Chase. “Ask him.”
I swear her brother is seconds from passing out. He scratches at his jaw and swallows thickly. “Yeah, of course.” His head bobs. “Lots of farms. So many farms.” He snaps his fingers. “Like the one in California. The mouse one.”
Oli gasps and her fork clatters to the floor. “They eat the mice there?” she screeches. “You said it was a sanctuary. Not a farm!”
“Sanctuary!” he cries, nodding wildly, sounding panicked. “Yeah, it’s on the beach and everything.” I watch him disintegrate faster than should be humanly possible. He rakes a hand through his short blond hair. “They have dieticians and doctors.” She beams at his words and he snatches onto her happiness like a life raft, his lies growing more animated by the second. “Yoga and surf instructors, too!”
