We stop in the doorway. Mostly because we are unsure what to do next. The room is packed with tables filled with people. Forty of them, to be exact. I know this little fact from working in here with my mom a few times. Some of them have a young person—I recognize our pledges from this summer, plus about a dozen more faces just from seeing them around campus—and at those tables, their families sit with them. The Chairman is at the top of the room where a small podium stands. I don’t recognize the rest of the people, but once I spot Dane and his wife—plus Cooper’s other brother, Jack, and his wife—I figure they are all past pledges.
No. That’s the wrong word.
They are current members. Fully vested in the Fang and Feather Society.
Then it clicks. This is an official meeting.
“There they are!” the Chairman bellows from across the room.
Everyone turns to look at us and I want to melt into the background. But Cooper has one hand and Ax takes the other. Both of them give me a little squeeze for courage.
“Over here, kids,” the Chairman says, pointing to a table right up in front of the podium.
The three of us inhale deeply at the same time. Like we’re all steeling ourselves for what might come next. Then make our way past all the other tables to the one up front.
There are three place settings with three notecards on the plates.
Ax has the seat on my left and Cooper has the one on my right.
We take our seats and I kick my bookstore bag under the light blue tablecloth.
Weird. All of this is weird.
Servers appear—none of whom I recognize—and then we have water, and someone is bringing coffee and juice, and then a plate of fruit is put down in front of Ax and a pastry plate is put down in front of Cooper.
“What is this?” I ask, leaning in to Cooper.
But before he can answer, the Chairman says, “Welcome to the annual Fang and Feather new initiate brunch. We have so much good news to talk about today.”
“Really?” Ax whisper-laughs. Then he looks around and I follow his gaze back to the table off to our right where his father sits. Alone.
“It’s not just me. This is weird? Right?” I whisper this towards Cooper as the Chairman continues talking. “I mean, sitting the three of us together when everyone else is with their families?” Then I look behind me and catch a glimpse of Mona. “Look, even Mona is sitting with her bodyguards.”
“He’s up to something,” Cooper says. “And we walked right into it.”
“First,” the Chairman says, “let’s welcome our legacies. When I call your name, please join me at the podium. Sophie Bettington.” He pauses while the room claps and Sophie, blushing a bright pink that matches her demure lace dress, stands up and awkwardly smiles. Then makes her way up to the Chairman.
“Next, Mona Monroe. Come on up here, Mona,” the Chairman prods. Like Mona might have other ideas. But she’s playing the game now. And I glance at Dante, who is beaming a smile up at her as she makes her way up to the podium. I guess they’ve made peace with their arrangement.
“And last, but certainly not least, Cadee Hunter.”
My own name echoes in my head as the room claps.
“What?” I say, looking up at the Chairman.
“Come on up, Cadee. Don’t be shy.”
The room continues to clap as I hesitate. “What the hell?” I whisper.
“Play along,” Cooper says, his teeth clenched in a smile.
But. No. Not after Dane ambushed me in the bursar’s office. I’m not playing along. “I’m sorry, Chairman.” I say it softly, still in my seat, but he’s literally right in front of me, so there is no chance he’s not hearing my protests. “I’m not a legacy.”
“Oh, you are, Cadee. Both of your parents were fully vested members of Fang and Feather. And if you will be so kind as to join your fellow legacies on stage, we can get on with their memorial and the dedication.”
But still, I hesitate.
Did I hear those words correctly? Memorial?
“Cooper, I think your date needs some help. Please, escort her up. She’s overwhelmed with excitement.”
Cooper sighs. Heavily. But he scrapes his chair across the floor and stands, offering me his hand as he leans into my ear. “Five minutes, Cadee. It will be over in five minutes and then we’re leaving, and we’re going home, and we’re going to forget that this morning ever happened.”
I let him pull me to my feet while the room continues to applaud. And I want to believe it. I really want to believe that in ten minutes we’ll be in the Camaro and on our way back to the inn. Back to our new home.
But I know that’s not how this day will end.
Because if I am a legacy and my parents were a part of Fang and Feather, then my life is a lie.
They lied to me.
CHAPTER SEVEN - COOPER
“How many times can I say it today? What the fuck?” Ax whispers.
I don’t have an answer for him. I feel like we got on the crazy train around nine AM this morning and we’ve got no return ticket home.
Cadee joins Mona and Sophie at the front of the room—next to my father, which makes me seethe. First Isabella and now Cadee. Not to mention all the other pledges. And Ax. Only Lars seems to have escaped—but then, when I turn my head to the left, I see him sitting with his parents. His eyes are on Cadee and my father is already talking again, so he doesn’t even notice me.
“Welcome, legacies!” My father claps, so the rest of the room picks it up again. Then the Chairman puts up his hands and pats the air, asking for quiet. His sycophants respond with their seemingly unwavering obedience and go silent.
“How well do you know them?” my father asks. “Probably not well enough.” He introduces Mona. Talks about her family’s history—it’s long. I mean, Monrovian Lake? And the nearby town of Monrovia? Everyone knows where they got their name. The Monroe family were founding settlers in this area. One of the first High Court families.
But it’s not really a family anymore, is it?
I don’t ever remember there being anyone in the mansion next door except Mona and her fucking bodyguards. If she had parents—and of course she did, we all do—they never lived there.
My father moves on to Sophie. Her pale face is blotchy and her too-red hair is a little bit flyaway because she’s standing near an air conditioning vent. Now her I don’t have any clue about. I have seen the Bettingtons around, of course. They are at all the usual parties and I know they have a lake mansion, so they are definitely one of the ‘in crowd’. But that mansion is far, far away from the one I grew up in. Very low in the pecking order.
“And who doesn’t know Cadee Hunter?” my father asks the room.
Well, none of us really, right? Because up until this very moment she was a weird girl in the woods. A Fugling at the summer rush. The homeschooled girl who lived with the gardener and the cafeteria baker who couldn’t even get into the Monrovian Community College because she didn’t actually have a high school diploma.
I was worried that my father would block her entrance when I walked away from the tomb in the woods all those weeks ago. She wasn’t an official student. And there would be no scholarship because none of us finished the summer, and that was a condition of her reward.