Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 55221 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55221 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
It smells wonderful. When’s the last time I’ve had food laid out like this?
“The eggs are some sort of powdered stuff, but they aren’t too bad. We don’t know about the meat—”
“And we don’t ask,” Evie interjects.
“Hash browns are always solid. Biscuits are hit and miss.”
My mouth waters. I don’t care what it’s made of, I want a biscuit. I want it all. It’s an embarrassment of riches, all of it steaming in pans while the cafeteria workers dole it out.
The sound of people is overwhelming. Talking, laughing—so many of them alive and existing despite the bleakness of everything around us. I find myself wanting to cover my ears, to ease into all this chaos. Despite its beauty, it’s also frightening. Unexpectedly so.
“It’s kind of a trip, yeah?” Wyatt tucks a water bottle under his upper arm and grabs his tray.
“Yeah. It’s loud.” I follow him to a table kind of far to the side of the room.
Plenty of people are watching us, some of them whispering as we pass.
Wyatt sits and hands his water to Evie who opens it for him.
“Eat. You need to put on more weight.” Evie points her fork at my plate.
“Rude.” Wyatt forks some of his eggs.
I open the small biscuit, the middle a bit thick and dense, but I don’t care. With my wooden knife, I slather some strawberry jam all over it. The first bite is heaven. Sweet and buttery, an absolute revelation.
“They haven’t been feeding her.” Evie frowns and surreptitiously scoops some of her sausage onto my plate.
“They have. One of the vampires cooked for me all the time. She was wonderful,” I say around the biscuit in my mouth. “Then David—um, Druin, I mean—he wasn’t much of a cook, but he did try.”
“Vampires cooking for you.” Wyatt shakes his head. “Wild. But that Melody you talked about, she seems like she was solid. Would’ve liked to meet her.”
I eat far more than I should, so much that my stomach is hurting by the time I’m done, and I have to put my fork down to prevent myself from making it worse.
“I could get you seconds,” Evie offers.
“No way.” I pat my full stomach. “I can’t stand another bite.”
“—getting crazy in here.” Someone’s raised voice behind me puts me on alert, and I whirl.
A woman is standing at the end of the next table, her eyes on me. Tall, close cropped black hair, dark skin, with a vicious scar along her cheek and snaking down her jaw.
“You’re her.” Her voice is deep, almost booming despite the fact she isn’t yelling.
The mess hall goes quiet.
“Georgia Clark. The president’s sister. That’s you.”
My hands go sweaty. It doesn’t matter how far I am from Juno or how angry, her legacy still follows me. Her shadow always blotting out the light.
“Yes.” I stand, nothing but a wooden fork clutched in my palm.
Evie’s already up at my side, the woman practically bouncing on her feet as if she’s looking for a fight.
“What’s it to you?” Wyatt pushes back from the table and comes to my other side.
The woman takes a step closer, her muscled arms on display at the edge of her cuffed sleeves.
I have the fork in a death grip.
“Is it true?”
“What?” I kick my chin up. She might have every advantage, but I’ve lost any illusions of fighting fair. I’ll do whatever it takes to defend myself.
She sizes me up, her gaze roving down to my toes and then back to my face. “You killed Theo?”
The room was silent before. Now it’s a tomb. No one breathing. No one blinking.
My pulse hammers, heat rising up my neck.
“Did you?” she asks again, a sharp edge to the question.
I swallow thickly, already regretting eating so much. “Yes.” I say it forcefully, with far more confidence than I actually feel.
Gasps and whispers.
“All right then.” She grins, her scar twisting with the movement. “Welcome. Fucking glad to have you.”
The mess hall erupts, people yelling, some of them approaching me and clapping. The entire room is twice as loud as before, people whooping and high-fiving.
My grip on the fork eases, and I let out a breath of relief.
The woman reaches out to shake my hand.
I take it, her grip firm but not crushing.
“I’m, um, I’m Wyatt.” He’s looking up at her with total amazement. “Ms. Briggs. I mean, um, I mean ma’am.”
She glances at him, her eyes bright. “Wyatt.”
Then Evie is pulling me away, hustling me through the crowd that claps and thanks me as we beeline out of the mess hall.
“She said my name,” Wyatt practically squeals at my elbow. “Liz Briggs said my name!”
The others follow us, some of them yelling my name and plenty of other things like “give ‘em hell.”
Wyatt speeds up and leads the way, turning through a maze of hallways and corridors until he passes through a set of double doors. Once they seal behind us, the noise fades. It’s just the three of us.