[Lily] “Why would you show me this?” As the photographer continues to snap photos of the entire interaction, I fight to hold my anger down as if my family’s dishonor was nothing more than entertainment. “Were you trying to hurt me?” Madison’s shock looks genuine enough, but Evie’s glee-filed leer from across the room ruins the effect as the other Legacies gather around, expressing looks of dour sympathy. “Is this all just some sick joke to you?” “I don’t understand?” Madison looks truly shocked. “We at St. Claire are very proud of this image. It won a Pulitzer.” “That’s great!” I exclaim. There is another flash and I turn on the photographer. “Stop taking my photo!” I scream at him. He takes another photo. I step forward. Atticus steps between us. “The young lady said to stop.” His voice is hard and flat. The photographer takes a step away from the imperious force which is Atticus Preston, growing smaller in his shadow. “I...I’m just doing my job,” he sputters, glancing o

[Lily]Atticus must have lost his mind.Why on earth did he get so angry? He ruined the photoshoot and hurt Link, who was doing absolutely nothing wrong. "Atticus!" I shout. His behavior is scaring me. "What are you doing? Where are you taking me?""Away from those vipers!" He grumbles, holding me tighter, almost possessively. "I just...I don't know Lily." He almost seems to deflate as she says this. "The way that they were looking at you...The way they were having you pose it was...it was wrong."He grows very quiet after that. We had agreed to be friends, secret friends, but this felt like something different. Or like he wishes it was something different. Just like when he kissed me in the woods. This doesn't feel like friendship. This feels like jealousy. But he has Evie. He says he needs her. Is it possible that his needs have changed?Atticus hails a taxi. As soon as it arrives, he scoots me into the back seat with him and gives the driver an address uptown. We drive there in

"Oh." I'm afraid to speak. My body feels warm at the memory of his lips on mine from the kiss he stole. I hate how I still think about it, how I can still feel him pressing me against the tree. "Kissing you like that wasn't fair," he looks away for a moment, biting his lip, and then turning back to me he adds. "It wasn't kind. You are my friend, and I took my fear, anger, and frustration out on you. I had learned some hard news and then seeing what they did to you and I just..." he pauses, seeing the look on my face, and then looks away again. "None of that is a good excuse for being abusive towards you. You deserved better.”“Yeah, it really sucked,” I snark at him, feeling petty. “Is that the best you’ve got, Ace?” I snap the end of his nickname at him and his nostrils flare in irritation at the sound of it. “Because if that is the best you'll need to try a lot harder. It didn’t feel friendly at all. It felt like an attack.”Silence falls between us again as my words ring out in the

[Atticus]There is something to be said about seeing a familiar thing through someone else’s eyes. The look of amazement on Liliana’s face, when she peered out over all of New York City, will last me a lifetime. Despite being a New Yorker for 5 years, she had never been to the Empire State Building. “We’re so high!” She grins like a small child showing a miracle. I hold her a little tighter and she leans into me. “This is incredible,” she sighs, and I breathe in her delicious scent underneath the smell of her peppermint toothpaste and the rose blossom smell of her corsage. “My mother loved this view,” I confess, my heart aching as I remember how she held me up, pointing to her favorite landmarks. &ld

[Lily]Atticus would not look at me for the entire ride to Central Park. I wasn’t sure what I did wrong, but I can feel a new distance between us. After how close were were just moments before, I don’t understand what happened to change things. Except for the kiss. That was not a “friend” kiss. The other legacies are all gathered at a large table. The restaurant is closed except for us, which feels strange because this is a world-famous restaurant in a world-famous park in the center of New York City in the middle of the day. Usually, a place like this would be packed with people who made reservations months before. And yet here we are, eating lunch, the whole place to ourselves. How much money did it take to make this happen? How much influence and power? Has this power been mine all alone as an Adare? Would using my grandfather’s name opened doors like this for me in the past if I had felt confident enough to use it?Madison wasted no time waiting. As soon as we were within ears