BLUE BLOOD

13 | i haven't been told that yet

x

"Hello?"

It was my father. He never called and when he did, it wasn't good.

" Father?" I answered, politely. "I'm in class right now."

"Yes, well, I called to inform you that your sister has passed away," he said, robotically. My whole world rocked as he continued. "I've already made the arrangements. You may return home- hello?"

I hadn't even realized I dropped my phone. Stumbling, I gripped against the wall, feeling my heart stutter. This could not be real. It could not. It couldn't! She wouldn't.

I couldn't breathe.

"Vesper?" someone grabbed my arm, in the hallways. "Vesper, what's wrong-"

The words were stuck in my throat. My vision blurred and that was all I remembered. When I woke up, I was in a private hospital with my father by my bedside. I wasn't even in the same country anymore.

I never returned to that boarding school.

x

"Is that a confession of murder?"

Avery Dragomir's silver eyes glimmered. "Turn it off, Vesper."

"Turn what off?" I feigned confusion, my fingers tightening.

Avery arched an eyebrow, unimpressed, and I sighed, shutting off the recording I just started on my phone. It was worth a try.

"Her death was... complicated," Avery told me without a single trace of emotion. "Even I don't know all the details. I wasn't there."

"But you can guess," I finished.

He nodded. "I can guess. It doesn't take much to figure out what happened."

A sharp pain ran through my heart. "No. All of you made her. She was fine. She was fine before she met all of you."

"Was she?" Avery shrugged. "You aren't. Why was she any different?"

I swallowed. "I'm fine. This isn't about me."

Though Avery didn't comment, I knew he didn't believe me at all. "Okay."

"When did you figure it out?" The hollowness was back, eating my insides. "That she was my sister. And that I came here for her."

"When you solved my riddle," he told me, simply. "You don't look like her at all but Gabriella once told me she had a younger sister. She said her younger sister had a smile that drove people crazy and..." Avery's gaze flickered, "Scars."

My fingers brushed the scars under my collarbone and I smiled faintly to gauge his reaction. I should have paid attention earlier. "She was my half sister and I think she hated me."

"Hate, love," Avery shrugged. He didn't even glance at my lips as if to say, nice try. "It doesn't matter. What matters is how much someone understands you. And Gabriella? She didn't know the first thing about you."

"You knew this whole time and you still played along?" This wasn't the reaction I was expecting from him. "Are you stupid or reckless?"

"Yes," Avery mused, running a hand through his dark hair. "To both of those questions."

I wasn't as amused. "I didn't come to blindly ruin their lives, Avery, but that doesn't mean I came to become fucking best friends with them."

"You came for the truth," Avery said quietly. I realized we had started walking down the trail again. He just wouldn't give up the game. He had to win. "And being one of them is the only way to find it."