Page 84 of Shadows of Nightshade
“Okay…” This was extremely confusing—I was very bad at names, and I’d probably forget them as soon as dinner was over. Learning one name per person was enough. “I’m Bianca?”
What else was I supposed to say?
“Are you sure?” Damen was leaning on the table.
What was he going on about? At least I wasn’t alone in thinking he was peculiar. Everyone else was clearly in agreement. “I’m pretty sure that I’m Bianca,” I answered. I took another slow bite of my chicken, allowing the flavors of the heavenly sauce to linger on my taste buds.
He was such a strange man.
“What about Bailey?” he asked.
“Damen!” Julian slapped his hand on the table, causing the vegetables on his sad, meat-free plate to bounce. “What in the world are you doing?”
“Isn’t that an alcoholic beverage?” I licked my fingers. I’d seen some in the kitchen earlier. Maybe Damen was letting his hobby get to his head. “It’s a cute name though.”
“Bailey was Mu,” Damen responded. “Before he died in this life.”
“Oh.” I twisted the cloth napkin resting over my thighs as my humor faded. Why would he bring up something so depressing during dinner? No wonder Julian was upset.
And I’d been ignorant. “S-sorry.”
“There’s no reason to be sorry.” Damen waved away my apology, remaining unfazed at the other three men glaring daggers at him. “I was just curious to know if you’d heard of him.”
I shook my head. Why would I have?
“On another note”—Damen looked at Titus—“we’ve been looking into some items regarding your identification papers.”
I straightened in my seat. Could they fix it?
“To be honest, it’s been difficult to track down anything without being too obvious,” Damen continued. He sighed and ran his hand over his face. “You have no copies of any documents at the main office, and we’re not sure where to begin. Are you sure we can’t just contact your adoptive parents?”
“No!” I shook my head. “I don’t want to rely on them.”
I was making things more difficult, but to be fair, I hadn’tasked them to fix my paperwork issues. That was something the boys had taken on themselves.
Besides, I was almost one hundred percent positive my adoptive parents did not have legal paperwork for me either. At least, not anything that would stand up to this group’s eagle-eyed scrutiny.
They’d ask questions. They’d learn more about me than I wanted them to know.
And no one would ever look at me the same way again.
Wouldn’t it be better if… “Can’t we just find replacements?”
“It’s possible,” Miles interjected, understanding dawning on his expression. “Do you know where you were born? What hospital?”
“What…” They looked at me, and my mouth went dry. I shook my head. “What about just making new ones?”
“New papers?” Miles was frowning—apparently, I was insulting his legal sensibilities. “You mean fake papers?”
“We can do that,” Titus interjected, not abashed. “But why?”
“But they’d need to be real!” I added. “Not fake!” Once I finally started working, I refused to go to jail for tax fraud. I was a law-abiding citizen! Plus, the thought of being forever locked away in an iron prison filled me with dread.
Titus’s lips turned down in disapproval. “That’d be harder.”
How hard could it actually be? All they had to do was bribe a few hospital administrators, a handful of people at the Social Security Administration, and some folks at the International Revenue Service. I was planning on keeping my own identity and was righting a gross injustice.
Would any of that, technically, be breaking the law?
