Trinity pov
In the car Avery and Jameson were talking in low, hushed voices.
"If you're going to say something, you might as well say it out loud, I'll figure it out eventually"
"This is Jameson's letter : Better the devil you know than the one you don't—or is it? Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. All that glitters is not gold. Nothing is certain but death and taxes. There but for the grace of God I go. Don't judge.
—Tobias Tattersall Hawthorne. Any idea what it means?" Avery fills me in.
"Simple. Don't judge a book by its cover."
"Dynamite, this isn't your puzzle." Jameson's words are sharp, and it hurts.
I blink twice, to stop the tears that are quickly piercing them, and pull out my AirPods. I only put one in, so I can hear what they are saying.
"...maybe she's right, it's an idea"
"Fine, we'll try it".
A song comes on: Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Granddad and I used to listen to this all the time. I turn towards the window, so they won't see the tears. Thank god for waterproof mascara. Something else come to mind and I pull out my phone, going into messages
🙄 Thea
Avery's coming 2 school today
Okay, and...
DON'T bring Emily up
I promise I will
Thea, I'm serious
Since when do I listen to you?
You are impossible
Love you too!
(End chat)
I sigh. This is not going to go over well. Before I know it, however, we're in front of Country Day. Jameson has disappeared, and Avery looked like she was about to faint.
"Avery, let's go."
She swallows "Okay."
That's it. One word. So I plaster on the most genuine fake smile I can manage, and get out of the car. She follows. Everyone is not-staring and I can sense Avery notices it too. Oh god.
"Trinity!" Thea exclaims, her long black hair swinging wildly as she beckons us towards her.
"Thea." I return the greeting, only not as enthusiastically.
"Aww, come on, don't you have a warmer welcome for your cousin?" Thea questions with mock pain.
"Second cousin." I gently correct, well as gently as I can manage in the moment, which I'm sensing isn't enough, considering Thea's face.
Thea turns to Avery, "You must be Avery" not a question. "Let me show you to the office."
"I'll come with you two, because I have advanced physics theory and that's near the office." I lied. I don't have advanced physics theory today, and Thea knows it. Even if I did, it's nowhere near the office.
Avery pov
"The headmaster is Dr. McGowan. She's got a PhD from Princeton. She'll keep you in her office for at least a half hour, talking about opportunities and traditions. If she offers you coffee, take it—her own personal roast, to die for."
Thea seemed well aware of the fact that we were both getting plenty of stares now. She also seemed to be enjoying it.
"When Dr. Mac gives you your schedule, make sure you have time for lunch every day. Country Day uses what they call modular scheduling, which means we operate on a six-day cycle, even though we only have school five days a week. Classes meet anywhere from three to five times a cycle, so if you're not careful, you can end up in class straight through lunch on A day and B day but have practically no classes on C or F."
"Okay." My head was spinning, but I forced out one more word. "Thanks."
"People at this school are like fairies in Celtic mythology," Trinity chimed in lightly."You shouldn't thank us unless you want to owe us a boon."
I wasn't sure how to reply to that, so I said nothing. Trinity didn't seem to take offense. As she and Thea led me down a long hallway with old class portraits lining the walls, Thea filled the silence.
"We're not so bad, really. Most of us anyway. As long as you're with me, you'll be fine."
That rankled. "I'll be fine regardless," I told her.
"Clearly," Thea said emphatically. That was a reference to the money. It had to be. Didn't it? Thea's dark eyes roved over mine. "It must be hard," she said,studying my response with an intensity that her smile did absolutely nothing to hide, "living in that house with those siblings."
"It's fine," I said.
"Oh, honey." Thea shook her head. "If there's one thing the Hawthorne family isn't, it's fine. They were a twisted, broken mess before you got here, and they'll be a twisted, broken mess once you're gone"
Gone. Where exactly did Thea think I was going? We'd reached the end of the hallway now and the door to the headmaster's office. It opened, and four boys poured out in single file. All four of them were bleeding. All four were smiling. Xander was the fourth. He saw me—and then he saw who I was with.
"Thea," he said.
Trinity's pov
Thank god Xan had popped out. Thea wouldn't bring it up around him, because he would tell Avery the truth.
The day whirled by, and pretty soon it was lunch. I usually eat outside, or with Xan, but today I headed for Thea's table.
"Trinity, how kind of you to join us". Thea commented, her voice practically oozing.
"Don't even think about bringing her up."
"Anyway, I heard you only got three hundred K."
"It doesn't really matter."
"The boys got even less, huh?"
Me and Thea have an interesting relationship. I suppose the most fitting term would be "frenemy". Always one-upping each other. But no matter how much I hate her, we are too much alike to be enemies. Hyper competitive. Manipulating. Intelligent. Won't take anyone's sh!t.
"That's not important. What is, is that you won't tell Avery about Emily."
"Really want to keep those skeletons buried huh?"
I'd had enough of this sh!t. Without looking back, I left my lunch and headed for the library.
Avery pov
Eventually, I managed to find the cafeteria. There were maybe two dozen people eating. One of them was Thea. She nudged a chair out from her table with her foot.
She's Zara's niece, I reminded myself. And Zara wants me gone. Still, I sat.
"I'm sorry if I came on a little strong this morning." Thea glanced at the other girls at her table, all of whom were just as impossibly polished and beautiful as she was. "It's just that, in your position, I'd want to know."
I recognized the bait for exactly what it was, but I couldn't keep myself from asking.
"Know what?"
"About the Hawthorne siblings. For the longest time, everyone wanted to be them, and everyone wanted to date them. The way they look. The way they act." Thea paused. "Even just being Hawthorne-adjacent changed the way that people looked at you."
"I used to study with Xander sometimes," one of the other girls said. "Before..." She trailed off. Before what? I was missing something here—something big.
"They were magic." Thea had the oddest expression on her face. "And when you were in their orbit, you felt like magic, too."
"Invincible," someone else chimed in.
I thought about Jameson, dropping down from a second-story balcony the day we'd met, Grayson sitting behind Principal Altman's desk and banishing him from the room with an arch of his brow, Trinity hacking into my phone. And then there was Xander: six foot three, grinning, bleeding, and talking about robots exploding.
"They aren't what you think they are," Thea told me. "I wouldn't want to live in a house with the Hawthornes." Was this an attempt to get under my skin? If I left Hawthorne House—if I moved out—I'd lose my inheritance. Did she know that? Had her uncle put her up to this? Coming into today, I'd expected to be treated like trash. I wouldn't have been surprised if the girls at this school had been possessive over the Hawthorne boys, the boys possessive over Trinity, or if everyone, male and female, had resented me on the siblings behalf. But this...This was something else.
"I should go." I stood, but Thea stood with me.
"Think what you want to about me," she said. "But the last girl at this school who got tangled up with the Hawthorne brothers? The last girl who spent hour after hour in that house? She died."
Trinity pov
Avery came into the library looking rattled. Oh god. FML.
"What's wrong?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Who's Emily?"
Goddamn Thea. "A girl." I said tightly.
"A dead girl." shot back Avery.
"A monster, a mastermind, a girl my brothers loved."
"Brothers, plural?"
I changed the subject "How was your little tête-à-tête with Jameson last night?"
"Funny, Xander called it the same thing."
"I guess he did."
"What does your letter say?"
Great, now she's changing the subject.
"I haven't opened it yet." I lied. I didn't want to share that letter with anyone, let alone a girl I had known for three days.
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Also, I'm not on spring break so updates will happen twice a week, and once on weekends (or something like that)
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