Bridges Burned (Going Down in Flames #2)(70)

Their food arrived, and Bryn worked her way through the pancakes in the most ladylike way she could manage. Which meant she only dripped syrup on her dress three times.

“We need to work on your etiquette,” her grandmother said.

Bryn dabbed at the front of her dress with a wet napkin. At least the syrup didn’t show on the dark-colored dress. Time for a topic change. “What’s next on the agenda?”

Lillith sighed in satisfaction. “I finished my shopping, so I believe I’m going home to rest.”

“Perhaps we should go home, too.”

“But we were supposed to shop for desserts.” She cringed at the thought of going back to her room and staring at the walls.

“Yes. Well, you weren’t supposed to scare the life out of me.” Her grandmother’s words were harsh, but her tone was soft. She touched Bryn’s shoulder. “You might need rest.”

“Rest won’t fix the problem. Nothing will fix it, but keeping busy might help me cope. I’ll try to keep the breakdowns to a minimum.”

After a visit to the bakery to discuss dessert options, Bryn and her grandmother returned to the car. The driver sat in the front seat reading a book. Did he have to stay by the car like he was he on call? She needed to figure out how this system worked.

And that made her think of something she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten. When would she get her driver’s license?

“Will I have driver’s training classes at the institute?” Bryn asked as they took the winding road back into the forest to her grandparents’ estate.

“Why would you need to learn how to drive? One of the drivers can take you anywhere you need to go.”

Drivers? As in more than one? Wow. “At my old school”—she stopped short of saying “human school”—“everyone takes driver’s training classes. It’s mandatory before you can take the driver’s test and get your license.”

“That isn’t part of the institute’s curriculum.”

And apparently that topic was over. Okay. Maybe she’d ask Valmont to teach her to drive.

“We need to talk about what happened today,” her grandmother said.

“About what?”

“I understand you’re grieving, but what happened today is unacceptable. If you can’t cope better than that, then we might need to speak with a medic about helping you relax.”

Seriously? “First off, I didn’t plan it. Second, I’m not ashamed of grieving for my parents.”

Her grandmother’s lips set in a thin line. “Grief is meant to be acted on in private, not in public.”

“I’m so sorry. I’ll be sure to schedule my next breakdown for a time that’s more correct by your standards.”

The rest of the ride was a frosty affair. Her grandmother was angry. She got that, but how could the woman not understand how hard this was? She couldn’t adjust to her parents’ deaths overnight.

Over the next few days, Bryn did her best to meet her grandmother’s expectations. Not that they interacted much. Her grandmother’s time seemed to be taken up with planning the Christmas Eve ball. Her grandfather appeared at meals and kept mostly to himself.

Desperate for something to do, Bryn decided to investigate the mansion, avoiding any and all rooms with desks, lest she tread on her grandfather’s territory again. She started in her grandmother’s wing. She found a ton of guest bedrooms, some sitting rooms, and the occasional bathroom. None of the rooms were super interesting.

When she came across books, she investigated them, but most were about interior decorating or maintaining a proper staff. She knew her mother’s old rooms had to be around somewhere, but didn’t feel like she could ask. She suspected the rooms where Alec had taken Jaxon and Lillith after he’d drugged them were her mother’s, simply because they’d been neglected. The smell of mold and dust had only been outdone by the gasoline Alec had poured on the furniture to prevent her from using her fire. What had her grandparents done after the attack? They couldn’t leave gasoline-soaked furniture sitting around. For all she knew, the entire suite was probably destroyed during the battle. Searching through rooms kept her occupied in between meals with her grandparents.

One evening, she found a side stairwell that had a light that didn’t work. Very odd. Somehow, throughout this giant mansion, the staff kept everything dust-free and well lit. Could she have finally found a way to reach her mother’s old rooms?

Producing a flame in her right hand for light, she ascended the staircase, which ended at a landing crowded with boxes and cleaning supplies. A door stood ajar. Her heart beat faster. She pushed the door open wide enough to enter and sighed in disappointment. Whatever this space might once have been, it had been wiped clean. No furniture, no light fixtures, no carpets or anything filled the space. Although when she looked at the ceiling she could see bare wires hanging down where lights used to be.

Her footsteps echoed through the room and she realized it opened up into a much larger space. On the far wall she saw the elevator doors, which meant the way she’d come in had been the bedroom area, and she was now out in the larger sitting room area backward of the way she’d seen it on the night she’d faced Alec.

She headed back into the bedroom area, hoping to find a closet that might still hold some remnant of her mother, some proof that she’d existed. The closet in the bedroom proved to be empty and freshly painted like the rest of the room. It was long and narrow like a short hallway. At the very end, on the right side, Bryn saw the outline of another door half the size of a regular door, like something that might lead to an attic. She turned the knob and pulled, discovering that it had been painted shut. She yanked harder, and it came open. Kneeling down, she peered inside. Stairs, there were stairs. She crawled through and then stood, brushing dust off the front of her jeans. And there was a lot of dust. The cleanup effort hadn’t extended this far.