“I see that when you asked me to stand against the white wall in our room, so you could get a headshot to sketch for art class, you were totally full of shit.”
“Full of shit,” Church agrees with a brisk nod. “So, pack your bags: you’re going with us to London—whether Headmaster Carson likes it or not.”The way that Dad looks at me, I’m sure I’ve done it now. This is literally the last straw in our relationship, the lynchpin being pulled, the coup de grâce if you will.
“You are not going to London,” he says, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “To stay at Eric Warren’s house? Absolutely not.” My face pales because I most definitely did not say anything about Eric Warren’s house. We figured since dad’s admission that he knows at least something about the cult which means he might also know about Eric’s possible involvement. Instead, we spun some almost-lie about staying in Church’s parents’ flat in Hyde Park—that’s one of the rich people parts of London—for the week.
“I’ve never been out of the country,” I plead, folding my hands together like I’m six years old all over again. Yes, we’re going to see Eric Warren née Woodruff (he changed his last name to his mother’s following a political scandal) as part of our investigation, but … it’s more than that. This is a chance for me to see another part of the world, a place I never thought I’d be able to go. “Hell, until we moved here, I’d never been out of California. This is the chance of a lifetime for me.”
With a sigh, Dad puts his glasses aside and then pinches the bridge of his nose, leaning back in his chair like he’s tired. And I don’t just mean from the day, it looks like he’s feeling his exhaustion bone-deep.
“Charlotte, do you think I want you to suffer?” he asks, dropping his hands in his lap and studying my face.
“Um, yes?”
“Charlotte Farren,” he groans, looking like he’d rather take a long walk off a short pier than keep talking to me right now. “Eric Warren is a dangerous man, and you have no business traveling to a foreign country with a bunch of boys that you barely know—”
“I’ve known them for over a year,” I correct, “and we’ve been through a lot together. We almost died in those tunnels; we all grieved Spencer together. They took me to Disneyland. Why can’t you just accept that they’re in my life and they probably will be for a long, long time.”
“Regardless of your relationship with these boys, I won’t have you going to see Eric Warren.”
“Because you know he’s involved with the Fellowship of the Divine.”
Silence.
You could hear a pin drop.
Speaking of pins, Dad sort of looks like he wants to shove one into my eye right now.
“Where did you hear that name?” he asks, and I grimace. Would giving Mr. Murphy away do me any good right now? Or would I just get him in trouble? Because I don’t want that. He’s a good person, even if he is a coward. He did care about Jenica, and he tried to protect me, too, in his own way.
“That doesn’t matter right now,” I say as Dad stands up and comes around the front of his desk, eyebrow twitching. I back up because I know at this point that I’m in pretty deep shit here. “The point is: I do know the name. And I know that you confirmed what I already thought: that someone’s trying to kill me.”
“Charlotte,” he says, but there isn’t a lot of heat in his voice anymore. For a second there, he just looks like a frazzled, middle-aged man who needs a vacation. “You are a child.”
“Young adult, eighteen in a month,” I murmur, but he isn’t listening to me anymore than usual.
“It’s not your job to search for the answers. Your job is to go to school and listen to what I tell you. I’m not making things up just to make your life miserable. There are people looking into this, but those people are not you.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and looks at me, really looks at me. “When I came to Adamson, I’ll admit, I was ignorant. I didn’t know what was going on, and maybe I didn’t want to. But you’re going to graduate at the end of the year, leave this place behind, and start a future. Until then, you have to abide by my rules. Don’t you believe that I’d do anything to protect you?”
“Nothing will happen to me in London, Dad. The guys will be there, and really, it has to be safer than here, right?”
“Eric Warren is a leader in this ‘cult’ you’re so fond of discussing, Charlotte. You’re not going to his home—that’s the end of this discussion.”
