The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(3)

Setting my phone down, I glanced at my backpack in the passenger seat, but decided that the rest of my homework could wait for morning. I laid my seat back and closed my eyes but couldn’t sleep, so I reached into the glove box and retrieved the only thing of value that my mother had left me: a stack of postcards. Dozens of them. Dozens of places we’d planned to go together.

Hawaii. New Zealand. Machu Picchu. Staring at each of the pictures in turn, I imagined myself anywhere but here. Tokyo. Bali. Greece. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been lost in thought when my phone beeped. I picked it up and was greeted by Max’s response to my message about Drake.

That mother-faxer. And then, a moment later: Are you okay?

Max had moved away the summer after eighth grade. Most of our communication was written, and she refused to write curse words, lest her parents see them.

So she got creative.

I’m fine, I wrote back, and that was all the impetus she needed to unleash her righteous fury on my behalf.

THAT FAXING CHIPHEAD CAN GO STRAIGHT TO ELF AND EAT A BAG OF DUCKS!!!

A second later, my phone rang. “Are you really okay?” Max asked when I answered.

I looked back down at the postcards in my lap, and the muscles in my throat tightened. I would make it through high school. I’d apply for every scholarship I qualified for. I’d get a marketable degree that allowed me to work remotely and paid me well.

I’d travel the world.

I let out a long, jagged breath, and then answered Max’s question. “You know me, Maxine. I always land on my feet.”





CHAPTER 4


The next day, I paid a price for sleeping in my car. My whole body ached, and I had to shower after gym, because paper towels in the bathroom at the diner could only go so far. I didn’t have time to dry my hair, so I arrived at my next class sopping wet. It wasn’t my best look, but I’d gone to school with the same kids my whole life. I was wallpaper.

No one was looking.

“Romeo and Juliet is littered with proverbs—small, pithy bits of wisdom that make a statement about the way the world and human nature work.” My English teacher was young and earnest, and I deeply suspected she’d had too much coffee. “Let’s take a step back from Shakespeare. Who can give me an example of an everyday proverb?”

Beggars can’t be choosers, I thought, my head pounding and water droplets dripping down my back. Necessity is the mother of invention. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

The door to the classroom opened. An office aide waited for the teacher to look at her, then announced loudly enough for the whole class to hear, “Avery Grambs is wanted in the office.”

I took that to mean that someone had graded my test.





I knew better than to expect an apology, but I also wasn’t expecting Mr. Altman to meet me at his secretary’s desk, beaming like he’d just had a visit from the Pope. “Avery!”

An alarm went off in the back of my head, because no one was ever that glad to see me.

“Right this way.” He opened the door to his office, and I caught sight of a familiar neon-blue ponytail inside.

“Libby?” I said. She was wearing skull-print scrubs and no makeup, both of which suggested she’d come straight from work. In the middle of a shift. Orderlies at assisted living facilities couldn’t just walk out in the middle of shifts.

Not unless something was wrong.

“Is Dad…” I couldn’t make myself finish the question.

“Your father is fine.” The voice that issued that statement didn’t belong to Libby or Principal Altman. My head whipped up, and I looked past my sister. The chair behind the principal’s desk was occupied—by a guy not much older than me. What is going on here?

He was wearing a suit. He looked like the kind of person who should have had an entourage.

“As of yesterday,” he continued, his low, rich voice measured and precise, “Ricky Grambs was alive, well, and safely passed out in a motel room in Michigan, an hour outside of Detroit.”

I tried not to stare at him—and failed. Light hair. Pale eyes. Features sharp enough to cut rocks.

“How could you possibly know that?” I demanded. I didn’t even know where my deadbeat father was. How could he?

The boy in the suit didn’t answer my question. Instead, he arched an eyebrow. “Principal Altman?” he said. “If you could give us a moment?”

The principal opened his mouth, presumably to object to being removed from his own office, but the boy’s eyebrow lifted higher.

“I believe we had an agreement.”

Altman cleared his throat. “Of course.” And just like that, he turned and walked out the door. It closed behind him, and I resumed openly staring at the boy who’d banished him.

“You asked how I know where you father is.” His eyes were the same color as his suit—gray, bordering on silver. “It would be best, for the moment, for you to just assume that I know everything.”

His voice would have been pleasant to listen to if it weren’t for the words. “A guy who thinks he knows everything,” I muttered. “That’s new.”

“A girl with a razor-sharp tongue,” he returned, silver eyes focused on mine, the ends of his lips ticking upward.

“Who are you?” I asked. “And what do you want?” With me, something inside me added. What do you want with me?