Chapter 25 #2
He shrugs, but the movement’s uneasy. “Attitude. Talking back. I’m not really sure. Abi said she’s had some ‘behavioral issues,’ according to the staff. But she’s a good kid. Talon, your mom said your sister’s always been a little firecracker? Spirited. Independent.”
Spirited. Independent. The kind of labels adults use when they don’t know the whole story.
I nod slowly. “I really want to meet her, Dad. Not just for you. For her too.”
He smiles. “I’ll keep pushing Abi. We’ll find a weekend soon. I promise.”
We exchange a little more small talk. Talon stays wisely silent. Finally, Gideon nudges the conversation toward the door with a polite mention of letting Dad enjoy the rest of his afternoon.
He walks us out, giving Silas and Gideon a friendly nod. “Good seeing you guys again.”
The second the front door shuts behind us, everything in me unclenches just enough to breathe fully again.
Talon trails after us to the cars, hands buried deep in his pockets, shoulders tense.
Silas doesn’t even look at him. “Gideon’s,” he says. “We’ll sort through everything there.”
Gideon’s dining table becomes an evidence board.
We printed and laid out all the pictures: invoices from St. Helen’s, disciplinary notes, the behavioral irregularities list with Minxy highlighted, the email about “influences,” the photo of Abi and her first husband, the USB.
Silas hooks the USB up to his laptop and taps at his keyboard like this is just another weekend activity for him.
“This isn’t a school,” Gideon says finally. “It’s a holding pen for kids whose parents don’t want them.”
“And Minxy’s stuck there,” Talon says, voice low.
“We’re getting her out,” Silas replies. No hesitation.
“Then what?” I ask. “She comes home to Abi?”
“No,” Gideon says. “We don’t bring her back to the person who sent her there in the first place. We bring her somewhere she’s safe.”
“Like where?” Talon asks.
“Here,” Gideon says.
“This is the first place Abi will look when she finds out she’s not where she’s supposed to be,” Silas adds.
“She can stay with me.” Talon nods.
“No, she can’t. You’re in a dorm, and your mom will for sure look there too. She should stay with me. I’m off campus, and Abi knows we’ve never met, so she’ll have no clue to look at my place.”
Talon looks at me with surprise in his eyes. “You’d do that for me?”
“I’d do that for any child in a situation like this. It’s exactly why I’m studying what I am. I want to help.”
Silas nods. “This is step one. Proof. Step two is contact. Step three is extraction.”
The word extraction makes my stomach flip.
Talon hasn’t sat down. He keeps circling the table, hands in his hair, pacing like an animal in too small of a cage. Every few steps he stops and looks at the three of us.
He stops finally, bracing his palms on the edge of the table. The muscles in his arms tighten. His breathing is harsh, uneven.
“This is… a lot,” he says quietly.
“It is,” Silas agrees.
“And we’re… all doing this together now,” Talon adds, voice rough, like the words scrape coming out.
Gideon closes a folder. “That’s the plan.”
Talon’s gaze flicks toward me again. Longer this time. Searching, confused, wanting. The kind of look that makes my pulse trip even when I don’t want it to. He swallows hard.
“Penelope’s here. You two are here. I’m here. We’re all… connected now. Whether we wanted to be or not.”
My heart stumbles.
He steps closer—not touching, not crowding, but close enough that I feel the heat off him. His voice lowers to something almost careful.
“And I know why they’re here.” He nods at Silas. Then Gideon. “They’re your guys and my uncles.”
Silas and Gideon both go still.
Talon’s eyes stay on me.
“But me? I don’t know where I stand,” he says softly. “Not after last night. Not after what we just walked into. Not after everything that’s happened with you.”
He pauses. Breath unsteady. Then—
“So… what are we?”
Silas closes his eyes for a beat, Gideon mutters something under his breath that might be a curse.
“Talon,” I say softly.
“No,” he says, shoulders tight. “I need you to be straight with me. You kissed me. You let me touch you; actually, you directed the show. You used me. Let me watch you fall apart on my fingers and then left me high and dry in that closet. And then you walked out of that party with my fucking uncles.”
Silas reaches over and smacks him lightly on the back of the head. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
"Well, I didn't know that when I started fucking them months ago, so deal with it. I have,” I snap back at him, then my voice lowers. “I didn’t mean to use you.”
Talon grimaces but doesn’t back down. “Then what was the closet? Just a stress outlet?”
I want to crawl under the table.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I was angry, scared and turned on. I wanted to feel like I had control over something. You were there. You wanted me. And I wanted you.”
“I like you, Penelope, and you're throwing me out like a discarded toy."
"That wasn't my intention. I meant to keep away, but I can't seem to do that,” I admit.
“Then what are we gonna do?" he asks.
Silas watches me, then Talon, then me again. “You date,” he says.
We all stare at him.
I blink. “What?”
“You date,” he repeats, completely serious. “Slowly. Outside of class. Outside of the club. No closets. Real dates. If you both want something, you give yourselves a chance to figure out what it is.”
Talon’s entire face brightens like he just leveled up. “Done.”
“With rules,” I say quickly.
“Whatever you want,” he says.
“No flirting in class. No touching. No comments about what we’ve done. Campus is off limits.”
“Deal.”
Silas clears his throat. “If they’ve got rules… then Gideon and I probably need some guidelines too.”
Gideon looks personally offended. “Of course we do.”
Silas gestures between himself and Gideon. “We knew about each other. Now we know about Talon. But how many more people are you planning to add to this collection?”
I let out a breath. “None.”
Talon lifts a brow. “So… monogamy? With three?”
I stick out my tongue at him. “It’s not monogamy. It’s a harem.”
Silas laughs under his breath. “For the record, I don’t want to see anyone else.”
Gideon nods. “I’m not looking anywhere but at Little Menace.”
Talon smirks like he’s about to say something dangerous, but I get there first. “And just so we’re clear, I’m not signing up for whatever comes with you dating half the freshman class.”
Talon breaks into loud, delighted laughter. “Baby, I couldn’t even get it up for that woman at the club. You think anyone else is going to do it for me? It’s you. Only you.”
Silas nods once. “Then it’s decided. We only see Angel, and she only sees us. If anything ever changes, we say it right away. That’s the only way this works.”
We all nod.
Talon interrupts, “I’m not touching any dicks.”
Gideon mutters, “I’m going to develop ulcers.”
Silas smirks, satisfied. “Problem solved.”
“It’s not solved,” I say, but the tightness in my chest eases anyway. “It’s… labeled.”
Gideon looks between the three of us, then back down at the spread of papers. “We have a blackmail school, a missing husband, a hidden sister, a manipulative almost-stepmother, and a TA dating her student while she’s also dating his two uncles.”
He lifts his gaze to mine.
“This should be a disaster,” he says. “And it might still be. But none of us are doing it alone.”