The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(72)

“I was six when Gray was born,” Nash said, like that was an explanation. “The old man unveiled this room the day my new little brother came home.” He twisted the top off a suspiciously green soda and took a swig. “I was seven for Jamie, eight and a half for Xander.” He paused, as if weighing my worth as his audience. “Aunt Zara and her first husband were having trouble conceiving. Skye would leave for a few months, come back pregnant. Wash, rinse, and repeat.”

That might have been the most messed up thing I’d ever heard.

“You want one?” Nash asked, nodding toward the fridge.

I wanted to take about ten of them but settled for Cookies and Cream. I glanced back at Oren, who’d been playing my silent shadow this whole time. He gave no indication that I should avoid drinking, so I twisted off the cap and took a swig.

“The library?” I reminded Nash.

“Almost there.” Nash pushed through to the next room. “Game room,” he said.

At the center of the room, there were four tables. One table was rectangular, one square, one oval, one circular. The tables were black. The rest of the room—walls, floor, and shelves—was white. The shelves were built into three of the room’s four walls.

Not bookshelves, I realized. They held games. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of board games. Unable to resist, I went up to the closest shelf and ran my fingers along the boxes. I’d never even heard of most of these games.

“The old man,” Nash said softly, “was a bit of a collector.”

I was in awe. How many afternoons had my mom and I spent playing garage-sale board games? Our rainy-day tradition had involved setting up three or four and turning them all into one massive game. But this? There were games from all over the world. Half of them didn’t have English writing on the boxes. I suddenly pictured all four Hawthorne brothers sitting around one of those tables. Grinning. Trash-talking. Outmaneuvering each other. Wrestling for control—possibly literally.

I pushed that thought back. I’d come here looking for the Davenport—the next clue. That was the current game—not anything held in these boxes. “The library?” I asked Nash, tearing my eyes away from the games.

He nodded toward the end of the room—the one wall that wasn’t covered in board games. There was no door. Instead, there was a fire pole and what appeared to be the bottom of some kind of chute. A slide?

“Where’s the library?” I asked.

Nash came to stand beside the fire pole and tilted his head toward the ceiling. “Up there.”





CHAPTER 65


Oren went up first, then returned—via pole, not slide. “Room’s clear,” he told me. “But if you try to climb up, you might pull a stitch.”

The fact that he’d mentioned my injury in front of Nash told me something. Either Oren wanted to see how he would respond, or he trusted Nash Hawthorne.

“What injury?” Nash asked, taking the bait.

“Someone shot at Avery,” Oren said carefully. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you, Nash?”

“If I did,” Nash replied, his voice low and deadly, “it would already be handled.”

“Nash.” Oren gave him a look that probably meant stay out of it. But from what I’d been able to tell, “staying out of it” wasn’t really a Hawthorne trait.

“I’ll be going now,” Nash said casually. “I have some questions to ask my people.”

His people—including Mellie. I watched Nash saunter off, then turned back to Oren. “You knew he would go talk to the staff.”

“I know they’ll talk to him,” Oren corrected. “And besides, you blew the element of surprise this morning.”

I’d told Grayson. He’d told his mother. Libby knew. “Sorry about that,” I said, then I turned to the room overhead. “I’m going up.”

“I didn’t see a desk up there,” Oren told me.

I walked over to the pole and grabbed hold. “I’m going up anyway.” I started to pull myself up, but the pain stopped me. Oren was right. I couldn’t climb. I stepped back from the pole, then glanced to my left.

If I couldn’t make it up the pole, it would have to be the slide.





The last library in Hawthorne House was small. The ceiling sloped to form a pyramid overhead. The shelves were plain and only came up to my waist. They were full of children’s books. Well-worn, well-loved, some of them familiar in a way that made me ache to sit and read.

But I didn’t, because as I stood there, I felt a breeze. It wasn’t coming from the window, which was closed. It came from the shelves on the back wall—no. As I walked closer, I discovered that it was coming from a crack between the two shelves.

There’s something back there. My heart caught like a breath stuck in my throat. Starting with the shelf on the right, I latched my fingers around the top of the shelf and pulled. I didn’t have to pull hard. The shelf was on a hinge. As I pulled, it rotated outward, revealing a small opening.

This was the first secret passage I’d discovered on my own. It was strangely exhilarating, like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon or holding a priceless work of art in your hands. Heart pounding, I ducked through the opening and found a staircase.