I LIKED SKIPPING A LOT OF THINGS. It made life's lazy plot run a little bit faster.

If you ask me, my Saturday so was boringly eventful, I managed to fly right through half of it. I could spare most of you the details, but some sweet cookies out there, would like to know how my day went, so here's a short summary for you guys:

Woke up with a headache.
Questioned life.
Questioned my looks when my lawyer legally advised me to get a makeover.
Questioned my dare-to-questioning my very scary said lawyer when she passive-aggressively assured me my accusers had no legal legs to stand on against me.

Yeah, a lot of questioning. But hey, I found out Tobias Hawthorne likes books, shits, and giggles.

 Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it. It wasn't the normal Snuggle Saturday, where me and Ave would sneak out food from the diner and ahem—borrow, Dracula's games and spend chilly evenings huddled up together. Nothing was normal anymore. Nothing except me and my girls.

And the world be damned if that doesn't stay that way.

Anyways, presently, I was on my way to help Ave with Tobias Hawthorne's liking for books, shits and giggles.

I poked my head into the library door instead, "Heyo," I greeted the only female in the company of three.

Ave, we have money enough to get you a proper locksmith-

I happily ignored the two brothers Hawthorne and made my way into the second Book Heaven of Rich People™ and smiled at Ave, "Guess what?"

Ave, still mad I didn't tell her about Bambola and Sarina earlier, pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at me, "You found out another dead rich girl and know Japanese now, and you're probably not gonna tell me?"

"Incorrect," I smiled at her and patted her head. Thankfully the brothers were busy bickering to hear us, "Mainly on the Japanese part... I think."

Avery's features relaxed a bit as she let out a slightly dramatic sigh, "Goody."

"Goody indeed! So," I placed a hand on my hips. Not knowing that would be in perfect sync with a certain someone.

"What are we doing today?" I asked my sister.

"What are we doing today?" Grayson asked his brother.

My head whipped around and amber met grey.
My dove. My everything.

It wasn't for long though. I instantly looked back to Avery, not exactly wanting to confront a certain blondy about last time.

My hands gently rubbed my still-red wrists.

"We?" Jameson shot back.

Grayson meticulously cuffed his sleeves, elegantly keeping his mouth shut. He donned a stiff-collared shirt like armor. "Can't an older brother spend time with his younger brother and two interlopers of dubious intentions without getting the third degree?"

"Big Bro doesn't trust us with you, Gameboy." I let my eyes scan the room.

"I'm such a delicate flower." Jameson's tone was light, but his eyes told a different story. "In need of protection and constant supervision."

Grayson was undaunted by sarcasm. "So it would seem." He smiled, the expression razor-sharp. "What are we doing today?" he repeated.

"Heiress and I," Jameson replied pointedly, then quickly added, "And Rina, are following a hunch, doubtlessly wasting sinful amounts of time on what I'm sure you would consider to be nonsensical flapdoodle."

Grayson frowned. "I don't talk like that."

"Heavens no," I snickered, "To say such a thing would be utter taradiddle!" I earned a little giggle from Gameboy and a very unamused look from Armani Lord. 

Grayson narrowed his eyes. "And what hunch are the three of you following?"

Gameboy made it clear he wouldn't answer the Lord of Gray Suits. So I decided to. Not because I owed Grayson Hawthorne shit. Because I was following Ave's strategy. And trying to keep her as far away from him as possible. "We think your Grandpa's letter to Jameson included a clue about what he was thinking."

"What he was thinking," Grayson repeated, sharp eyes making a casual study of my features, "and why he left everything to you."

Jameson leaned back against the doorframe. "It sounds like him, doesn't it?" he asked Grayson. "One last game?"

There was this weird feeling in my chest whenever the Hathwornes talked about Tobias. A weird sense of nostalgia? No, that couldn't be it. 

It couldn't.

"Frankly, Jamie," Grayson commented, "I'm surprised you still feel you know the old man at all."

"I am just full of surprises." Jameson must have caught himself wanting something from Grayson, because the light in his own eyes went out, too. "And you can leave any time, Gray."

"I think not," Grayson replied. "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't." He let those words hang in the air. "Or is it? Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"He left you the same message," Jameson said finally, pushing off the doorway and pacing the room. "The same clue."

"Not a clue," Grayson countered. "An indication that he wasn't in his right mind."

Jameson whirled on him. "You don't believe that." He assessed Grayson's expression and his posture. "But a judge might." Jameson shot me a look. "He'll use his letter against you if he can."

"Oh, I tried saying that, pal," I made my way to a bookshelf and started my work, "But my very scary lawyer's very very scary father made pretty clear it wasn't."

"There was another will before this one," Ave said, looking from brother to brother. "Your grandfather left your family even less in that one. He didn't disinherit you for Leena or me." she was looking at Grayson when she said those words. "He disinherited the entire Hawthorne family before you were even born—right after your uncle died."

Jameson stopped pacing. "You're lying." His entire body was tense.
Grayson held my gaze. "She's not."
If I'd been guessing how this would go, I would have guessed that Jameson would believe Avie and that Grayson would be the skeptic. Regardless, both of them were staring at me now.

Grayson broke eye contact first. "You may as well tell me what you think that godforsaken letter means, Jamie."

"And why," Jameson said through gritted teeth, "would I give away the game like that?"

They were used to competing. Pushing forward for the finishing line. To win. At first, I had a feeling I wasn't meant to be here. And yet, why did this all feel so familiar? Why did it feel as normal as Ave and my Snuggle Saturdays had been? Why did it feel so much like I...

I didn't give myself the luxury of finishing that thought. Instead, I chose to focus more on the books in my hands.

"You do realize, Jamie, that I am capable of staying here with the two of you in this room indefinitely?" Grayson said. "As soon as I see what you're up to, you know I'll reason it out. I was raised to play, same as you."

"In simple words, Gameboy," I wished I hadn't caught the glimmer of affection in green eyes when I called him that, "your brother is gonna stalk us until we give up and get sick of him."

"Oh, you just need to be the translator," Pretty Boy's voice dripped with hidden irritation, "don't you, Doll?" 

Well, huzzah.

 I annoyed the Perfect Hawthorne to the point of no return: a nickname.   "Shiver me timbers," I held up the Daughter of The Pirate King and took off its cover. What would you know? Beneath hid none other than the Daughter of the Pirate King, "Taradiddle."

I flipped through the pages fruitlessly. Pristine and crisps as any overly rich piece of literature. Another way of saying nothing. 

"Keep looking," I put the book aside on a table, "I doubt we're gonna find any gold doubloons in this one."

Jameson snickered then stared hard at his brother, and smiled. "It's up to the interlopers of dubious intentions." His smile turned to a smirk.

"Is it?" I perked up, "Well, then, toodle-oo, motherfucker—"

"He can stay." 

Groaning melodramatically when Ave cut me off, I mumbled, "Darn it."

I could practically feel the cocky smirk on that pretty face. One thing was for sure. If Ave wanted me and Pretty Boy in the same room as her, she was definitely a sadist. Or masochist.

Maybe even both.

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Time went by quickly. Book after book, cover after cover. My eyes started to droop with boredom.

"There's nothing here." Grayson punctuated that statement by placing a book back on the shelf a little too hard.

"Coincidentally," Jameson commented up above, "you also don't have to be here."

"If she's here, I'm here."

"They don't bite, Avery and Rina." For once, Jameson referred to Ave by her actual name. "Frankly, now that the issue of relatedness has been settled in the negative, I'd be game if Heiress and Rina did. "

Bitch what?

"Jamie?" Grayson sounded almost too calm. "Shut up and keep looking."

Jameson, from a little above me, smirked, "What? It's true."

"Jameson," I smiled politely, "Listen to your elder brother and shut the fuck up." My tone sounded the same one a few days ago when the news of Lib's ex came to me. Just more sickeningly sweet.

Ignore the palpable tension in the room. 

Also, the dreamy smile Jameson had on his face when he looked at me. It made my skin crawl with denial.

A while later, my hands came to a stop. A limited edition copy of The Blood Of Olympus, by Rick Riordan. It was pristine to hold.

And yet the scratches weren't.

Red scratched all the letters of 'Olympus' except 'M' and 'Y'.

The Blood Of O̷l̷ymp̷u̷s̷

The Blood Of My... My what? My as in Mine?

Is this Sarina or Tobias? It has to be Sarina. I had no reason to be so sure it was her, but a little voice in my head was very insistent.

As if I had been there while she did it.

And why would Tobias read a children's book? If he did, I would swallow my pride deep into my vacuum for a stomach, and declare to the world: the man was a guy with respectable taste.

I worked my way through books and books, covers and covers, piling any odd ones I found at the table somewhere near me. The hours ticked by. Grayson and I worked our way toward each other. When he was close enough that I could see him out of the corner of my eye, he spoke, his voice barely audible to me—and not audible to Jameson or Avie at all.

"My brother's grieving for our grandfather. Surely, you can understand that."
I did. And I also understood what Grayson was trying to go to with this conversation. "He's a sensation seeker. Pain. Fear. Joy. It doesn't matter." Grayson had my full attention now, and he knew it. "He's hurting, and he needs the rush of the game. He needs for this to mean something."

This? The game? The will? The letter or... Avery.

It didn't sit with me right. Ave and Jameson.
Probably because I had a feeling that they were right.

"And you don't think it does," I said, keeping my own voice low. Grayson believed we weren't special, didn't believe that this game was worth playing or puzzle worth solving. He may have been right about me and the game. But oh boy was he wrong if he thought my Avie wasn't special.

"I don't think that you have to be the villain of this story to be a threat to this family." If I hadn't already met Nash, I would have pegged Grayson as the oldest brother.

"Oh, I doubt I'd be much of a villain or threat to the Hawthornes," My eyes went to my red wrists. The dark shade of grey over silver. The tightening of fingers. The broken voice. My dove.
My everything.
"The Hawthornes to me, on the other hand..." I gently rubbed the pink skin before going back to checking the books.

Suddenly, it was as if my entire body had received a thousand-volt shock. A shiver ran up my spine at the sudden contact. Fingers were wrapped around my wrist once more but a thousand times gentler. I wouldn't have believed they were bruised by the same man, if not having experienced it personally.

I didn't dare move an inch as he spoke, "I'm sorry, I hurt you," His fingers gently rubbed the still-sensitive skin. My mind blared to yank my hand free and move to the shelf farthest away from him. And yet betrayal I faced from my own body, which refused to pull away.

Grayson took both of my wrists in his larger hands. His silver eyes were a whirlpool of emotion. His dark pupils dilated as his skin brushed against mine.
It was repulsively perfect.

I finally listened to the red alerts in my head and took them back, "Careful, Grayson," I picked up another book, my eyes on it, and it alone, "I'm still the supposed 'threat', aren't I? Let's not start getting too buddy-buddy, now, Pretty Boy."

That snapped him out of it, "Indeed, Doll." He said no more as he went back to his work. He had tried to hide it, but I noticed how his hold lingered a moment too long before letting go of my touch.

Who was she?
My dove. My everything.

"Rina?" 

I looked up to meet messy brown hair and green eyes. Gameboy beckoned me up, "I think I found something." He quickly did the same to Ave.

I pushed past Grayson to make my way to the stairs. Jameson had found something. A book that doesn't match its cover. That was an assumption on my part, but the instant I hit the second story and saw the smile on Jameson Hawthorne's lips, I knew that I was right.
He held up a hardcover book. 

Ave read the title. "Sail Away."

"And on the inside..." Jameson was a showman at heart. He removed the cover with a flourish and tossed me the book. The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.

"Faust," I said.

"The devil you know," Jameson replied. "Or the devil you don't."

Bingo.

Ave quickly skimmed through the book, only stopping when her eyes hit a little translucent red square. Jameson was beside her in an instant. He brought his fingers to the red square. It was thin, made of some kind of plastic film, maybe four inches long on each side.

"What's this?" she asked.

Jameson took the book gingerly from Avery's hands and carefully removed the square from the book. He held it up to the light. 

"Filter paper." That came from down below. Grayson stood in the center of the room, looking up at us. "Red acetate. A favorite of our grandfather's,"

"And a sucker for revealing hidden messages." I finished. I didn't let anyone ask how I knew that. Heck, I didn't even let myself ask it, "I don't suppose the text of that book is written in red?"

Ave flipped to the first page. "Black ink," I said. She kept flipping. The color of the ink never changed, but a few pages in, I found a word that had been circled in pencil. "Did your grandfather have a habit of writing in books?" She asked.

"In the first edition of Faust?" Jameson snorted.

"Apparently so," I answered Avery. Did Sarina do that too? Or were the scratches actually Tobias?

"Where," She read the word out loud. It was fifty or more before she hit another circled word."A..." Ave kept turning the pages. The circled words were coming quicker now, sometimes in pairs. "There is..."

Jameson grabbed a pen off a nearby shelf. He didn't have any paper, so he started writing the words on the back of his left hand. "Keep going."

She did. "A again..." I said. "There is again." She was almost to the end of the book. "Way," She said finally. Avery turned the pages more slowly now. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Finally, she looked up "That's it."

"Where there is a will, there is a way," I said almost immediately.

"Remember, little Rina," his voice was different from before.
It wasn't as warm or inviting as before.
It was still full of wisdom, yes.
But a foreboding kind.
"Where there is a will," his eyes glowed in the dancing flames.
"There is a way."

I ignored the looks from the others, the aching in my head, and the flutter of energy in my heart.

So these were Tobias Hawthorne's games. They felt so refreshing.
Refreshing as if playing after a long long while.

The acetate was meant to reveal secret writing, but not in the book. Instead, the book, like the letter before it, contained a clue—in this case, a phrase with a single missing word.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

"What do you think the chances are," I said slowly, meeting Avery's, turning the puzzle over in my mind and knowing that she was thinking the same thing, "that somewhere, there's a copy of your grandfather's will written in red ink?"

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a/n: thanks @chickenwings15 for being the second to comment with theories and views! Hang in tight, people, it's gonna be a bumpy ride soon.