Page 153 of Knox Academy Omnibus
“I’ll do it,” Kalen says, stunning us all into silence. Harold beams like all his dreams just came true.
“How is that even possible, if women have never been in The Order?” Sawyer asks. He has a point.
“It was a way for new leadership, son. We have never had any two founding families have children before. Previous generations were always happy to share the top of the food chain.”
“Until you,” I snap, facing Harold. “This is all on you. How does it feel that it backfired? It wasn’t supposed to be Amelie's father that got the heir. You wanted it to be Dad.”
“You got me. So sue me for wanting the Knox name to reign. I messed up. Kalen’s mother is from a founding family, but it turned out that Maggie’s father was sterile and they used a donor to conceive her. She isn’t pure at all. Barely a Davis in anything beside name. I wasn’t informed of this until after Kalen was already conceived. I pushed your father towards the wrong girl.”
“You’re a real piece of work,” I spit, getting to my feet. I have to get out of this room before I say something I’ll regret.
“You can’t seriously be thinking of getting Amelie pregnant?” Sawyer seethes. He takes a threatening step towards Kalen, but Slate and I grab him. I’ve never seen him so angry; his entire body is rigid with rage.
“Of course not, she has the bar in her arm. She isn’t stupid enough to accidentally get pregnant, buthedoesn’t need to know that. Besides, I doubt Amelie would want what The Order entails. Especially when she realises we’re not good people. One way or another,heneeds to go.”
“He isn’t the only one with an agenda,” I say.
I fill them in on my thoughts that Dad is on our side not Harold’s, but perhaps still up tosomething. They’re notconvinced, but at least agree to keep it in mind, just in case. It does seem elaborate to adopt us all, just to take control of The Order, when he has always been on our side, pushing for us to take control.
“You all know she’s getting close to figuring this out. I say we tell her something. If we don’t, there’s a chance that we will never get her back,” Sawyer says.
“If what Grandad is saying is true, maybe it’s for the best if she hates us. What are her options here? If she joins, The Order will ruin everything good about her,” Slate adds bitterly.
“I’m too selfish to let her go. I would marry her in a heartbeat,” Kalen vows. Dramatic little shit.
“You’re all idiots! We can’t tell her shit. We can help her to start looking in the right direction. When she understands The Order, our rules, she’ll forgive us. The Order won’t ruin her. Did any of you look at her brother’s and her friend’s files? The dad is good; he has hidden his crimes well, but the others are sloppy. If she goes back to Australia, the alternative for her is worse than The Order. At least in our organisation, we can protect her.”
“We know about their underworld connections. Dad even tried to get them to work with us, years ago, but her father won’t have it. He hates The Order as much as Branson does. Aadi and Jason – Smalls – run that shit now. I’m still not sure why they live under the pretences they do,” Sawyer explains.
“Fuck! Why would her father let her come here? Dad has always wanted to take over Australia; he has connections everywhere else but there. I told you he is hiding shit from us. I say, we butter up Gramps, push her into initiation, and get that old bastard off the board. He has been saying for years that he is going to retire, but it never happens. I say we find a way tomakehim. Dad can take his place and we have better control over him, because we know how he thinks and operates.”
“We would have to kill Grandfather before he would willingly walk away,” Kalen points out cheerily, like we’re not sitting around discussing murder. Maybe he thinks we’re joking.
“I’ll do it,” I say without hesitation. I have no loyalty to him, other than The Order.
“That would be your funeral, Bro. You know we can’t do that,” Slate says, being the voice of reason when it comes to my safety, as usual.
“How about we worry about this later? We have training again, and I quite enjoy watching Amelie struggle through the course and curse us out,” Sawyer adds with a smile. Of course he does. He is the only one of us that she has forgiven. Slate told us that she wants a truth from us and we have been debating back and forth what we could even say; anything related to The Order is out of the question.
We’ve been debating telling her the real truth, about Debbie, but we know she’ll lose the plot over it. Which not only means that she’ll know we are lying about something, but she’ll learn that her entire family are liars too. I’m not sure I want to shatter her world. I doubt that kind of truth telling will lead to her forgiving us.
We know she has the old diary from when The Order was first started. I’ve considered having a few pages of the translated version sent to her, maybe anonymously. I’m not sure. I feel like we need to start nudging her in the right direction. I’ll think on it.
“Let's head out. I’ve added some mud to the course today.”
Kalen laughs and mutters that Amelie will hate that. She’s been running the course with us every night this week, and she’s still moaning as much as she did on Monday.
Kalen, the idiot, actually wants to buy her a damn puppy to earn his forgiveness; a very bad idea since she will know we listen in on her. But Kalen is going to do whatever he wants to.
We all head to the offsite warehouse that holds the training course. In previous years it’s always been set up outside, but they said it would be too cold for Amelie this year and so we got moved indoors. Dad and Sawyer are suckers; they don’t give her enough credit.
The upside to the warehouse is that it’s at the back of the school property. You still have to leave the grounds to access it because there is no track through the school that a car can fit through. Walking would take way too long anyway.
When we pull up, Amelie’s bodyguard’s car is parked out the front. Sawyer won’t let me punch his smug face. The older guy, Frost, who watches her is more to my liking.
We walk inside as a unit and all four of us stop dead in our tracks. Amelie is already running the course, her curly hair pulled back behind her head, which is already covered in mud. The damn security guard is following closely behind her. My jaw clamps shut when they reach the spider web at the mid-way point of the course; Amelie gets stuck and he has the nerve to push her up by her ass. A growl leaves Sawyer’s throat, and he steps forward. I throw my hand out to stop him. If anyone gets to punch the guy, it’s me. We watch in silence as they complete the track. The douche whispers something to her, and she squeals and jumps into his arms. This time all four of us march forward, not stopping until we reach them.
“Fucker!” Kalen roars and launches himself forward, but Frost jumps out of nowhere and catches Kalen mid-launch, pulling him to the ground. He laughs while he does it.
