One Minute Younger Always Second Best Until I Walked Out the Door novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Burn the File

Cassia did not run.

She lowered the phone, turned, and walked down the hall in her soft shoes.

"Stop her," my father said from the chair.

Colt did not move.

I had the ledger in my arms and the midwife's slip inside my shirt, and I could have caught her at the kitchen door.

I did not, because I knew what she would say.

"It's already gone somewhere you can't reach," Cassia said over her shoulder. "Nobody has to know what you said, Roxana. I meant that. I decide who knows."

The back door shut.

A small car started in the drive.

My brother stood in the study with his mouth open and no sound in it.

I took the black phone out of my pocket and pressed it once.

Jonas came through the kitchen in a minute and a half, as he had said he would.

He did not ask a single question.

He looked at my face, at the book, and at my brother's hands, and he put himself between us and said, "We're leaving."

Colt said nothing as we passed.

I did not look at my father.

It was after four when we reached Black Creek.

Jonas drove with one hand and held mine with the other, and he did not let go once.

Neither of us spoke until we were on the third floor, in the room under the roof, with the lamp lit and the whole wall of my pencil in front of us.

I set the ledger on the bed.

I took out the folded half sheet and laid it on the pillow.

Jonas stood at the foot of the bed with his hands open.

"You were born first," he said.

"I was born first."

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