Switched (17 page)

“No. He’s mänsklig,” Finn answered, as if I would understand.

“What does that mean?” I furrowed my brow at him.

“It means he’s not your brother,” Finn replied glibly and made a step towards the door. “Is there anything you need before I go?”

I was disappointed by his abrupt decision to go, especially when I felt so isolated and confused, but I had no reason to keep him. Still hugging myself tightly, I shook my head and sat back on the bed. Finn nodded and headed to the door. Instead of leaving, he paused and looked back at me.

“Are you going to be alright with all of this?” Finn asked, looking at me very seriously.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “This wasn’t all what I had expected.” I had no idea what I thought this would be like, but it wasn’t this at all. It was far grander and far worse than anything I had envisioned. “I just… I feel like I’m in the
Princess Diaries
, if Julie Andrews had been a thief.”

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“Mmm,” Finn murmured knowingly and walked back over towards me. He sat on the bed next to me and crossed his arms over his chest. “I know the way life is a hard concept for some.”

“They’re grifters, Finn.” I swallowed hard. “That’s all they are. I’m just a means to swindling money out of rich people. Jokes on her, though. My family’s not that rich.”

“I can assure you that you are much more than that to her, much more,” Finn told me, looking at me intently. “Elora is a complicated woman, and showing emotion doesn’t come easy for her. But she is a good woman.

Regardless of whether your have money or not, you will have a place here.

Always. And in the end, it’s up to you if you even want to bring any money.”

“Yeah?” I looked at him hopefully.

“Yes,” he promised with small smile. “But right now, you look exhausted. Get some sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

Finn helped me get settled into my room. My closet was massive and over-stocked, but he knew exactly where my pajamas were at. He taught me how to close the blinds for my windows, which were run by remote control. He practically tucked me into bed, and I was very tempted to ask him to stay with me, but I knew what his answer would be. Besides that, he’d gotten even less sleep than I had and needed to get to his own bed and rest.

Once he left, I pulled the covers tightly to me and tried not to let this all get to me. I was starting to think that Matt and Maggie might have been the only people that loved me for me, and now I was supposed to steal from them.

Even if it wasn’t really stealing. I knew they would freely give me anything I asked for, and that hurt worse. More than that, I was starting to think that maybe the only thing I really wanted was to be back at home with them.

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11

In new places, I usually slept horribly, but the last few days had been so draining, that I slept surprisingly soundly. In fact, I was so out that I barely even heard the knocking at my door. It started out meek and timid, but it got louder until I couldn’t ignore it. Groggily, I stumbled out of bed and nearly tripped over the furniture on my way to the door. It was dark in my room and I was unfamiliar with my surroundings.

I opened my bedroom door, preparing to eviscerate whoever had disturbed me from my slumber. Then I saw Rhys, looking unfairly attractive, standing in my doorway. He was grinning broadly and his blue eyes were dancing. When he realized I’d been sleeping, he looked mildly apologetic, but it didn’t really put a damper on his mood.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” Rhys apologized insincerely. “I just wanted to see how you were doing, how you liked it here.”

“I don’t know,” I yawned and crossed my arms over my chest. My hair had to be terrible mess, and I probably looked like hell, so I hid as much of my body as I could behind the door. “It’s too soon to tell yet. I’ve mostly been sleeping.”

“You like the stuff?” Rhys asked, undeterred by my apparent tiredness.

“I picked out everything that I liked, which I know sounds kind of vain. I asked for some input from Rhiannon, because she’s a girl, but it’s still so hard to pick out stuff for someone you’ve never met.”

“No, it all looks really good. You did a good job.” I rubbed my eyes and yawned again. “But I need to shower or something. I just woke up.”

“Oh right,” Rhys nodded. “I understand. My room is right there.” He pointed his thumb at a door almost directly across from mine. “So if you need anything… I’m right here.” He looked kind of embarrassed. “Sorry. I just got done with school, and I didn’t have a chance to talk to you this morning. But…

yeah. I’ll leave you be.”

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“Wait. You just got done with school?” I furrowed my brow, trying to understand. “Does that mean you’re a tracker?”

“No.” It was his turn to look confused. “I’m mänks.” When he saw the perplexed look on my face, he corrected himself. “Sorry. It’s just short for mänsklig.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I demanded, growing exasperated.

“They’ll explain it to you later,” Rhys shrugged. “Anyway, I should let you wake up. If I’m not in my room, I’ll be downstairs, getting some food.”

“Thanks,”

I

nodded.

Rhys turned and walked down the hall, whistling a song I didn’t recognize. I shut my door, wishing I could understand this all better. I had half-expected to fall asleep and wake up from all of this. None of this could be really happening. It didn’t make sense. I was a Trylle Princess to a grifter empire, and I had a mänsklig living across the hall from me, whatever the hell that meant.

I felt slightly better after my nap, and I hoped that a shower would improve things even more. Feeling the hot water pound on my skin somehow had an adverse effect. It gave me time to think. I lived in this amazing stunning house with these cold, indifferent people, and the price of admission was stealing from the only people that cared about me. Sure, Finn was here, but he had made it perfectly clear that his only interest in me was business. Why should I stay here?

Part of the reason I had decided to come here in the first place was so I could give Matt a better life. Without me, it would undoubtedly be easier. But the way I had left, he was probably going mad with worry. He wouldn’t sleep for a week. I couldn’t just leave him like that, not without an explanation. And maybe, I couldn’t leave him at all.

I went through my closet, looking for something to wear. Most of the clothes seemed too fancy for me. Not that I had grown up wearing rags or anything. In fact, if my mother… er, Kim hadn’t gone crazy and left, these would be exactly the kind of clothes I’d be expected to wear now. All high class 126

fashion pieces. Eventually, I managed to dig up a simple skirt and shirt that would resemble something I’d actually wear.

I was starving, so I decided that I should try and find the kitchen. The floors were cold tile under my feet, and strangely, I had yet so see any rugs or carpet in the entire house. Admittedly, I had never been fond of the feel carpet on my feet, or really the feel of anything on them. When I thought back to my closet, as large and full as it had been, there hadn’t been any shoes. It must be a Trylle thing, and that thought was oddly comforting. I was part of something.

The bottom of the stairs led directly into the entryway, but to the left, below the wing where I lived, there was the living room. A fire place filled the partial wall separating it from an elegant dining room. The furniture appeared to be hand crafted wood and upholstered with white. In here, the floors were all smooth golden wood, and the colors were in earth tones. Everything was aimed towards the glass wall, forcing you to admire the view.

“Nice digs, right?” Rhys commented, and I whirled around to find him standing behind me, smiling. “Elora built this place ten years ago. She’s pretty proud of it.”

“I bet.” I looked around the room appreciatively. “She definitely has good taste.”

“Yeah,” Rhys shrugged. “You gotta be hungry, though. Come on. I’ll whip you up something in the kitchen.” He started walking out of the room, and I followed after him. “You’ll probably hate what I make, though. You’re into all that health food junk like everybody else, right?”

“I don’t know.” I had never thought of myself as a health nut, but the things I preferred tended to be organic and vegan. It had never been by choice, though. It was just the way it was. “I like natural things, I guess.”

He nodded knowingly as he led me past the ornate dining room into a massive kitchen. There were two professional grade stoves, two massive stainless steel fridges, a gigantic island in the center, and more cupboard space than I had my entire house. Rhys went over to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of water.

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“Water, right?” Rhys held it out to me, and I took it from him. “I’m really not the best cook, but you’ll have to settle for me. The chef is off today.”

“You have a chef?” I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not, but in a place like this, they definitely had some kind of staff.

“Yeah, part-time.” Rhys took a drink from his Mountain Dew, then set it on the island and went to the other fridge to start rooting around. “Just weekends, but that’s because it’s usually when we entertain. I don’t know what Elora eats during the week, but I’m on a fend-for-yourself basis.”

I leaned on the island, drinking my water. I realized this kitchen reminded me of the one in our house in the Hamptons, the one Kim had attempted filicide in, but that one had been smaller. If she hadn’t left, this is probably how I would’ve been raised. In fact, I’m sure this is how she had been brought up. Her parents died when I was seven, but their house had been overly grand, like this one. They often made comments to Maggie about how she raised me and Matt, but Maggie had really attempted to raise us as a normal family, even though we weren’t.

Kim’s parents had obviously been incredibly loaded, and they only had her and another daughter, who I think had married some European playboy and lived in France or Spain or something. When they died, they had to have left money for Matt and I. And our father’s parents had died before I was born, and there had to be inheritance from that as well. The more I thought about, the more I started thinking that Maggie had way more money than she let on.

She and Matt had never talked about it, but we both most have a pretty large trust set up.

Maggie easily could’ve lived like this. A beautiful house somewhere with a nanny raising Matt and me. She could’ve had the best cars, and paid off every school that tried to expel me. As it was, she had never really fought any of my punishments because she thought they were fair and I needed to learn something. She could’ve just added a wing to a school, and sent me off there to work it out myself. Instead, she had made the choice that taking care of me herself was more important than spending money. Before she had custody of 128

me, she had been working because she wanted to, not because she needed to.

She had made a choice that my own mother never would have.

“So you like shitake mushrooms, right?” Rhys was saying. He had been pulling things out of the fridge, but I had been too lost in thought to notice. His arms were overflowing with vegetables.

“Uh, yeah, I love mushrooms.” I straightened up and tried see what all he had, but for the most part, it looked like things I enjoyed.

“Excellent.” Rhys grinned at me and dropped his armload of food into the kitchen sink. “I’m going to make you the best stir fry you’ve ever tasted.”

He went about chopping things up, and I offered to help him, but he insisted that he could handle it. The whole time, he talked amicably about his new motorcycle he’d gotten last week. He’d taken it out for a spin just before he came in, and he mentioned all sorts of technical terms that I didn’t understand. I tried to keep up with it, but all I ever knew about motorcycles is that they went fast and I liked it.

“What are you making in here?” Finn came into the kitchen, sounding vaguely disgusted. His hair was damp from a recent shower, and he smelled like the grass after a rain, only sweeter. He walked past me without even a glance in my direction and went over to where Rhys had thrown everything into a wok on the stove.

“Stir fry!” Rhys proclaimed.

“Really?” Finn leaned over his shoulder and peered down at the ingredients in the pan. Rhys moved to the side a little so Finn could reach in and grab something out of it. He sniffed it, then popped it into his mouth.

“Well, it’s not terrible.”

“Stop my beating heart!” Rhys put his hand over his heart and feigned astonishment. “Has my food passed the test of the hardest food critic in the land?”

“No. I just said it wasn’t terrible.” Finn shook his head at Rhys’s dramatics and went to the fridge to get a bottle of water. “And I’m certain that Elora is a much harsher food critic than I’ll ever be.”

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“That’s probably true, but she’s never let me cook for her,” Rhys admitted, shaking the wok to stir up the vegetables more.

“You really shouldn’t let him cook for you,” Finn advised, looking at me for the first time. “He gave me food poisoning once.”

“You cannot get food poisoning from an orange!” Rhys protested and looked back at him. “It’s just not possible! And even if you can, I just
handed
you the orange. I didn’t even have a chance to contaminate it!”

“I don’t know.” Finn shrugged. A smile was creeping up, and I could tell he was amused by how much Rhys was getting worked up.

“You don’t even eat the part I touched! You peeled it and threw the skin away!” Rhys sounded exasperated. He wasn’t paying attention to the wok as he struggled to convince us of his innocence, and a flame licked up from the food.

“Food’s on fire,” Finn nodded to the stove.

“Dammit!” Rhys got a glass of water and splashed it in the stir fry, and I was starting to question how good this was going to taste when he was done with it.

“See?” Finn looked at me, and I smiled. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Yeah, I slept great,” I nodded.

“Good.” He was standing next to me, looking as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it. He just nodded and walked out of the kitchen.