Total pages in book: 238
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 231781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1159(@200wpm)___ 927(@250wpm)___ 773(@300wpm)
“Kids today…” I mumbled.
Em touched my shoulder, soothing me again that my son wasn’t going to play basketball. “Going to make some calls before this thing starts,” she told me, a laugh caught in her throat. “Save your energy for me. It’s going to be a hell of a night.”
“Promise?” I looked over my shoulder as she headed back into the house.
She winked at me and spun around.
Stepping down the stairs, I watched the kids play, Damon’s five-year-old daughter Octavia in her standard pirate knickers, black tights, and peasant blouse with a fake sword strapped to her back. No one would break it to the kid that modern-day pirates were far different than Jack Sparrow. She wanted to be what she wanted to be.
I looked around, not seeing the boys, so Damon and Winter must not have arrived yet. Octavia probably came with Kai and Banks, since she and Jett were about the same age and friends.
Something to my right caught my eye, and I looked over, seeing Madden sitting up in the tree. Black suit, cold black hair, and porcelain skin—the whole package making him look like a knife.
He held an open book in his lap, but his eyes were on the kids playing.
Or one kid.
I climbed up the wooden planks, reaching him about fifteen-feet high and hanging there as his gaze shot back down to his text.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
I bit back my smile at his sternness. I didn’t think anyone could be more rigid than Kai, but his son took the prize. How many eleven-year-olds dressed in crisp, pressed trousers and suit jackets and never had a hair out of place. Parted a little left of center, it shone in the sunlight, his trim perfect and stark against his pale skin.
“Where’s your dad?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Inside somewhere.”
I watched him stare at the book, but his eyes weren’t moving. I glanced at the kids again.
He never joined in. He only played alone.
Or with his cousin, Octavia. She was the only one he smiled around.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked him.
He shrugged.
“Everything okay at school?”
He nodded but still wouldn’t look at me.
“You got plans for trick or treating with your friends tomorrow night?” I prodded.
Slowly, he shook his head. “I don’t really like candy.”
“Come to Coldfield, then,” I told him. “I can find a place for you with the actors.”
He sat there, and I saw the muscles in his jaw flex.
“Or… maybe working the animatronics in the tombs?” I taunted. “Something behind the scenes?”
He looked over at me out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t meet my stare.
But he didn’t shake his head, and I decided to let him save his pride.
“I’ll pick you up at three tomorrow,” I said.
He nodded.
Good. He might not like to be around people, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still find his place in the world. Teachers were concerned years ago he might be on the spectrum, possibly Asperger’s. Not that it affected his education. He did well in school.
Socially, he just wasn’t where other kids were.
But he was able to socialize in situations where he cared to, like training with his grandfather or spending time with Octavia. He refused to see a specialist, and Kai had no interest in forcing him to be everyone else’s version of normal. I mean, look at us, for example. If we were the measure of what was normal back in the day, Mads was better off not changing.
I started to climb down, but then I heard his voice.
“What’s L’appel du vide?” he asked.
I stopped and stared up at him, his dark eyes like black pools.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Kids at school,” he murmured.
I cleared my throat and looked around for his parents, knowing this day was coming, but never expecting I’d have to explain this to anyone’s kids but my own. Had he asked Kai?
I came back up a step and looked at him, eye to eye. “L’appel du vide is what binds our family,” I told him. “It’s an idea that connects us, because we all believe in it.”
“Like a religion?”
I hesitated for a moment, not sure if that was how I’d describe it.
But I nodded. “Kind of,” I replied. “Michael, Rika, Winter, Damon, Emory, me, your mom and dad… It’s how we realized we weren’t alone in the world.”
“Am I a part of it?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is that what the kids at school say?”
He looked away, back to Octavia out on the lawn. “They’re too scared of me to say anything.”
I groaned silently. We were afraid of this. Mads was certainly unnerving without any help from us, but our names also intimidated people well enough.
It was all well and good that we’d found each other and made our family together, but to outsiders it probably looked… Well, I had no idea how it looked. All I knew was the more powerful you were—the more successful you were—the more enemies you had, and people would always try to tear you down. Our kids would hear stories about us. Stories about our businesses and Devil’s Night and the catacombs were being made up right now, no doubt. They would have to deal with the pressure of our legacy.