Chapter Twenty

Sylvia dumped some spaghetti on each plate, then looked down at her cold, rather unappetizing concoction. She had hoped the food will come out looking better but she could tell she had been wrong.

She’d had to improvise for ingredients. She’d used rice noodles for pasta, and since she hadn’t found a handy can of marinara sauce or even tomato paste, she’d improvised by smashing fresh tomatoes into a rudimentary sauce. She’d added a mishmash of chopped mystery meat she’d found in the fridge with whatever spices she could find in the kitchen, and hoped for the best.

All right, so she wasn’t always the best cook—except where candy was concerned—but even she couldn’t ruin something as simple as spaghetti, she hoped.

She took a bite, and discovered she was wrong.

It was awful. And cold, in the bargain. She nearly choked it out, then covered up her gag reflex with a cough before she managed to swallow it down. “Wow,” she managed to say.

Xavier took a bite and blanched. Standing up, he threw