Page 27 of Speak No Claim

Hennessy: The rules no one was taught.

Her name settled between us, and she didn’t stop smiling.

“You’ve met my brother.”

My breath caught. “Not exactly.”

My gaze searched hers again. The resemblance between them wasn’t obvious until now. It was their eyes. They shared the same honey color.

“So,” I rasped, “Onyx is your brother?”

She snorted. “Unfortunately. Although he did used to tell me they found me in a trash can.”

“Oh…”

“That’s okay.” She shrugged. “I’ve spent years telling him we adopted him from the zoo. It’s why he acts like a feral animal all the time.”

“Right…”

She caught the skepticism in my tone, chuckling, “What?”

“I guess you just don’t seem anything like him.”

“I know.” She sighed, setting her hand on her chest. “It’s my family’s biggest disappointment.”

I couldn’t tell if she was joking.

“You’ve been walking around looking like you’re headed straight into your own demise.”

“Really?” I countered, taking her in. “I thought I was doing a better job at hiding it.”

“You can’t hide anything from a Devereaux. It’s how we’re made. It truly is a curse.” She stepped beside me, grabbing the crook of my arm to start walking, linking hers into mine.

My backpack was still slightly open, and now I was walking with some books in my grasp.

Wanting to see how much information I could get out of Deja, I led with, “Onyx is your older brother?”

Without hesitation, she spoke, “Our mother wanted identical twins. She got Irish ones instead. We’re in the same grade, though. Onyx likes to say it’s because she wanted him to protect me, but the truth is, it’s just because he’s dumb as fuck and I’m smarter than him.”

I choked back a laugh.

“You know.” She eyed me. “You’re not what I expected.”

I glanced over at her. “You had expectations? You mean you knew about me before I arrived?”

“Of course,” she simply stated.

“Why?”

“Everyone knows about everyone at the Graves Academy. It’s a small town.”

“It doesn’t explain why you’d know anything about me before I even got here.”

“It does.” She peered straight ahead. “You see, there are two kinds of students who transfer into Graves. Those who are children of someone important or…” Her eyes met mine. “Someone who just became important.”

“And which am I?”

She smirked. “I think you know the answer to that.”