Games Untold (The Inheritance Games #5)

Then

Then

O bjectively, there are worse places to be than on a private jet with Nash Hawthorne. He sits on one side of the aisle, and I sit on the other. We are grown-ups on a mission. That mission just took us to my hometown, and it’s getting ready to take us to Costa Rica.

Costa Rica. I don’t know whose life I’m living, but it’s definitely not mine.

Across the aisle of the private jet , Nash is looking out a window into open sky, and I’m reminded that Nash Hawthorne is wide open spaces and barely damp dirt, the smell of leather and the heat of the sun. Right now, he needs to shave.

I hope he doesn’t.

“You’ll want to keep ahold of that letter.” Nash’s voice rolls over me like wind through wheat. “And the envelope,” he adds. “Hawthornes are awfully fond of invisible ink.”

We are on a Hawthorne hunt. The homeless man who used to play chess in the park with my sister is a secret, not-actually-dead Hawthorne, and honestly? That is not the strangest thing about my life right now.

My hair is brown. Just… brown. I’m wearing it braided back from my face, but unfortunately, I suck at braiding. Being respectable doesn’t come easily to me. I can’t even sit with my legs on the floor. They’re tucked up under my body in this oversized, leather, private jet seat.

I’m trying my best to be something I’m not—for Avery’s sake. I keep looking out the window, and then looking at Nash, and I really, really hope he doesn’t have time to shave any time soon.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I say, as his eyes settle comfortably on mine. “But your family is weird. And that’s coming from me .”

The difference is that Hawthornes are weird the way that Stonehenge is weird—magnificent and inexplicable. Hawthornes are invisible-ink weird. Hidden-passageways and secret-traditions weird. They are—and this is an actual example—I-dare-you-to-lick-that-Picasso weird.

“I don’t know,” Nash says. “You never struck me as all that odd.”

I am blue hair and black nails, skulls and sparkles—or at least, I was. “You’re just saying that because I’m playing normal now.”

Nash Hawthorne’s shrugs should be considered deadly weapons. The man shrugs, and it is impossible not to imagine him shirtless. “You seemed normal enough before,” he tells me.

I have spent my entire life wanting to be normal and special , wanting to be both of those things at the exact same time, even though they are pretty much opposites.

“I guess no matter what,” I say softly, “I’m still me.”

“Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing, darlin’.” Nash leans across the aisle, catching my gaze and holding it.

“Don’t call me darling,” I tell him, like I’m not counting the rings in his eyes.

“My apologies.” Nash does not sound sorry. I get the sense that he’d rather I be glaring at him than be sad. “Is Libby short for Elizabeth?”

“No.” I mean to stop there. I really do. “I’m pretty sure my mom thought it was short for Little Bitch.” This is exactly why I am an optimist. I’ve always had to be one. Sometimes, believing the best in people who don’t deserve it, believing that they love you even if they don’t—sometimes, that’s all a person can do to survive. “Sorry,” I say. “I guess going back home got to me more than I thought.”

Nash moves across the aisle to sit next to me. He puts his hand under my chin and raises my eyes to meet his. “Don’t you ever apologize for the things you’ve survived.”

There are moments in life when time slows down, when the world fades away until the only thing that exists is two people, looking at each other. Nash. Me.

After an eternity and then some—but not nearly long enough—he leans across me to flip up the shade on my window. “Look out there.”

I turn and stare at the brilliant green-blue ocean below, even though all I really want to be looking at is him. All my hands want to do is touch his face, feel the grit of his more-than-just-five-o’clock-shadow beneath my fingers.

Whoa there, Libby!

I reel it back in. Outside the plane window, I can see land. Trees, mostly, and the very top of a beautiful, ancient, work-of-art kind of building coming into view.

“What’s that?” I ask when what I’m really thinking is that Nash Hawthorne isn’t weird—not my kind of weird and not the Hawthorne kind, either. Mr. Motorcycle Cowboy has never worried about being normal or tried to be special. Unlike his brothers, this man has never in his life dared someone to lick a Picasso.

Nash Hawthorne just is . He’s wide-open spaces and barely damp dirt and here . His hand finds its way to the back of my neck, beneath my messy, messy braid, and he answers my question like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

What’s that?

“Cartago.”