Page 33 of The Other Side of Green

What the hell had Grams left and why had she left it here?

I couldn’t deny it, a flicker of hope caught alight in my chest. Maybe Grams knew the truth? Maybe she’d stored all the secrets she’d kept here for me to find.

Although why hadn’t the woman just told me everything from the start?

Why had I been kept in the dark my whole life?

I stared out the window at the small back yard, questions brewing and storming in my head, while Patience hummed and fussed in a teak dresser.

All the times that Luca and Jack had banged through the back door as kids, covered in mud and God knows what else their scrapes had got them into, and Grams had made them wash their hands and sit at the table and fed them both, her gaze watchful and critical. Had she known?

Was that why she always fed Jack, looked out for him, because she knew he was half my brother?

Bile rose up my throat.

“She kept a lot of secrets,” I said to Patience’s rear end as she bent down, her head almost in the cupboard.

“Secrets.” She twisted her neck to look at me. “Or just things she didn’t want people to know?”

“Isn’t that a secret then? I narrowed my gaze before pouncing on the tail of the conversation. “What wouldn’t she want people to know?” Like who the fuck my dad is?

Patience sighed and straightened up, a battered shoe box in her hand. “You know what folk are like round here. Everyone knows everything.”

“Not everything,” I grumbled under my breath as she shuffled over in her carpet slippers and handed me the brown box. It had my name written in Grams’ hand on the front. A tear slipped fast down my cheek, escaping before I even knew it was there. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

A warm hand landed on my shoulder. “You aren’t alone.”

Her words made my chest ache with hollow emptiness. I was very much alone.

“No sign of your mama?”

I snorted and wiped at my nose with the back of my hand. “No.”

Patience opened her mouth to impart another pearl of wisdom, no doubt something bible based and enriching, but the back door slammed open making us both startle.

“Frederick!” She diminished as a tall and lanky boy charged into the kitchen.

“Lyra! I’m glad you’re here.” Frederick ignored his grandmother. He’d grown. His adolescent body all gangly like a giraffe that couldn’t quite control its limbs.

“What?”

His skin shone with sweaty exertion. “It’s Luca. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“What?” I pushed out my chair, clutching Grams’ box to my chest.

“He’s fighting Jack Cross; someone has called the cops.”

Fuck.

Chapter Nine

Jack

Four years ago, Luca Lennox had caught me unawares.

This time I’d been expecting it.

Not to say his right hook didn’t catch me on the chin, making me stagger back as he whirled closer into my space. Jeez, was he a goddamn ninja now or something?