Tacet a Mortuis (The Elite King's Club 3)

Tate agreed beside me. “Yes, we’re your friends, but while we’re on the friend thing, um, about Nate…”

Tillie shook her head, cutting Tate off. “Don’t. It’s okay, Tate, and he’s all yours. I just hope he won’t hate me all of her life, if you know what I mean.”

“He’ll come around.” I looked up at her. “I know him, and he’ll come around.” I don’t bother to brush off her giving Tate the green flag on Nate, because I didn’t want to hurt Tate.

“No, nope. I won’t go there again,” Tate said.

“So anyway.” Tillie shuffled in her seat. “I’m ready to spill everything. So the night at the cabin, after Nate and I had, you know, he went downstairs to make us something to eat. I got up to wander around the room to burn time and ended up finding myself in the closet, where I found a small lock box. I opened it and all these photos were in there—that I still have. So I came across this one, and it was a woman. Young, tender, beautiful. She had long blonde hair and gentle but mischievous eyes. She was extremely young. There was a man standing beside her, double her size with his arm draped around her shoulder. There was something about the woman that drew me to her. She felt—familiar. In the photo, she was visibly pregnant, and I turned it over to see if there were any names on the back, and there was.” She took a deep breath. “It said Katsia Steprum—pregnant with expected due date: November 18th. I remember just… being rooted to the ground. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t think, and I didn’t know why. So her expected due date was my birthday? I mean, how many times do babies come on their due date…”

“Jesus…” I whispered, chills breaking out over my skin. “Keep going.”

“So I put the rest of the photos into my back pocket and waited on the bed for Nate to get back to ask him about the photo I found. When he came back in, carrying two plates filled with food, his eyes dropped to the photo that was in my hand and then he cussed, his head tilting up to the ceiling…

“Fuck.” Nate walked farther into the bedroom and kicked the door closed so hard a photo fell from the wall and smashed.

“Is this? Has this got something to do with me?” I asked him, lifting my hand that held the image.

He put the plates on the bedside table and took a seat beside me on the edge of the bed. The blankets were still ruffled from our two-hour binge fest, and I wore nothing but his shirt with my hair wild all over the top of my head, but in this moment—none of the feelings I was feeling earlier mattered. I needed to know about this image and why I was so drawn to it.

He looked back at me and licked his bottom lip. “Yes.”

“Yes—what?”

“Yes, that is you, and yes, that bitch is your mom.”

“What!” I shot off the bed and threw the photo away like it had caught on fire. “Nope. No way!”

Nate stood up and readjusted himself through his grey sweats. His skin still glistened. “Yes way, can we do this tomorrow?”

“So yeah. We didn’t do it tomorrow, I urged him for answers until we had a huge fight— ”

“—I remembered that fight. I could hear you both from upstairs.”

Tillie nodded. “Yep. Then I texted Peyton to see if she knew—which she did, of course.” Tillie wiped the tears from her face. “Turns out, Katsia had both of us and gave both of us to the same family. Why? I don’t know. My adoptive mom was a junkie and my dad used to beat me—and Peyton. I don’t know the depths of why, and the story which centers around her, but—”

“Holy fuck, Katsia is your mom. How old was she when she had you and Peyton?”

Tillie laughed. “Huh, very fucking young. Must have been thirteen with Peyton and around seventeen or sixteen with me. I don’t know what the age gap with Peyton and Jase is, but I know they’re not born in the same year.”

“What about the man in the photo? Do you know who that was?” I asked, pushing my plate away. I had suddenly lost my appetite.

Tillie shook her head. “Something else I haven’t gotten to the bottom of yet, either!”

“Well, this is a little messed up. So what happened and how did you get to Perdita?”

Tillie leaned into her chair and tucked a loose strand of faded pink hair behind her ear.

“She came for me, and I don’t know why. I still don’t. I was almost home and a white van pulled up and threw me inside and then I woke up in Perdita. She didn’t know I was pregnant at the time, but when she found out, it only made her more interested,” Tillie paused. “Just for the record, worst mother ever.”