Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“And when you pee, and the liquid splashes up onto your lady bits,” Hollis offered.
“Or when you get your period, and you can’t tell if it’s your period, or if you have to go number two,” Mom joined in.
“Mom! Oh, God! Don’t ever tell us anything about your period again!” Gable cried.
Garnett rolled her eyes and stood up, her hands out for me. I took them, and she pulled me up into her waiting hug.
“I’m so happy for you, honey,” she whispered. “It’s been a long road, hasn’t it?”
Tears filled my eyes, and I nodded. “Yeah.”
“You should go talk to them,” she urged.
I followed her advice, walking up to where Auden was having a deep conversation with the entirety of the Semyonov clan sans Jessa.
“…taking her in tomorrow so she can get her answers,” Auden was saying to the group. “Maybe she can get him to talk. Because he’s not saying a fucking word for us.”
“I actually would like to go see him,” I said to the group once I arrived at Auden’s side.
He looped his arms over my shoulders, and I allowed my gaze to travel along the line of my siblings.
Athena’s laugh from behind me had me glancing over my shoulder to see her giggling at a now-wet Gable who’d apparently just gotten shot right in the face by a water gun.
Jessa looked at the sky, playing innocent.
I looked back at my siblings to find them all staring at me.
Over the last week, I’d tried my hardest to get to know them, but they were a lot.
One on one was a lot. But together, they were a force to be reckoned with.
“Auden!” I heard Garnett call. “Can you come help me with the sprinklers? They’re not turning on.”
Auden squeezed my shoulder, then bent down to whisper in my ear. “Give them a chance.”
Dorsey, who’d been in the huddle as well, winked at me and disappeared with Auden, leaving me alone with a family that had always known about me, but I hadn’t known about them.
“Uhh,” I said. “Hi.”
It was Dima who said, “You know, if you want us to go, all you have to do is tell us.”
I blinked at Dima. “I don’t want you to go.”
The four of them looked relieved.
“I just don’t know what to say,” I admitted, sounding just as vulnerable as I felt in that moment. “I mean, logically, I know you’re my siblings. But I feel like that ratty, dirty kid looking into the diner window at all the people who can afford food when she can’t.”
It was Shasha who said, “You have a trust fund that’s bigger than all of ours because you haven’t touched yours and we have. Trust me when I say, you’re not a ratty, dirty, poor kid.”
A trust fund.
Who knew?
I was already shaking my head, though. “That’s not quite what I mean. I guess I just feel like y’all are part of a club that I want to be a part of but can’t.”
“You can,” Milena urged, reaching forward and grabbing my hand. “Come sit down.”
I followed her to the seating area that was just to the left of the pool, shaded by a beautiful trellis of climbing roses.
Idly I wondered whether the roses had been planted by Auden.
Probably.
That man and his green thumb were so appealing.
“Tell me everything,” I blurted out. “Start from the beginning, please.”
So they did.
“Well, I guess we should start with going to Gatlinburg,” Shasha looked guilty. “That was my fault. I saw the mountains there on the television one day when I was around twelve…”
When he was done telling me all about how he’d ‘screwed up’ and gotten us there, only for me to go missing mere hours after arriving, stolen from the state park right under all of their noses, I was just as devastated as they were.
Apparently, during a bathroom stop at the park, just north of Gatlinburg, they’d sent me in to go to the bathroom while the rest of them checked out the Little Pigeon River that ran alongside the road.
Since it was utterly deserted out there, and the only car in the lot was their car, they’d let me go alone, which they wouldn’t have done normally.
While they were looking at the river, I went missing.
From that point, they had no clue what happened to me. The reception in that area was spotty. No cameras were set up in that portion of the park. There were no people around for miles since they’d gone in the off season.
And even worse, they’d had to drive twenty minutes into town before they’d gotten enough reception to call the authorities.
They’d waited in Gatlinburg for a month while search parties had searched for me. I’d been all over the news. I’d even been on a milk carton.
Yet, all these years, they’d heard nothing.