Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“How did you get in here?” Cairo mused. “Who let you in?”
Paris picked up the nearest thing and threw it at his head. It happened to be her shoe.
He caught it out of the air and tossed it back. To be fair to him, he and I were just out of the shower and gearing up for round two when she burst in, but I had no problem giving Paris the time she needed. The night before, we were so close to getting rid of the Crows for good. How could she feel safe when they were right down the street and itching for revenge?
“Danny, this is serious,” she snapped. “You were going to win. The Royale should’ve been called in your favor.”
“An almost win isn’t a win. Jacques can’t give it to me, and the watchers wouldn’t back me if he did.”
“So, we do it again. Another Riot Royale. I’ll fight if I have to.”
Cairo was shaking his head before she finished. “The Crows won’t be tricked into another trip to the Den. I can challenge Ellis again head-on, but he’s got no reason to agree. He has his own plan to get us out. Why risk another beating when he—?”
“—can beat me instead!”
“That won’t happen. Hey.” Cairo raised his arm. “Evie, come here.”
She climbed onto the bed, stuffing herself under his other arm.
“The Crows will never put their hands on either of you again. That’s a promise. I whispered a parting message in Ellis’s ear while everyone was running around screaming. Anything that happens to you two within the next eighty years. If you trip and scratch your elbow, I will hold him personally responsible, and I’ll kill him.”
I swallowed. If Cairo delivered his message in the same tone he used then, Jeremy heard him loud and clear.
He meant it.
“Thank you,” Paris said, eyes welling.
There was a time when I thought Paris didn’t know the real Cairo. At that moment, my doubt vanished. These siblings were closer than most. They saw each other for exactly who they were.
Paris gave him a wobbly smile. “I knew you loved me.”
“Less and less so by the second.”
Laughing, she snuggled in, reaching up for the remote.
I popped a kiss on her cheek. Popped one on Cairo’s too.
“I have to go. See you in a bit.”
He hooked my dress’s drawstrings. “Where are you going?”
“To the store. We’re running low on a few things. I want to get you an ice pack,” I said, tracing the edges of the cut above his eye. “And stuff to make butterscotch muffins. They sell them in the library café and I’ve been dreaming about them ever since.”
“We don’t need ice packs or muffins. It’s too risky to be out walking alone right now.”
“I’ll ask Jacques to go with me.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You can be there when I ask and watch us leave together, love,” I said. “But we do need milk, ice packs, bandages, toilet paper, and food. If the Crows force me to hide in here, too afraid to leave, they’re the real winners.”
“Subtle manipulation, Rain.” He released me. “Jacques goes with you.”
I crossed the hall to Jacques’s room and let myself in.
“Two,” he said without looking up from his laptop. “What do you want?”
I jumped on his bed, earning a three and not caring. I said Legend’s room was the secret room behind a bookcase. Well, Jacques’s was the library that housed that bookcase. Three walls were nothing but shelves and books. The fourth boasted his television, dresser, and two small bookcases.
“I need to go out for a while,” I said, “and I need you to stay here, and say you didn’t.”
“Why?” he asked simply.
“I can’t tell you now, but it’s important. I won’t be gone long, and I will be safe. I just need to do this alone.”
Jacques didn’t slow his typing. He might’ve stopped listening after “I” for all I knew.
I soaked him in.
Jacques Stone was everything I didn’t know I liked. Growing up, my crushes were on the rough-and-tumble farm boys, throwing around bales of hay and riding tractors before they rode cars. Brainy dudes with their heads in a book didn’t make the cut. And beards?
Before Grandpa passed away, I loved his loud smooches, but I didn’t love the scratchy whiskers that came with it.
Yes, a year ago I would’ve taken one look at Jacques, said he was handsome, but dismissed him as not my type. Like I mentioned before, I didn’t know myself very well.
I laid my hand over his. “I’ll tell you everything when I get back. All of it, Jacques. No more secrets.”
His typing slowed. He flicked down to my hand.
“Go.”
“Thank you.”
I was downstairs and out the door before he changed his mind. Frankie rolled up to the bus stop at five seventeen on the dot.
“If it isn’t my favorite kind of Rainey day.”