Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
She looked over at Grace, who’d just emerged from the kitchen. “He left before you, so twenty minutes?”
Grace scrunched up her face. “I think closer to half an hour.” She rubbed her stomach. “Um, let’s just say I needed to take my time.”
“That’s not very long,” I said to Darcie. “Tower’s a hike.”
“Luna’s right.” Aaron walked in with a loaf cake on a wooden board. “This hasn’t been out of the oven more than five minutes. I should really let it sit, but I have a craving for warm vanilla cake with butter, so let’s all dig in while we wait for Ash.”
He somehow got even Darcie to sit down, though she only picked at her cake.
Vansi accepted a slice, then just stared at it. “Nix didn’t like cake except for—”
“—red velvet,” Aaron completed. “I can’t even remember how many red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting I made for him over the years.”
Vansi’s lips tugged upward. “He’d hoard them each time you did. It was the one snack he told me he wouldn’t share . . . but he always did, my Nix.”
As the snow fell outside, we fell into conversation about our lost friend. Having Grace there wasn’t awkward—it actually helped. She didn’t know the stories, her reactions new and bright, her interest genuine.
“Nix was always the smartest one in the group,” Darcie said at one point. “None of us were slouches and Bea was right on his heels, but Phoenix . . . he was one of those kids who would’ve gotten into medical school even without trying.”
“But he did try,” Vansi continued, picking up the thread of the story. “He worked so hard when he could’ve coasted. Had a memory like Luna’s—except where Luna remembers images, Nix remembered everything. He never had to memorize study texts. He had perfect recall.”
My mind hitched on that, chewed—and was so absorbed by the thought that I almost missed Vansi’s next words.
“He was determined to be the best surgeon in the country, not for clout, but because his patients deserved that. Nix never took shortcuts.” She wiped away a tear. “But no matter all his professional accomplishments, he put so much time and effort into our marriage. Trust and commitment, he always said, that was the foundation.”
I locked gazes with Aaron. And we made a silent vow: we’d keep Nix’s secret till we turned to dust in the earth. To do otherwise would be to destroy everything Vansi believed of her marriage.
I had no doubts that Nix would’ve eventually spoken to her about his desire to change his career. But he’d never had the chance. And now it was too late. Saying anything about it would only brutalize an already devastated Vansi.
Darcie looked at her watch, glanced at the door, but didn’t interrupt. Instead she went into the kitchen and put on a fresh pot of coffee that no one had requested. Then she rejoined us to stare unseeing at the fire.
Her stillness was so pure that we all jumped when she jerked to her feet fifteen minutes later. “I’m going to get Ash. He’ll freeze if he stays out much longer.”
“I’ll come with you,” Aaron and I said at the same time.
“Come or don’t come. I don’t care.” Darcie went to grab her jacket where it hung on the back of an armchair, an unexpected burst of pink in among all the browns and greens of the living area. “I just want to make sure he’s all right.”
“Grace, V, you two okay staying with Kaea?”
Vansi nodded. “We need to get more food into him,” she said, her voice a rasp but her professionalism evident. “I did a physical exam while you were in the kitchen, and I don’t like how nonresponsive he’s become. Our first task will be to attempt to rouse him to some degree.”
Grace stood. “Should I go warm up a cup of the soup Aaron made? It’s mostly liquid—he mashed up the vegetables, then blitzed it all.”
Nodding, Vansi reached out to touch my hand. “I’ll be all right, Luna. Go find Ash. Darcie’s right in saying he’s been out in the cold too long.”
Darcie walked out the door, flipping up the hood of her jacket as she exited.
Not wanting her to end up alone, I grabbed my dark brown jacket and rushed out, Aaron doing the same beside me. We both snatched flashlights from the small grouping on a side table—I ended up with Grace’s slender one out of chance, the cylinder fitting neatly into my palm as I jogged after Darcie.
She didn’t go the way I would have. Hardly a surprise; this place was a labyrinthine puzzle.
This time, after a rapid-fire walk that was near to a run, Darcie led us not to a hidden passage but to a narrow set of stairs sheltered so deep in an alcove that I’d walked past it multiple times without ever realizing they existed.