AllFreeNovel
Share Us
John gapes at Stellan. “We’re following orders to the letter. I am done with this shit. No more having it all dangled over our heads.”
“Hey, man. The price of fame.”
“I wish I’d never let you talk me into this shit.”
So who was the brains of it all? And fame – all three of them have become stratospherically famous in their own fields. Blaine’s running for Daddy’s old House seat. John’s one of the top baseball players in the world. Stellan is a huge television star with a big movie career ahead of him.
The odds that all three could be so successful so quickly are impossible.
Impossible unless you realize someone very powerful has been helping them all along.
And in exchange for what?
For ruining me.
“Before you do it,” I say through a numb mouth, numb face, numb heart, “tell me why.”
“Why should we?” Stellan’s eyes are so cold, so dead. “You won’t live to process it. Analyze it. Understand it.”
“Humor me?”
He laughs through his nose. “This is a waste of time.”
“It really isn’t.” I force my shoulders to slump forward, giving him the body language I’m pretty sure he wants. Defeat etches itself in my body, and I fight to make sure it doesn’t seep into my mind. I have to separate what I know on the inside from what I exhibit on the outside.
“Who cares? Just tell her. Bet she already knows. It’s not like it’s a secret Corning hates her father’s guts.” John gives Stellan a look of challenge.
I just blink. I live in two worlds right now, two sharp divisions in my consciousness. There’s the part that plays along, dragging out time, trying to get information to help me understand and to give Drew enough time to find me.
The other part is having freakout emotional reactions to what I’m learning. One thousand terrified mouths are open and crying out inside the cage of my bones.
Both are important.
But only one will save me.
“Corning?” I lift the corner of my mouth. “Nolan Corning? In the Senate? Daddy hates him right back.”
This look comes across John’s face, an eagerness and interest that would normally make me cringe. I don’t, though, because I’ve hooked him.
And then I realize I still have some power.
“What do you want to know?” I ask in a neutral voice. I can hear the shake come out in my vocal cords, though. “I can tell you anything you want. I can give you information you can use.”
Stellan’s eyes narrow. He grabs John by the shirt and yanks him away from me. The two argue in whispers and seconds tick by.
My life is lived second by second. The chorus of terrified sopranos inside me just keeps singing. If I can make it through the obstacle course of my chaotic mind long enough, Drew will put an end to this.
I just hope he arrives before they put an end to me.
“She can’t know anything significant. They kept her in an institution all these years,” Stellan says in a loud voice.
“But she might know something about Bosworth we can feed to him.”
Him. Corning. Daddy’s rival for the presidency is behind this? I’ve met Nolan Corning a few times over the years, always at large public appearances for Congress. He’s a big man with a bald head and sharp predator’s eyes, jowls hanging and saggy skin making him look older than he is. Side by side, he and my dad look like Mutt and Jeff, tall and short, even though they’re only five or six years apart.
Nolan Corning obstructed a bunch of bills Daddy tried to get through on transportation and energy, even though they’re in the same party. He also is one of those old men who insists on kissing you on the mouth when you’re a kid, even if you don’t want to.
But that’s literally all I know about him.
