She drops her hands from me and bites her lower lip again. This time, I’m almost sure it’s because she’s contemplating something.
“You’re right.” She sighs. “But I believe Jonathan and Dad will fix their problems over time. You don’t need to sacrifice yourself.”
My brows furrow. “Sacrifice?”
“Well, you already have…you know, a love interest. Marrying someone else is a sacrifice.”
“A sacrifice means slaughtering an animal or a person as an offering to a deity. In other words, it means giving up something valued for other considerations. I’m doing neither.” I allow a small smile to curve my lips. “If anything, I’m gaining something valuable.”
She releases a breath, which means she doesn’t understand my logic. It’s fine, I guess. It’s true Elsa understands some of my thinking, but she won’t get everything so fast.
Besides, no one actually knows me — or at least not the way they think.
They don’t see the constant shadow over my shoulder or the tears trapped in the middle of nowhere.
Only I do.
“What does Knox think about this?” she asks.
“He—” I’m cut off when a strong hand wraps around my shoulder. It’s so sudden, I stiffen and lift my elbow.
A dark figure is grabbing me, his fingers are on me, his smell, his damn —
“Did I hear my name?” An awfully cheerful voice cuts into the usual vicious cycle of thoughts.
My brother. Knox. It’s only Knox.
Usually, I’m okay with someone touching me when I see it coming, like when Elsa clutched my shoulders earlier. I saw her before I felt her and that was fine, but a sudden attack always triggers this stony state.
“Sorry,” Knox whispers, and he loosens his hold.
He of all people knows how it feels. That darkness, feeling without seeing — all of it.
I lift a shoulder, pretending I wasn’t on the verge of an episode. He masks his apology with a grin as he plants himself between me and Elsa, clutching each of us by a shoulder.
Knox and I are fraternal twins, but we barely look like siblings. Where my hair is black, his is chestnut. All his features are like those of models — or gigolos; I can’t actually tell the difference. It’s a serious issue — don’t judge. I don’t think it’s okay to compare your brother to a gigolo, but he is one in some ways. For one, he’s charming with a happy-go-lucky personality he only uses to get things done.
And he talks a lot, like a fucking lot. It gives me headaches.
“So what’s with me?” He nudges us both. “Is this some conspiracy, Game of Thrones-style? Because I watched all the seasons — I can tell.”
Elsa laughs. “I was just asking Teal what you think about her new decision.”
He retrieves a packet of crisps and throws two into his mouth then offers the rest to us. We both refuse — Elsa because it’s forbidden to eat food outside the cafeteria and she follows the rules a lot, and me because I don’t eat that junk food. I picked my poison, and it’s dark chocolate.
“More for me.” He grins, swallowing a handful.
I nudge him so he’ll give me some space. He’s crunching in my ear, the sound heightened with his proximity, and that’s another way for the triggers to seep in.
Knox releases me, now only holding on to Elsa.
“So, what do you think?” she insists.
“Me?” He feigns innocence. “I don’t care.”
Liar.
“Really?” Elsa grabs him by the elbow.
“I’m T’s brother, not her father. She gets to do what she wants. Do you know how freaked out I was when she said she had something to tell me? I thought she was going to say she’s pregnant and was planning a party to mourn my youth.” He points at me with his bag of crisps. “I forgive anything except making me an uncle this young.”
“Anything?” I smirk.
His grin falters for a second. “You’re a pain in the arse, T.”
“Compliments first thing in the morning?” I feign a gasp. “What have I done to deserve you?”
“You kind of stole my egg.”
“Your egg?” Elsa asks.
“Ellie, you know how twins are formed, right? Like once upon a time, I was swimming in my whore mother’s womb and I fought all the other fuckers who wanted to go into the egg. I won, by the way. So there I was, happy in the egg and shit, and then T here sneaks in and shares my egg.”
Elsa bursts out laughing as I just give him my signature blank stare.
“What are you laughing at?” Knox squeezes Elsa’s shoulder. “That’s really how twins are formed.”
“Identical,” she says.
“Huh?”
“That’s how identical twins are formed. You and Teal are fraternal. She didn’t steal your egg — there were already two.”
“How do you know that?” He narrows his eyes on her. “Were you there?”
“God no.”
“Then we’ll go with my story.”
He’s so daft, my brother, and I have no words to describe how much I appreciate him for it.
I wouldn’t have come this far if I didn’t have him.
When the darkness swallows me and I have nowhere to go, he’s there, telling me without words that we have each other.
We always have, since our whore mother’s womb.
We had each other even when that same whore wanted to make us like her.
When we thought we were going to die in that hollow, dark place while we almost bled out.
I retrieve my phone, ready to go back to my article about Napoleon. There’s something interesting about war, not the mass destruction or the casualties, but the ways they’ve started.
They ways they’ve been finished.
In between, there’s chaos, but chaos doesn’t come randomly.
I’m at the beginning phase, where the smallest action can trigger a bloody battle.
The first of many.
As I’m about to get lost in the words, in the debauchery of the human mind, another presence steals my interest.
He walks towards us with an arm around Aiden’s shoulder. The latter — Elsa’s boyfriend — is the tall, dark, and handsome type, and he’s playing the role with that scowl that says Come close and I’ll slaughter your family tree. It’s why the onlooking students admire him from afar, not daring to get in his way. For Aiden, only one person exists in the female population — or the entire population, actually — and it’s my foster sister.
Aiden King is one of a group known as the four horsemen of this school’s football team, something stupid about the damage they do to their opponents’ defences. Aiden is Conquest, and true to his name, he’s already conquered Elsa.
While he ignores everyone, his attention falls solely on her, as if he can cut the distance and magically appear beside her.
The one by his side is doing the opposite of ignoring his surroundings.
He winks at one girl, high-fives another, and tells a random freshman to call him with a huge grin that nearly splits his face open. They all eat it up, nearly tripping over their feet in front of him.
Ronan Astor.
An earl’s son with a Prince Charming complex.