Series: Charmaine Pauls
Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
She jumps when I touch her shoulder. This time, she genuinely didn’t hear me enter.
“Are you hungry?” I ask by way of a peace offering.
It seems she doesn’t like me or what I have to offer much, but food is the one thing I can give without getting it wrong.
“No.” She shakes her head without moving her gaze away from the sky. “I ate a lot at breakfast. I’m not hungry.”
I bend down to peer through the window. “What are you searching for out there with such utter concentration?”
“I’m trying to spot a dinosaur again,” she replies in a listless tone.
“A dinosaur? What’s that?”
She sighs. “A dragon.”
I think I get it. “Are you bored?”
“Terribly,” she says, perking up a little as she faces me. “With the very few exceptions when you took me out of my cage, you’ve been keeping me locked up in here since you brought me to this palace.”
“It’s for your safety,” I say in my most reasonable tone.
She scoffs and looks out the window again.
I pull up a chair and sit down where I have a clear view of her lovely face. “You could engage in plenty of pleasant activities to keep you occupied.”
“Such as?” she asks in a monotonous tone.
“Painting and tapestry. You could play games.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’d rather die of boredom, thank you very much.”
“Mastering the art of leisure is as important as perfecting the art of war.”
“Speak for yourself. And I don’t do leisure, which is just a synonym for boredom.”
“All right.” I choose my words carefully, asking good-naturedly, “Have you never been bored before?”
“Ha.” She turns her face back to me. “Not even for a second.”
“No?” Intrigued, I smile. “What kept you so busy?”
“For starters, trying not to die.” Shrugging, she continues, “I’ve always had a full life. Mom and Dad tried to make up for all the things I missed out on while I was in the hospital by taking me on trips and arranging enough fun activities to crowd every minute of my agenda.” She shrugs again. “They meant well.”
“Tell me about them, your parents.”
Her face lights up. “I couldn’t ask for a better mom or dad. Like all parents, they can be a bit overbearing, but that’s understandable.”
“They’re not your biological parents,” I state carefully.
Who knows what they told her? Maybe she doesn’t know that. In that case, it will be even harder for her to come to terms with the truth.
“Like I told Gaia, that doesn’t mean anything.”
So she does know. Her parents didn’t keep that information from her. “How did you end up with them?”
She looks away. “They adopted me.” Shading her face with one hand, she points with the other at the window. “What’s that point in the distance? Could that be a dragon?”
I see through her attempt to change the subject. She doesn’t want to draw attention to the facts that so clearly argue in favor of her being an Alit, but she won’t throw me off track so easily. “What do you know about the circumstances surrounding your adoption?”
She turns her face back to me, watching me with a wary light in her turquoise eyes. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I’m interested,” I admit. “I’d really like to know.”
She drops her hands in her lap and sighs. “Someone found an abandoned baby in a park. That baby was me. I was brought to a hospital and entered the foster care system, where I was swiftly put up for adoption. My parents couldn’t have children, so there you have it.”
Abandoned in a park.
I want to draw blood. To kill someone. Suppressing the explosive rage, I keep my voice level. “Did anyone try to locate your biological parents?”
“Of course. The authorities put out notices and checked hospital records for deliveries that had taken place during my estimated birth year.”
I’m trying hard to follow, the concepts she’s mentioning being strange to me.
“However—” She cuts herself off, clearly not wanting to say that they always came up empty-handed because it’s another point in favor of the fact she’s still denying.
“I did wonder about that often,” she finally admits. “But I figured it must’ve been a home birth or some such. Either way, if my biological parents didn’t want me, I didn’t want to find them.” She continues with a wry laugh, “Not that I had the energy to search for them.”
Everything she’s saying is proving me right and her wrong about her true identity. Her biological parents didn’t abandon her. She was stolen from them. Yet that fact doesn’t help to soothe her. On the contrary, talking about it upsets her.
Wanting to calm her, I point out the positive parts of the history she shared with me. “From what you told me, your adoptive parents were good to you. They did everything in their power to make you happy.”