Do you want to know the real me?
My story started once upon a time when I kissed a boy who didn’t belong to me. I tried to fix what I broke, but fell deeper in love. I promised myself I would be nothing like my mother, who cheated, and stole, and lied, who raised me to do the same. I promised I would be different.
Trying to be better, I was worse.
I’m a cheater.
I’m a liar.
I’m a coward.
I’m a thief.
I stole his happily ever after when I slept with him on his wedding day, then I married a man I didn’t love to run from my fate, a man who raped me, a man I still had feelings for, a man I wanted so badly to be a hero.
Because then maybe that meant I was less of a victim.
I was only given one story, and you wrote the ending before you ever heard my beginning.
But, dear world…
YOU. DON’T. GET. TO. DICTATE. MY. PAIN.
You don’t get to tell me how I have to behave just so I can wear the mantle of victim.
I am a victim.
I was raped.
Even if I went back to him a thousand times.
Even if I fell in love with him a thousand more times.
It still fucking happened.
You don’t get to tell me that because I made a mistake, it makes me less of a victim.
You don’t get to tell me that.
Dear world, I don’t think you’re the villain either.
I think our roles have become corrupted.
It’s too easy to pretend they aren’t.
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if everything was black and white?
If we hated who we were supposed to hate, and loved who we were supposed to love?
But…if I hated who I was supposed to hate, then I never would have loved who I shouldn’t have.
I never would have loved him.
So, dear world.
I am not Cinderella.
I am not a stepsister.
I am not the woman I hoped to be.
I am more.
My name is Storybook Hale, and I won’t fix what I’ve broken. I’m not hiding anymore.
So, world, if you’ve ever been given one story when someone has been given a thousand.
Or if you’ve given a thousand when you should have given just one…
Please help me.
I don’t want to lose everything when I’m so close to having it all.
My happily ever after is held hostage and I need your help.
Seventy
GRAY
Story.
Story.
Story.
I thought I was dreaming when I heard Story’s name being chanted, thought my nightmares were tormenting me. The sun was setting on the night of the Swan Swell, my grandfather’s favorite holiday, and the moment he’d been planning for decades.
The day we’d been waiting for, my revenge nearly complete.
And hollow.
Because the love of my life was dead.
“Your bastard siblings are here,” my grandfather said, coming into my wing.
I didn’t lift my eyes to meet his. “And? Come to gloat about your dynasty some more?”
I stood, going to my grandfather. A rare moment where he was alone with me—he’s never alone with me, maybe he could feel the murder beneath my fingertips. He’d felt it beneath his own, after all.
My gaze glanced to a letter opener—when two guards rushed in, sweaty. “There’s a crowd outside the gates. They’re trying to break through the gates—we caught her. Story—”
My grandfather made a noise, silencing them. Her name was electricity on my spine.
But I didn’t believe it.
Not even when they dragged a woman in the room, her long, white dress flowing across the hardwood.
Story?
It can’t be her.
My heart didn’t recognize the woman, and suspicion crept. Another one of my grandfather’s tricks.
She lifted her head; beneath her white, feathery mask, I knew those eyes.
It was not my wife.
My grandfather’s eyes narrowed. “Lottie du Lac, your mother has been looking for you.”
She yanked her arm free of Beryl, and spat in his face. That wasn’t the Lottie I remembered. My grandfather wiped the spit from his cheek.
“Husband and wife, finally back together.” He smiled viciously. “You look so perfect together.”
Story.
Story.
Story.
The chanting continued, growing louder, and then a loud crash followed. The guards’ eyes widened.
“They’ve broken through,” one said.
My grandfather clenched his jaw, nostrils flared. “This will not stop what I have planned.” My grandfather left to go deal with it, guards following.
“Why are you here?” I gritted. “Was a party really so important?”
“Grayson!” Lottie turned, grabbing my arm. “We have to go before your grandfather gets back. Story and I—”
“Don’t you ever say her name.” I pulled my arm free.
“You are…you are…” Words failed me; nothing save the seething hate in my chest would suffice. I wanted it to burn her. “I never should have left her in your care.”
Her brow pinched. “What are you talking about?”
“You left her. You left her and she died.”
“Story is alive.” She blinked. “Grayson…did he tell you she was dead?”
Hope was an overused match in my chest. Too many times it had burned me, left nothing but ash. And still… “The baby?”
“Is alive. Story and the baby are both alive. She sent you a message hours ago from Gemma’s phone. You didn’t get it?”
“I…” I trailed off, running to my phone before Lottie could finish. I had dropped it after falling asleep, reading her letters to me. There it was, a single notification waiting to be read.
Dear Atlas,
I’m coming home.
I’ll blow up the world, but you promised to build me a kingdom.
I stumbled back, falling against the wall. It felt like a trick. I’d had a month of them, of my grandfather playing the wrong melody with my heartstrings.
“I saw the blood. It was on the beach and…” All this time she’d been alive?
“She almost died,” Lottie said. “The Horsemen saved her. Saved us.”
“She’s alive. She’s…she’s fucking alive? Why the fuck is she here?” Fear hid inside anger, burning my fingertips as I gripped the paper. “Why the fuck did she come back? I told her to stay the fuck away.”
“Grayson!” Lottie gripped my face between her palms. “Everything depends on this. We have a plan to take his company, but what we want to do is nearly impossible. Story is down with the servants, gathering evidence to use against Beryl—but we have no idea how to even use it, or what to do about him and his guards. We want justice.”
Lottie told me their plan, one that hinged on spilling every dark secret we’ve tried to hide.
I think to my mother, to the triplets, to an idea that seemed impossible until now.
For once, it felt like fate was lining up in our favor. While Story was away, building our happily ever after, the missing pieces in our plans lined up.
“We plan to wait until he uses all the coins—”