The Glass Ballerina Who Danced On Knives

Aerodynamics

After Jameson Hawthorne kindly broke into my room via fireplace, we set off for the Blackwood and the conversation turned uncomfortable.

"Did you take her driving?" I asked. If I could have taken the question back, I would have, but it hung in the air between us.

"There is nothing that Emily and I didn't do." Jameson spoke like the words had been ripped out of him. "We were the same," he told me, and then he corrected himself. "I thought that we were the same."

I thought about Grayson, telling me that Jameson was a sensation seeker. Fear. Pain. Joy. Which of those had Emily been—for him?

"What happened to her?" I asked. My internet search hadn't yielded any answers. Thea had made it sound like the Hawthornes were somehow to blame, like Emily had died because she spent time at Hawthorne House. "Did she live at the cottage?"

Jameson ignored my second question and answered the first. "Grayson happened to her."

I'd known, from the moment I'd said Emily's name in Grayson's presence, that she had mattered to him.

But Jameson seemed pretty clear on the fact that he'd been the one involved with her. There is nothing that Emily and I didn't do.

"What do you mean, Grayson happened to her?" I asked Jameson. I glanced back, but I couldn't see Oren anymore.

Before Jameson could answer, a soft thud came from behind us.

"Boo." We turn to see Trinity Hawthorne in all black with shiny leather gloves and boots. The moonlight glints off something on her waist and thigh. Gun. Knife. Her long blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail.

"A little birdie told me you'd be here."
"Go away" Jameson said darkly, his pace ticking up a notch as we hit a hill, not even bothering to wonder how she had just appeared.

"What fun is it," Trinity returned, "playing by other people's rules?" She was looking at me like she expected me to understand that.

Understand her and Jameson.

We reached the top of the hill, and I could see a building in the distance. A cottage—and between us and it, a bridge.

"Shall we turn our attention to the bridge, Heiress?" Jameson didn't make me guess. I wasn't sure he really wanted me to.

I forced my focus to the scene in front of us. It was picturesque. There were fewer trees here to block the moonlight. I could make out the way the bridge arched the creek, but not the water below. The bridge was wooden, with railings and balusters that looked like they'd been painstakingly handmade.

"Did your grandfather build this himself?"
I'd never met Tobias Hawthorne, but I was starting to feel like I knew him. He was everywhere—in this puzzle, in the House, in the boys.

"I don't know if he built it." Trinity flashed a Cheshire Cat grin, her teeth glinting in the moonlight. "But if you're right about this, he almost certainly built something into it."

Jameson excelled at pretence - pretending that what happened after midnight stayed in the dark.

He walked the length of the bridge. Behind him, I did the same. It was old and a little creaky but solid as a rock. When Jameson reached the end, he backtracked, his hands stretched out to the sides, fingertips lightly trailing the railings.

"Any idea what we're looking for?" I asked him.
"I'll know it when I see it." He might as well have said when I see it, I'll let you know. He'd said that he and Emily were alike, and I couldn't shake the feeling that he wouldn't have expected her to be a passive participant. He wouldn't have treated her as just another part of the game, laid out in the beginning to be useful by the end.

I'm a person. I'm capable. I'm here. I'm playing. I took my phone from the pocket of my coat and turned on its flashlight. I made my way back over the bridge, shining the beam on the railing, looking for indentations or a carving— something. My eyes tracked the nails in the wood, counting them out, mentally measuring the distance between every one.
When I finished with the railing, I squatted, inspecting each baluster. Opposite me, Jameson did the same. It felt almost like we were dancing—a strange midnight dance for two.

I'm here.

"I'll know it when I see it," Jameson said again, somewhere between a mantra and a promise.

"Or maybe I will." I straightened.

"Found it."

I'd honestly forgotten Trinity was here. I also couldn't see her.

"Down here."

"Quit playing games, Dynamite." Jameson is frustrated.

I heard a sigh and what sounded like a click of her tongue. "We were raised to play." Before I could fully comprehend anything, a large black shape with a ponytail flew in the air. The shape twisted in the air before landing smoothly on the bridge.

"How did you..." I was too stunned to speak.

"Aerodynamics." She shrugs lightly like it's something she does everyday.

A.N.: shorter chapter bc I'm sick :(. also, thank you for 10K READS this is absolutely insane. Ily all sm and have an amazing week <3!