“This is something he’d do,” Grey whispers. Unlike Alistair, we were expecting to be thrown a curveball.
“I know,” I say, while my sister sobs and my brother throws a book across the room. He’s forty-four years old and still hasn’t grown out of his toddler stage.
Ignoring them all, I ask Mr. Coop, “What is it he wants us to do, exactly?”
The fine lines of a happy life crease his features as he relaxes into his chair. “The objective is the same for all six of you, but the locations and situations are all different.” He stands and hands each of us a manila folder.
I open mine and angle my shoulder so Grey can read along with me, and he does the same with his.
Dear Braxton,
If you’re reading this, my time has ended, and the games are about to begin. Always remember that riddles make the world go round—or something like that.
I’m sure you’re questioning why I’m asking you to do something so wild and out of character. And that is precisely why I want you to do this. You’ve always done what youthought you should do. I fear, my dear boy, that you’re at Omni-Reyes because you believe you owe me something. I’ve always worried that you are there because you think that’s what’s expected of you, not because that’s where your heart is.
But what I want, more than anything in this world, is for you to find your place.
Find your happy, BraxtonReyes. Find what makes you smile and want to jump out of bed in the morning.
“I have to go to Montana, live in the cold for six months, and work in squalor?” My sister’s whiny tone rises to dolphin-like decibels, dragging my attention away from my grandfather’s letter.
My hands are clenched around my folder so tightly the corners crinkle, so I drop it back into my lap.
“It’s a school in an economically depressed rural town,” Mr. Coop corrects. “Teaching is what you went to college for, Anastasia.” How is he keeping his tone so neutral? I would be howling with laughter at their expressions. It’s why I’ve kept my head down.
“For what?” she screeches. “He wants us all to do good deeds for six months to get our inheritance?”
“That’s correct.” Mr. Coop pushes his glasses higher on his nose using his pointer finger.
“Be thankful.” Archie scowls. “I’m going to fucking Maine. Toilwood, Maine to—to work at a farm because when I was seven years old, I said some bullshit about wanting to have my own cow? This—we’ll fight this. Right?”
I lift my gaze to my parents.
“Quietvale?” my mother squeaks, staring at the sheet of paper in her trembling hands. “Where the hell is Quietvale?”
“Just outside of Detroit,” Mr. Coop says. Okay, his tone is slightly cheerful now.
“Detroit? Oh my God. Detroit?” My mother might be on the verge of hyperventilating. “Is that safe? My own father wants me to work with homeless women for—for perspective. Dear Lord, I think I might faint.”
Alistair’s expression is irate, and spittle has settled in the corners of his lips.
“Where did he even find these towns?” Grey shrugs next to me, but he’s looking a little pale. Glancing down at his letter, I see Ace basically told him the same thing—find your place, find your happiness—except his is centered around trusting himself to become the leader Ace knows him to be.
“Honey, what does yours say?” my mother asks Alistair. When he doesn’t answer, she takes the folder from his hands. “Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.” She laughs, a completely unhinged, shrill sound. “That’s a joke, right? It’s a joke? You can’t be a companion at a nursing home. It’s as if he didn’t know any of us at all.”
“It’s your father’s gallows humor at play again, dear,” Alistair says through clenched teeth. He doesn’t raise his voice, but it hits with deadly accuracy, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. He turns his dark, lifeless gaze my way. “And where is he sending the golden boy?”
I’m no longer terrified of my father, but sometimes my body doesn’t quite get the memo. Fortunately for me, I’ve had a lifetime of hiding my emotions from these people, so when I speak, my voice is clear and confident. “Georgia.”
An inn in Happiness fucking Georgia.
“To do what?” Alistair growls.
I quickly scan the rest of the document. “To rebuild a town.” That’s not exactly what it says, but it’s the gist of it. Ace wants me to find the heart and soul of the town and fix it.
“No pressure or anything,” Grey whispers.
No shit. How the hell does someone find what’s broken with the heart and soul of a freaking town they’ve never even heard of before?
