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“You know what’s strange,” Finn muses, like something only now occurred to him. His words pull my attention away from what’s locked between our hands. “Mom always liked when Dad was gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dunno, she always seemed like she liked being somewhere else better.”
Goose bumps break out across my skin, another cold part on the baton touching me as Cole’s grip tightens that much further.
I’m listening but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was also admiring how perfectly his hand fits in mine.
“Think it had anything to do with Abram buying the house for Rory’s mom and not her?”
My head shoots up. “What?”
“You didn’t know?” Eli asks, taking in the stunned gazes of everyone else as well. “I thought that was public knowledge.”
“No,” I splutter, choking on nothing but my own surprise. “It wasnotpublic knowledge.”
“Whelp, that explains a lot,” Finn conveys when I’m too stunned to do anything but stand with my mouth hanging open.
Abram bought the house for him and Lillian…
“Doesn’t matter where Lorna lived. The woman’s crazy,” Cole deadpans. Not bothering to apologize to Finn for the crudeness.
That’s still his mom, even if it is true.
The sliver of respect Cole might’ve had for the woman gone as soon as she tried to run them both off the road. The fire severing that harmony as well.
I did say sliver.
“Has your dad been able to trace anything on her since she revealed herself?” Iceman asks Eli, while silently starting to stroke my palm with his thumb. Wordlessly telling me he’s got me. He’s not going anywhere.
“Not much, where she got you, there weren’t any stoplights. Not much street lighting either.”
Great, so nothing.
“She did grow up in the system, what if she wanted peace of mind?”
“Explain,” Finn says, slowly peering around the group.
These boys don’t get it, because they’ve only seen the world through privileged lenses. Most people—normalhumans—are not blind to everyday struggles.
“Safety. Security.” It’s all anyone’s really after.
The room falls quiet, and it’s loud.
Finn now flicks at a nonexistent speck on his wrapped arm. Eli’s eyes are at the window, and Cole’s hold has gone numbingly tight.
Before everything, their lack of response might’ve gotten more of a reaction from me, but I’ve accepted it for how it is. The truth of our skewed realities is very different.
They might think I’m an equal now, but because of my upbringing, I’m desolate to them in this sense.
It’s Cole who cuts through the stiff peaks of imbalance. “Okay, so if you were Lorna where would you feel the safest?”
“Somewhere she wouldn’t be constricted? Stuck,” Finn says, lifting the nonbroken half of his body.
“You said she never seemed to like being at the Caspers’, so where else? Any vacation spots? Spas? Stores?” Those don’t sound right even as I’m saying them aloud.
They seem too uncomplicated for someone like Lorna. She’d have had to have someplace more accessible. Closer.
