Red Thorns (Thorns Duet 1)

maybe her mom knows and she asked her to hide her whereabouts from me.

The ringing of my phone drags me from my chaotic thoughts. Mrs. Weaver flashes on the dashboard.

I inhale deeply as I answer in the cheerful tone she expects, “Grandma.”

“Sebastian!” she coos, her tone honeyed, which means she has company.

Sure enough, chatter reaches me from her end.

“I’ll be right back, darling,” she tells someone. “My grandson is on the phone…yes…the star.”

There are some gleeful remarks that I want to shut the fucking door on, but I can’t, because no one hangs up on Debra Weaver. It’s the other way around.

Soon after, the sounds disappear and she hisses, “Where the hell are you?”

“Huh?”

“We have a gathering this evening. You and your uncle were supposed to show up.”

Fuck. We do.

I completely forgot about it in my attempts to find Naomi.

My mind speeds in different directions, searching for a plausible solution. “I have a late class. I can’t make it.”

“Late class with the seamstress’s daughter?” Her tone is deadly, and if we were face-to-face, I’d see the twin flames in her eyes.

“How do you know about that?” There’s no use denying it, and if I do, she’ll just use it as an invitation to strike harder.

“You really thought we would let our only heir on the loose after you kissed the girl on TV?”

A miscalculation on my part. I should’ve known that Grandma would grab hold of that behavior like a magnet. She doesn’t focus on what’s normal, but more on what tries to be normal when it, in fact, isn’t.

“She has nothing to do with this,” I say in my most neutral tone.

“You just proved that she does by defending her to me.”

I tighten my hold on the steering wheel. My grandparents are like sharks to blood, the moment they smell weakness, they latch on to it until they bring you down by using it.

That’s what they did to Dad and have been trying to do to me and Nate.

We held on for so long.

Or at least, my uncle did. Looks like I allowed them to smell my blood after all.

“You have two options, Sebastian. Drop the seamstress's daughter as gently or as cruelly as you prefer, or watch as she breaks her neck. Be here in fifteen.”

Beep.

I slam the breaks so hard, the car nearly topples over. My fist drives into the steering wheel and I’m surprised it doesn’t come off.

Pain reverberates in my knuckles, but it doesn’t compare to the warring state in my chest.

When my parents died in that car accident and my grandparents adopted me, I learned something.

In order to survive, I needed to play their sadistic games. I needed to act a certain way, speak a certain way, and even smile a certain way.

It’s all part of the social play the Weavers have excelled at for generations. To be able to carry on with the legacy, I had to be strong-minded enough to lead the family, but I wasn’t allowed to step out of the norm.