Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
He’s… scarier than I thought he would be.
Harder than even these men he has guarding his compound.
And those eyes of his—those weird hazel blue-green eyes—they don’t look the way I remember. They look… suspicious.
I force a smile as he approaches. “Surprise!”
He’s confused and he starts looking around. “Where’s your car? How did you get here?”
I point down the highway, like the bus that dropped me off is still there, but of course it’s not. “The Appalachian Tours bus dropped me off. I got into Charleston last night and—”
But he cuts me off. “What are you doing here? Where’s Mom and Dad?”
My heart twists a little when he says these words. Mom and Dad. Like we’re really related. Like we share parents. Which, of course, we don’t. And I haven’t thought of them as Mom and Dad for so long now, this question stuns me. Memories begin to flood my head and I don’t know what to say.
“Olive? What’s going on?”
Now he’s looking at me like he’s worried and I know this was a mistake.
A huge mistake.
Suddenly, Brose is in my head, whispering those oh-so-familiar words right into my mind. My mission is you and your mission is me.
For a moment, I feel like he’s here with me. All the growing sense of abandonment fades and… it’s just us.
Me and him.
He thinks for me, I act for him.
He thinks for me, I act for him.
He thinks for me, I act for him.
“Nothing,” I say. “Nothing’s going on. I mean, I’m here, so that’s something. But… why do you look so worried?” I crinkle my nose at Collin, which makes him smile and drop his guard. I’m very cute when I crinkle my nose and this is something he told me often when I was small.
Suddenly, memories are flooding through me. All the years he was—like truly was—my big brother. And I can feel the tears building. Not from a sense of fear that he will start asking me questions I can’t answer, but from relief. Because I know him and he knows me, and there’s actually a whole lot to say.
So that’s what I do. I say it. “I’ve missed you.” And I let those tears form.
Collin grabs me and pulls me in for a hug. “God, I’ve missed you too. I don’t think I actually realized just how much until right now.”
I hug him back and we stay like this for a good long moment. Then he pushes me back to get a better look and grins. Those crazy beautiful eyes of his focus on me for the first time in so long, I actually get lost in them. “Come on. I live down at the end of the driveway there with Lowyn. She’s still here, and she’s gonna fuckin’ freak when she sees you, I’m sure. Wait till you see what she did to our house, Olive. Your room is an office now.”
We begin walking deeper into the compound and that’s that.
It’s like I never left because suddenly I feel… home.
Don’t get comfortable. These words float through my head in the subdued and low voice of Brose. You have a lot of questions coming, Olive. And you need to be ready.
But it’s really not a problem because the very first project Brose and I ever worked on together was me. My backstory, I mean. “Everyone has to have one,” he’d said.
“What’s yours?” I remember asking.
“Old money.” He sighed when he said that. “It goes with old power.”
I was flirting with him during this conversation. I was only eighteen and Brose is fucking hot. Everything about him is hot. Those lean stomach muscles, his broad shoulders, that bit of scruff that’s always on his chin and looks like someone sketched it into place, that’s how perfect it always is. And that voice. My God, he could make me come with words if he tried.
“You’re a legacy,” I’d said.
“We’re all legacies, Olive. There isn’t a single person in CORE who isn’t. So it’s your blood as well as mine.”
The bus, which had preceded me at the entrance of Edge and rumbled down the driveway to the very end, spurts out a cloud of black diesel smoke and slowly pulls away, rounding the curve of the driveway to head out.
“You have kids?” I ask, pointing at the school bus as it maneuvers the curve.
“Nah. It’s Amon’s boy. Well, Rosie Harlow’s boy. Cross. You remember Cross?”
I shrug, because maybe? But not really. I would not call Rosie a stranger, just like I would not call anyone in Disciple a stranger, but I didn’t know her. And maybe I have a memory of her being pregnant, but if I ever saw her baby after it was born, it didn’t leave an impression.
I’m looking right at the bus though, so when it finally rounds that corner what I’m really looking at is… Shep.