The Original Crowd (A Whole New Crowd 0.50)

“I called your friend Props and had him run some of the information for me. He verified what I found out on the internet. The adoption agency was recently funded and it’s only had one adoption go through: yours.

“Evanson?”

“Yeah,” Tray clipped out, I saw the hardness enter his eyes, “I think my dad was the one behind your adoption. I think Jace went to him and asked him to arrange the adoption. I think he just wanted you out of town and he didn’t care where you went. And I think it was my dad who approached your parents. A sizeable chunk of money showed up in your family’s account the day your adoption was legalized.”

“How much?” I asked, but I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know any of it.

“Ten million.”

It was too much. It was a fee. I’d been bought and paid for. I’d been a fucking business deal.

“Oh my God,” I said, my voice tiny.

But it was right. Everything clicked.

They adopted a seventeen year old female. They were never home. Mandy had let it slip that they’d been told that they were adopting someone.

“Tristan said an old friend had approached them and asked if they would consider adoption,” I murmured, my eyes glazed over. “Mandy told her that.”

“I think Mandy got the drugs from your dad. I think your dad was one of my dad’s local clients. He mentioned he had a few high rollers in town who liked prescription drugs. It makes sense now.” Tray bit out. “I’m sorry, Taryn.”

“It always goes back to drugs.” I didn’t know what I was

saying. So much. So much had happened. My life had been turned inside and out, and this was the last straw. “Is it always about drugs and money?!” I cried out.

“You’re asking the wrong person.”

“I wanted a new life,” I said faintly, standing, hugging myself. “I wanted a family. I was determined that I’d do anything for a family. I was going to be perfect. I was going to go to school. Not have sex. Not do…everything that I’d done before. And now…I got that family because of what I was doing before. Because Jace didn’t want me to find out all his dirty little secrets.”

“Taryn—”

“He bought me a fucking family! I was a fucking business deal!” I screamed.

“Not to Mandy and I’m pretty sure not to Austin. I don’t think you were a business deal to them.” Tray said firmly.

“Evans and Galverson together. It’s how they came up with the name.”

“Not real bright, but that’s my dad for you.”

I didn’t know what to think. What to feel. I didn’t even know what to believe or who to believe anymore.

“I don’t think it was Kevin.” I murmured, softly, thinking.

“What?”

“He’s always gone on some kind of medical conferences or at the hospital. I don’t think it was him at all. It’s Shelley.” Shelley who couldn’t handle disciplining a fourteen year old. Who made Mandy do the dirty work. Either Mandy or me. Oh no. It wasn’t Kevin at all—this was all Shelley. And I’d bet anything that she first got the drugs from her doctor husband, but he wasn’t around enough to keep the prescriptions filled. So she ran to Tray’s dad.

Who knows, maybe they’d had a thing going on. Maybe it was another reason for his mom’s suicide attempt.

“I feel sick,” I muttered, right before I dashed to the bathroom and actually was sick.

My insides wanted out. Again. Again and again and again.

There weren’t any tears. Not after everything. Brian. My breakdown. And now this…I was just sick and more determined.

I wanted everyone to go down.

Jace.