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I swing the door open and come within an inch of stepping in a plate of pasta carbonara. The cheese on the pasta has hardened, so it must have been there awhile.
Cold pasta is not the only thing outside my room. Bottles of water, orange juice, bags of chips, and a bar of chocolate the size of my head make my eyes widen in surprise. There’s even a box of pizza.
It’s like someone spent the better part of their day bringing food up to me while I spent mine crying myself to sleep in a closet.
One quick peek inside the pizza box confirms my suspicion that it’s pepperoni. What I’m not expecting is a smiley face drawn on the inside lid with a permanent marker and two words:Eat, cher.
Rune.
I don’t know if he’s responsible for all of this, but I doubt it. Cian was knocking on my door not long after I’d rushed up here, probably bringing me up an early lunch. Whatever he brought me must have gotten so cold that someone took it away and replaced it with the carbonara and the pizza.
A faint smile curves my lips until I remember my sister.
I stack everything I can onto a tray and carry it downstairs, leaving it on the entryway table. Not the chocolate bar, though. I take that into my room for later.
Rune, Cian, and Kylian are sitting at the dining table. If they were eating, they put their knives and forks down before I appear in the doorway. They’re all studying me with furrowed brows, expressions creased with concern.
And they must have known, or at least strongly suspected, I wouldn’t come down for dinner if I skipped out on every meal today. Yet they—or Nancy—set a place for me at the same seat I’ve sat in these last couple of days.
The pencil is still there. Taunting me.
“Everleigh?” Rune is pushing himself up with his eyes creased with concern.
My gaze skates away from the pencil as I cross over to the seat and sit down. I could sit somewhere else, but they might ask why a pencil and sketchpad have chased me away from my seat.
Rune sits after I have, and although I feel them watching me across from their plates of pasta and salad, no one says a word.
“I’ve been thinking,” I start because it’s clear they’re waiting for me to speak.
And also crying. I’ve been crying a lot.
“Go on, cher,” Rune rumbles soothingly.
I keep my eyes fixed on the white tablecloth, conscious I’m ruining their dinner, but I’m feeling in a selfish mood. I need answers about Della.
“If my mom had a house she couldn’t afford, could someone have bought it for her in return for something?”
Maybe I shouldn’t be calling Anna Jackson my mom if she sold me to Lawrence. For twenty-one years, that’s what she was. Mom. To suddenly start calling her Anna feels too strange.
“Something like raising a child that wasn’t hers?” Cian asks quietly.
I lift my head and meet his serious gaze.
“We’ve been doing some thinking as well,” Cian admits.
I almost smile. Instead, I nod as I pick my fingers under the table, a nervous habit I thought Lawrence and his wooden ruler had trained out of me. “She let Della go to school, go on trips, and shopping when she wanted to. But anytime I wanted to go anywhere, she always said no.”
I wouldn’t have seen the world at all if Della hadn’t snuck me out and later paid for it with punishments so severe, they never fit the crime.
“Della once convinced me to go to the state fair after Mom went to bed one night.” I smile at the memory. I’d been fourteen at the time. Even though Della was three years younger, she wasn’t afraid of anything. “It was fun.”
My smile fades when I remember what happened when we got home. “Mom must’ve woken up and found us gone. Her reaction was… extreme. She’d woken every neighbor on the street. Every light in the house was on.”
“What happened then?” Kylian prompts me, his gray eyes searching mine.
“She didn’t call the cops,” I say, briefly holding his gaze. “She said she’d been about to, but she never did.”
A line forms between Cian’s brows. “Her kids go missing in the night and she doesn’t call the cops? Wouldn’t that be one of the first things you did?”
