C2 Chapter 2

"None of you will ever have to pack up a backpack for a new school district ever again. You can build real, lasting connections with people without constantly fearing the day you have to say goodbye. I want you to experience what it feels like to actually have solid ground beneath your feet."

At that point, silent tears were actively tracing lines down my face. My chest felt tight and heavy.

"I want you to go out, make friends, have fun, and for once in your young lives, stop calculating whether we can afford groceries at the end of the week. Just let your old man handle the heavy lifting for a change, alright?"

A single tear escaped his eye and rolled into his stubble. He stood up from the worn cushions of the sofa and expanded his arms wide, a massive, ridiculous grin breaking across his face. "Alright, enough of the heavy stuff. Come give your dad a suffocating good-luck hug."

We all let out a collective, theatrical groan at his dramatic delivery, but we didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second before throwing ourselves into his embrace.

A sudden, violent rattling at my shoulder snapped me out of the memory, and my earbuds were unceremoniously yanked from my ears.

"We’ve finally arrived!" Tina’s incredibly high-pitched, enthusiastic voice cut through the quiet cabin of the car, causing me to physically flinch away from the noise.

I could feel the residual moisture lingering in the corners of my eyes, but before any evidence of my heavy thoughts could spill down my cheeks, I aggressively wiped them away with the back of my hand and forced out a rough, ragged exhale.

I knew my role in this family dynamic. I had to remain the anchor for every single one of them. My job was to play the jester—to maintain a bright smile and keep the atmosphere light, regardless of how I felt internally. It wasn't a duty I resented; after years of constant practice, masking my real emotions had become entirely second nature.

I shifted my focus to my sister, who was currently attempting to craft an expression of utter boredom, though the sheer excitement radiating from her wide, bright eyes completely gave her away. I let out a massive, exaggerated yawn.

She immediately rolled her striking grey eyes in my direction, tossing her head back with a dramatic sigh. "How absolutely wonderful of you to match my level of enthusiasm for this place."

Her sharp, sarcastic defense mechanism never failed to amuse me. She let out a sharp huff, retrieved a small compact mirror from the depths of her oversized tote bag, and began digging around a second time until she successfully retrieved a hairbrush and a tube of bright pink lip gloss.

"Unbelievable," I muttered under my breath, shifting my gaze forward toward Jamey.

True to form, my younger brother was completely checked out, his nose buried deep inside a book that looked practically fused to his palms. His eyes were darting back and forth across the printed lines with a frantic intensity, as if he were racing against an impending apocalypse and absolutely had to finish the final chapter before the world ended.

I let out another quiet sigh, sinking deeper into the worn fabric of the passenger seat.

It was then that I noticed Alastair had brought our battered, high-mileage Honda Civic to a complete halt along the shoulder of the pavement, idling just a few yards away from a massive set of ornate, black iron security gates.

What was causing the delay? I scanned our immediate surroundings but couldn't find a single physical obstacle blocking our path forward. I unbuckled and leaned into the space between the front seats to get a better look at my brother.

"Alastair?" I inquired softly, poking my head directly into the gap separating his seat from Jamey's.

His gaze was locked straight ahead, a tiny muscle visibly throbbing along the hard line of his clenched jaw. Because I had kept my eyes shut for the vast majority of the drive, I hadn't paid a single shred of attention to our surroundings on the way over—a lapse in judgment that I was suddenly starting to regret. I tilted my head to the side, trying to peer through the windshield.

My jaw dropped in absolute shock, and my eyes widened at the sight unfolding before us.

Good grief, the property was completely colossal. It looked exactly like the sprawling estate grounds I had only ever encountered in the pages of unrealistic contemporary romance novels. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and to call it massive would be a severe understatement.

There had to be some sort of logistical error.

"Yeah?" Alastair finally responded a full minute later, by which point I had almost completely lost track of the question I originally intended to ask.

I forced myself to swallow the hard lump that had formed in my throat, nervously running my tongue over my dry lips. My gaze remained entirely paralyzed by the sheer scale of the house, but I managed to force the words past my lips. "Where exactly are we?"

That wasn't the question I had planned to utter, but given the architectural marvel looming over us, it felt like the only query that actually mattered. This absolutely had to be a case of mistaken identity. There was simply no way a house like this belonged to our contact. Blake Brinkley couldn't possibly possess this level of extreme wealth... could he?

My heart hammered violently against my ribs, the sheer anxiety forcing me to lean back into the rear seat as a heavy thumping echoed in my ears.

Alastair slowly turned his head to look back at me, a deep, dark scowl gradually carving its way across his features. "We are at the Brinkley estate."

I instinctively bit down hard on my lower lip, while Tina immediately began bouncing in her seat right next to me, practically vibrating with excitement. She clamped a hand around my forearm, her voice a breathless squeak. "It’s absolutely stunning, isn’t it? I would lay money down that there’s a massive inground pool somewhere back there. Oh my gosh! Can we please just get out of this cramped car already?"

Alastair let out a heavy, defeated sigh and shifted the Civic back into drive. The security guard stationed at the entrance gate immediately pressed a button to let us pass through, clearly having been briefed well in advance regarding our scheduled arrival.

He navigated the long driveway and brought the car to a stop in a wide parking area, where a young man outfitted in a sharp, navy blue and white uniform stood waiting with a polite grin.

Tina threw her passenger door open with significantly more force than necessary and practically launched herself onto the pavement, a radiant smile stretching across her face. She immediately retrieved her smartphone from her pocket and began furiously typing out a message—undoubtedly giving a play-by-play update to one of her old friends back in Charleston.

I let out another slow breath and looked back over at Alastair. Deep shadows were visibly carved beneath his hazel eyes, and his messy brown hair was so completely disheveled that it made me wonder if he had abandoned the concept of grooming entirely.

It was obvious that while Dad’s departure speech had profoundly impacted Alastair, it hadn't done a single thing to convince him that this arrangement was a good idea. He didn't want to be here. None of us did, but I could tell he was already cultivating a deep, systemic hatred for our new reality.

He had an inherent disgust for anything that resembled charity or a handout. Personally, I wasn't a fan of it either, but I possessed the pragmatic understanding that occasionally, you have to swallow your pride and accept help if you want to keep your head above water. Unfortunately, that specific brand of survival logic was entirely absent from my older brother's worldview.

I could see the writing on the wall: he had already written off this entire estate, the family living inside it, and the town as a whole.

I reached out, placing a reassuring hand firmly on his shoulder, and offered him a genuine smile. "We’re going to handle this the way we always do—together. Everything is going to turn out fine."

He offered me a tight, simulated half-smile and gave a single nod of agreement. "Always."

Then, he shifted his focus toward Jamey, reaching over to aggressively muss up his already chaotic nest of curly brown hair. "Isn't that right, professor?"

Jamey offered a distracted nod of affirmation without ever lifting his eyes from the printed page, leaving it highly debatable whether he had any actual comprehension of what he was agreeing to.

Alastair and I exchanged a quiet, knowing look, a shared chuckle breaking the tension. That was classic Jamey behavior.

Suddenly, my younger brother’s pale green eyes snapped up to meet ours. A wide grin broke across his face, and we instantly braced ourselves for the inevitable payload of information. "Did either of you know that the longest recorded time gap between the births of two identical twins is actually eighty-seven days?"

Honestly, that was probably the single most normal, decent piece of data he had shared with us in recent memory.

We both let out a genuine laugh, shaking our heads at his textbook delivery. We knew the brief window of interaction had officially closed the moment his gaze dropped right back to the pages of his book, effectively blocking out our presence and the entire outside world with terrifying ease. There were moments when I was incredibly jealous of his ability to just switch off reality at will.

I forced a massive, theatrical smile onto my face and spoke to the remaining passengers. "Alright, team. Let's go introduce ourselves to the place we’re calling home for the next six months."