East squeezes my thigh and Lincoln nods at me.
“Okay, well I’ll keep digging.”
I look around at each of them, waiting for someone to start talking, but I’m met with deafening silence. “What about the note?”
“The note…” Lincoln starts, before looking up to the ceiling as if looking for the right words. I knew there was a fucking note! I knew it. Asshole. “The note, the flowers, the dress… They’re all from the same people.”
I think back to all of the things I’ve received with the black cards. “Right? But that doesn’t explain much. Why am I out of time? Out of time for what? I feel like I’m missing a huge chunk of information here.”
“The people who sent you all those things are part of the same organization. They want you to join their ranks. You’re a legacy, and legacies don’t escape them.” He looks me directly in the eye and I see a glimpse of the boy I once knew, but then the shutters come down. In a blink he’s back to this new version of himself. “They are the reason we tried to make you leave. The reason we did everything we’ve done since you arrived. You’re not safe here. Stalker or not. The Knights Society is the bigger threat to you right now.”
“The Knights Society?” I laugh, glancing around at their somber faces. That’s what Smithy called them too, and as much as I want to believe him, believe them, it still all just sounds made up. Like something out of a movie. “Are you fucking with me right now? Trying to get me to forget, or figure, that you’ve all been giant assholes the last few months with a made up what? Secret society? I’m a lot of things, Lincoln, but stupid isn’t one of them.”
He looks from me to East and then Finley. “This is why I said there was no point in telling her.” He pushes back his stool and paces the floor. “The Knights Society is very real. I wish for all our sakes this was some elaborate ruse, that I was making it up, that it was all a ploy to fuck with you some more, but it’s not. You should be thankful Stone made the deal he did before you left. It’s the only thing that’s bought you this much time.”
It’s like the room sucks in a breath at his words. “My dad? What are you talking about, Lincoln?”
He pauses to stand and stare at me for a minute before clenching his hands into fists at his sides. “Your dad was a part of TKS. So was your mom. Just like all of our parents. We’re all legacies. Three other families in The Cove make up the board for the sect here, but their reach spans, at least, nationwide. They are the chess players behind everything that happens. They are the real monsters in your closet, the demons that live under your bed, and even though you think you’re free, I promise you… they’ve had more control over your life than you can ever think possible. They are everywhere, and once they have their claws in you, you can never escape.”
I clasp my throat, trying to take what he’s saying seriously. He certainly believes what he’s saying, and from the looks around the room, so do the others. There’s no way my dad would have been wrapped up in something like this.
This can’t be real, right? Secret societies or whatever this is are just crazy things you read about in books.
“Okay, so what do I do?” I ask, trying to work out what it is they’re not saying.
Lincoln looks me dead in the eye and puts his hands in his pockets. “You do what we’ve been trying to make you do all along. You leave.”
I throw my hands up in the air, exasperated. This all ties into what Smithy said, but it’s just so hard to believe. “And this, right here, is exactly why I don’t believe what you’re saying. You’ve wanted me gone since I got back here, this is just another ploy.”
“Why else would we want you gone?” Lincoln yells, and I startle.
“Lincoln, enough,” East says, touching my arm as if trying to soothe me.
Lincoln turns his cold look on his brother and narrows his eyes. “You don’t get to say when it’s enough. You’re already out. You chose that, remember?”
I’m obviously missing something, because Lincoln’s rage seems to grow as East deflates next to me. “You’re not a Knight?”
“No,” he says, and it looks like it hurts him to say it, so I decide not to ask any more questions on that for right now. I look over to Maverick. He’s still standing in the same position he was in earlier, watching everything play out, ready to throw hands if it’s needed. But he seems happy enough to sit back and observe.
Finley on the other hand, looks like he’s close to breaking point. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look like that.
“Let’s just dial it back a little, shall we?” Finley says to Lincoln who throws his hands in the air and leaves the room. Mav follows him after a nod from Finley, leaving me with just him and East.
“This is just madness.” I drop my head into my hands, trying to work out which way is up. How everything got so twisted. How exactly it is that my life ended up at this crux.
“Octavia, I know it’s hard to believe,” East says softly. “But Lincoln is telling you the truth.”
I look up at him, and I wish I saw something that made me think he was lying, but East hasn’t lied to me yet. Not that I know of. “None of this makes any sense, let alone sounds believable. Surely if they were this all-knowing, all-powerful, terrifying whatever it is they are, they’d just do what they want?”
“The Knights live by a code. It might be a fucked-up code, but it's still a code. To break it is to betray the Society,” Finley says quietly. “That is why they do what they do, the way they do it. We still don’t know exactly what they want from you, but trust me, it’s better to be out and not know.”
He clenches his fist as he stops speaking, and an icy drop of dread runs down my spine. They all seem so… scared. Which isn’t something I’d have thought I'd ever use to describe any of them.
“My dad really knew about all of this?”
East nods in response to my question, and my heart breaks a little more. I didn’t realize that was possible. “These knuckleheads have been trying to get you to leave to keep you safe.”
A quiet rage pools in my stomach at his words as a realization comes to me. “You knew what they were doing?”