WELL, SHIT.

"Two girls what?" I wouldn't say I liked the fact that there wasn't much surprise in my voice, despite me actually being flabbergasted.

"Her name was Emily," Avery said as she stuffed her hands in her pockets. We mindlessly walked the halls some ladies supposedly spent time in before they decided to go up, or maybe down. The other girl's name, I still don't know."

I looked ahead, letting dimly lit halls swirl in my vision. I stared at the darkness, waiting to see if it stared back, "What do you know about them?"

"Not much really. I met this girl at school, Thea I guess, she told me just that the last two girls spending time at the Hawthorne House died." Avery's eyes darkened, "It has been on my mind since then, and when we found some clues regarding Jameson's letter—"

"Jameson's letter?" I tilt my head. 

Avery quickly explained to me how Gameboy's visit last night (hah! I knew it.) made them both team up to find out why Tobias Hawthorne did what he did. Jameson had shown her his letter and they'd found out a clue hence why they were in the library.

"Don't judge a book by its cover," I said, letting my eyes meet hers. So, what? You go through every thousand books, not judging their covers?"

She shrugged, "Pretty much so. You could help, I was gonna tell the clue to you first but I came to the conclusion that dead girls were a higher priority."

"Good call,"

"I know, right?" Avery raised her brows, her lips twitching up. She was doing well, playing the part of a calm and collected detective. Yet I knew better to believe her facade. "Anyways, the second girl? It was as if she was Voldemort."

"She had no nose?"

"Her name was her nose." Avery looked me dead in the eye, "She had none. No one spoke of her. When I asked Jameson..." She let out a shaky exhale. Her eyes were windows, and outside those windows was a hurricane of emotions, "something happened to him. He froze and... and turned away. For a second he was so silent, it was suffocating." She sighed, "He hit the wall. Hard. And then pretended like nothing happened."

A surge of protectiveness shot through me, "Did he hurt you?"

"No, no," She shook her head, "he wasn't even near me."

"Doubt it."

"Leena!" I grinned at her. Even if a small little bug called guilt was eating me out alive. I should've been there for her. Yet something in me knew that I wasn't just lying around.

Bambola. 

We walked past the opera rooms, the theaters, and the stages. I should probably have told Ave about what I learned today but we came to a stop near the music room and holy moly...

Imagine Mozart had a baby with the greatest interior designer ever and that baby had a baby with royal dark academia vibes. That would somewhat explain the room. Gee, Xander was starting to rub off on me in all the wrong offspring terminology ways.

The second my eyes drank in the room, that weird knot in my chest was back. As if a word just on the tip of my tongue yet I had no idea what it was. The room was filled with instruments. Pianos, flutes, guitars, some things so fancy I didn't even know their names. 

I bent to look at a violin with an S carved to one side of the strings, its mirror image on the other. Beautiful. Avery bent down beside me, tracing the other side.

"That's a Stradivarius."

In this world, there were only a few certain people who could make the name of an instrument sound threatening. Grayson Hawthorne was one of them, if not, the best.

I got up and let gold clash with silver once more. They did that a lot, I noticed, "Mr. Grayson Davenport Hawthorne," I let his name roll into the room, "Good evening, Pretty Boy." I didn't mean to sound so mocking, but I guess I did. Grayson narrowed his eyes as he stepped into the room. Each movement, an epitome of elegance.

Hell, the dude was even elegantly annoyed.

"Good evening, Ms. Arlene Amira Grambs," he mimicked back, "It's a fine night to snoop around the house of the true heirs whom you snatched it from." He gave me a stern smile.

Asshole. "You are but mistaken, Mr. Thorn in the ass," I stepped closer to him, "I believe what you meant was it's a lovely night to get lost in the house and fortune I was forced upon, with no either choice or escape."

"Oh the things we believe," He held my gaze. It was like the clear night sky had been inversed and fit into his eyes. A black moon in a shining silver sky. Repulsing. Yet all so captivating. Never breaking his line of sight from mine, he said, "You should be more careful, Ms. Grambs."

For a moment I thought he was still talking to me, but Avery replied, "I'm not going to break anything," She stepped back from the violin.

"You should be careful," Grayson reiterated, his voice soft but deadly, "with Jameson. The last thing my brother needs is you and whatever this is."

I glanced at Oren, but his face was impassive like he couldn't hear anything that passed between us. It's not his job to eavesdrop. It's his job to protect us—and he doesn't see Grayson as a threat.
"This being me?" Ave shot back. "Or the terms of your grandfather's will?" The person Grayson should be angered most at was me, and he already was, but Avery got the entire Hawthorne Foundation. I took a guess it might have meant just as much to him.

"My mother hasn't left her room in days." Grayson stared at and into me now. "Xander nearly blew himself up today. Jameson is one bad idea away from ruining his life, and none of us can leave the estate without being hounded by the press. The property damage they've caused alone..."

"And you talk like I wanted to be stalked by the press and the media twenty-four-seven," I said in a calm tone. 

He moved closer, into my space, "You sisters wanted the money—" the curse—"How could you not, growing up the way you did?"

The way we did, was full of compromising, relying on each other, and never really wanting something for ourselves. The way I did? Come to think of it...

I don't remember.

"You don't know us." I could practically hear the rush of fury surging through her veins as Ave cut him off.

"I will," Grayson promised, his eyes now boring into mine. "I'll know everything about you two soon enough." Every bone in my body said that he was a person who kept his promises.

And maybe a little voice in the back of my mind.

 "My access to funds might be somewhat limited currently, but the Hawthorne name still means something. There will always be people tripping over themselves to do favors for any one of us." He didn't move, didn't blink, wasn't physically aggressive in any way, but he bled power, and he knew it. "Whatever you're hiding, I'll find it. Every last secret. Within days, I'll have a detailed dossier on every person in your life—" How many people do I have in my life? "—Your sisters—" Ave, Lib. "—Your father. Your mother—"

My father? My mother? Who were they? Ricky Grambs?  Sarah? No.

"Don't talk about our mother." My chest was tight. Breathing was a challenge. Ave was clenching her fists, looking just about ready to dent a pretty face.

"Stay away from my family, Grambs." Grayson pushed past me. We'd been dismissed.

"Or what?" Ave called after him, and then, possessed by something I couldn't quite name, she continued. "Or what happened to Emily and the other girl will happen to us?"

Grayson jerked to a halt, every muscle in his body taut. "Don't you say her name." His posture was angry, but his voice sounded like it was about to crumble. Like she'd gutted him.

"You won't last a month in this house." Grayson managed to pull himself together long enough to issue that prediction like a royal issuing a decree. "I'd lay money that you're gone within the week."

"Then we're gonna be a little richer than today. Or maybe," I guess it was Possess The Grambs Day because I said, "Maybe we'll get the same fate as Sarina Elizabeth Salva."

It was fast. Too fast.

His movements, his breathing, his shaking. 

Grayson Hawthorne had me pinned against the room wall. 

Suddenly Oren came out from the shadows, "Grayson," his tone was low and full of warning. His words were ignored.

Grayson's eye held mine just as tight as he held my wrist. Our noses brushing and our bodies too close. His fingers were squeezing so tight, they were bound to leave marks. His silvery irises suddenly a dark shade of grey. And yet I saw something foreign in them as if a light peeking through a crack in a wall. 

Heartbreak.

And then surprise. His hold immediately loosened on me, yet it was as if his body didn't want to let go of the warmth it felt, even if it was a little. The windows he had for eyes were still closed off, yet a glimmer of pleading was in them.

"Don't," His voice barely a whisper, "Don't say her name. Don't."

"Who was she, Grayson?" I could feel his fingers tighten again, yet not as hard as before. His answer was four words.

"My dove," his voice wavered and his eyes glossed. 

"My everything."

·······•✦•······

His head was on my lap. 

His eyes were on me and yet mine were on the sky.

His fingers curled around my smaller ones and pressed them on his chest. His hair was combed neat, mine was wild and free. His dress was elegant and classy, mine was soft and comfortable. 

We were two kids laying in the sun.

The grass swayed in the breeze and the flowers danced. The leaves sang with a sense of romance. Romance of wind and the sky, romance of the sun and the light. Romance of the water and the sea and romance of the hands intertwined and innocent ignorance of a child.

And then they flew by, side by side.

A raven and a dove.

My little fingers ran through golden locks, messing their pristine style, "My raven,"

And he replied in a soft voice, 

"My dove."

·······•✦•······

I didn't look. 

I didn't look at my reflection in the mirror. I knew what I would see. 

A face that didn't belong to  Arlene Amira Grambs.

I looked.

I looked into the gushing water of the tap, escaping into the sink. I looked at my shaking hands that struggled to hold my weight. I looked at everything but my face.

Too many questions in my head I had no answer to.

Too many memories in my head I had no remembrance of.

My life before was simple. I didn't worry or even think too much about myself. About my face. About my body. About my wants or needs. Or about the fact that before I woke up in the hospital that day, my life was white and nothing more. The fact that I didn't know my mother's name. I had no idea what my father looked like. Where was I from? When did I lose it all?

Who was I? Why did it feel so wrong to call myself Arlene after stepping into the Hawthorne House? Why did I want to know so much about Sarina? 

Why did my heart stutter when the word 'dove' slipped from his mouth?

Was it fear? Did I fear the name, Hawthorne? Did I fear my past? 

Did I fear him?

It didn't help. The video I asked Lib to show me and Ave afterward. It didn't help at all.

It was a video of Drake.
He was standing next to a reporter. The fact that his hair was combed told me that the interview hadn't been a total surprise. The caption across the screen read: Friend of the Grambs family.

Friend? Yeah right. 

"Avery was always a loner," Drake said on-screen. "She didn't have friends." Avery had me, Lib, and Max. That's all she needed.

"And Arlene?" Drake scoffed, "She was..." He took a pause, probably deciding that keeping his mouth shut about that incident, "weird. She just came outta nowhere and we didn't know a thing about her past. Libby was a crazy bitch to take her in. I think she might be a secret agent. Maybe mafia?"

I rolled my eyes. I could practically smell the headlines of tomorrow: 'Arlene Amira Grambs: A really lucky girl or a very skilled agent?'

I didn't even bother looking at the video of Skye and Zara. I was already sick from my headache, their disgusting implications of allegations would just make me vomit out my insides.

"Elder-abuse specialists?" Libby was agog and aghast beside me. "And the authorities," Ave added. "Plus a team of medical specialists. She might not have come right out and said that we're under investigation for defrauding a dementia-ridden old man, but she sure as hell implied it."

"She doesn't get to do that." Libby was pissed—a blue-haired, ponytailed, gothic ball of fury. "She can't just say whatever she wants. Call Alisa. You have lawyers!"

What I had was a headache. This wasn't unexpected. Given the size of the fortune at stake, it was inevitable. Oren had warned me that the women would come after us in the courtroom.

"Later, in the morning," I gently pushed past them into my bedroom. 

Knowing I won't be getting a wink of sleep tonight.

·······•✦•······

a/n: special thanks to @margs2024 or @thebarre for being the first to comment and keep my motivation from flatlining!