The Girl Who Dared to Think Bella Forrest (best classic literature txt) 📖

you’re not guiding anyone back to our home,” Maddox declared menacingly. “We’ve worked too hard to keep our location a secret for you to start screwing this up.”

“Besides,” Tian added, a shy little smile on her face, “I like you. You look like you can tell good stories.”

I looked all around me, clearly outnumbered in more ways than one, and realized that now that I really thought about it, I didn’t even want to go. I barely slept when I was at home, and they had all made excellent points. Still, I hadn’t forgotten about Zoe and getting her those pills. She might not be talking to me right now, but she was in trouble, and if I didn’t help her, then chances were she’d just continue to go down.

“I want your word that at some point soon, I’ll be able to go,” I said to Cali, lifting my head in challenge.

She inclined her head somewhat. “That seems reasonable, but under my terms, all right? Everyone here is my family.”

“The reason I need to go is for mine, so I think we understand each other.”

The two of us continued to stare at each other, and I couldn’t help but feel that Cali was taking some sort of measurement of me, weighing pros and cons in her mind based on what she was seeing right now.

In the end, it was Tian who broke the stare-off, by standing up and offering excitedly to show us our room.

As we followed her, I could still feel Cali’s eyes on me. Still, the exchange had gone better than I’d hoped, and I felt that she was going to make a good ally in the days to come.

Once we figured out what the heck we were going to do.

28

As Tian led the three of us through the kitchen and down the hall, my eyes darted around, trying to find anything that would reveal who we were really dealing with. The small kitchen area was rudimentary, just a cooking element sitting on a metal table next to a cutting board. Another table held a plastic bin filled with soapy water, but there was no faucet for it. Everything was neat and tidy, but that was because it had to be—there wasn’t any space.

In the middle of the floor in the kitchen area was an open hatch with steps leading down. The smell of damp soil and vegetation wafted through, and as I passed, I caught a glimpse of greenery down below, just out of sight. Then we were walking down the long hall. String lights were draped around protruding pipes and along the wall, giving the area a whimsical feel. I saw childish paintings—likely Tian’s work—on the wall in an array of colors. The one that made me pause was of four handprints, each a different size and color, with names printed just below. They had pressed their hands together so that their forefingers overlapped with the previous one’s pinkie, linking them together. Tian’s small hand was in pink, Cali’s in red, Maddox’s in purple, and Quess’s in deep blue.

It was such a simple thing, but as soon as I saw it, I felt it—the love they had for each other. It gave me pause, made me think about my own family, my parents, and I truly realized that their home was not my home.

That was followed by a surprising understanding: it hadn’t been my home since Alex had left.

I sucked in a breath, suddenly desperately missing my brother, on top of Zoe and Eric. They were my family, and if I was going to protect them and keep us all together, I was going to have to get them out of Scipio’s control.

Tian turned, her smile glistening, and waved a long arm at me, as if she were trying to pull me forward by magic. I realized I had stopped for longer than I’d intended to, and Roark had pushed by. Grey had come to a stop next to me, though, and as I looked at him, I saw his eyes fixed to the same place mine had been.

He looked up at me, his eyes brimming with pain that echoed my own, and I impulsively reached out to take his hand in mine, squeezing it gently. His dark eyes dropped down to my hand, and I felt him squeeze my fingers in return.

We didn’t say anything, but we didn’t have to; we were two people sharing a moment of pain and taking comfort in the fact that we weren’t alone. We stood there for a moment, and then I began to follow Tian again, and was glad when Grey retained his grip on my hand, unwilling to let me go.

The first opening we passed was a workroom, filled with tools and objects that took up almost every square inch of the place. In spite of the clutter, it was well organized: the tools were grouped together and arranged by size on the wall, and the long tables that lined the wall held objects in various stages of deconstruction. I recognized an elevator security box, a lash harness, several stun batons, a hydroponic UV light pod—random odds and ends that were small enough to be carried.

“This is Quess’s room,” Tian chirped, leaning in and looking around. “He sleeps there.” Her hand stretched out to point at the hammock tucked away in a corner.

“No doors?” Grey asked.

“No need,” she replied, craning her neck back so she could look up at him. “We’re all family. Come along.”

She moved down the hall to where Roark was waiting, his face impassive, and breezed by him, her small feet running in short steps. “This is Doxy’s room,” she announced with a flourish as she leapt up in the air and spun. Her hands made a fluttery movement as she landed, legs spread, and she pointed to the opening on the right.

I moved up to it, curious to see how the stoic woman decorated, and I couldn’t have been more unsurprised. Her