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DEAN
Anna is proving hard to crack.
After my early success in throwing a roofie grenade between Leo and Anna, blasting their friendship apart, then capitalizing on Anna’s moment of weakness to kiss her, I thought it would be cake. But her attachment to Leo is deeper-rooted than I realized.
She tries to hide how much she’s hurting, but it’s obvious. It drives me insane how she still looks for him in every room, how her head lifts every time he speaks.
I need to seal the deal with our date.
I’ll go all-out. Orchestrate a fucking symphony of romance.
It won’t take long for Leo to realize what a fool he’s been to let her go. I have to act fast, before he worms his way back into her good graces.
I spend a week planning it. I study everything I can about Anna, quizzing her roommate and her classmates, racking my brain for every last bit of information she’s ever let slip, trying to figure out what would be the perfect date.
Her roommate Chay isn’t helpful. She already doesn’t like me, so she flatly refuses to talk about Anna behind her back. Ourclassmates are even more useless. They don’t know Anna any better than I do.
The only people at Kingmakers who could have give me tips are Leo Gallo, who’d rather cut my throat than help me, or maybe Miles Griffin, whose cousins are the only thing he won’t sell for cold, hard cash.
In the end, I do something kind of fucked up.
I break into her room again and read all her letters from her sister.
I skip Combat class to do it, knowing that Anna will be occupied. I sneak into her room and read all fourteen letters, one for each week we’ve been at school.
The letters are a treasure trove of information. I only wish I could see the ones Anna wrote back.
She told me that she’s closer to her little sister than to almost anyone, and that her sister likes to write. That much is obvious from the letters—they’re half-essay, half-diary, long and full of ruminations, descriptions, and reminiscences.
The latter is the most useful part—Cara recalling shared experiences with Anna that I can use to my advantage.
I devour the letters. It’s like watching scenes from Anna’s childhood through her sister’s eyes.
Do you remember when we floated through those caves in Belize? I was claustrophobic and it scared me, floating on the water in the dark. You told me to close my eyes. You said I’d see better that way, using my ears instead. You said we were in the heart of the earth, and there was no safer place to be . . .
I’m scared of everything, and you never seem afraid of anything. Heights, dogs, cemeteries, blood . . .
Watching you be brave makes me feel more brave.
I miss you. Mama and Papa miss you. Even Whelan, though he wouldn’t admit it.
Did I tell you he’s been sneaking into your room just to sit in there? Not even to fuck up your stuff. I guess he does have a heart after all, under all that demon-energy.
Don’t worry, he hasn’t been touching your birds. I’ve been taking care of them, and I don’t let him in the aviary.
Too bad Mama’s allergic so we could never have a dog or cat. I’ll get a puppy someday. I’ll bet you’d rather have a cat. Haha no that’s too tame—maybe a snow leopard.
I think Papa had trouble at work this week. He was out all night on Thursday and Friday. Mama waited up for him, and you know she only does that when there’s a problem.
How are your classes? Are you still learning to scuba dive?
Two hours go by in the blink of an eye. I totally lose track of time, only realizing when I hear girls’ voices right outside the door.
I freeze, knowing I’m completely and totally fucked.
Thank god it’s only the Galician Heir talking to Pippa Portnoy. I wait until they passed the door, then hurry out before Anna comes back for real.
It’s addictive, learning things about Anna that she had never told me. Things that might take months or years for her to say.
