I screamed. I hit the broken glass and felt hot lines cutting my skin. Blood soaked the skirt.
Someone called his name softly. “Damon.” Harper stood in the doorway, “I’m sorry. Did I come at a bad time?” She looked like she might cry. She lifted her foot and it slipped. A candlestick tipped over and the flame caught the scattered photos.
The portraits curled at the edges, then blackened. Paper turned to smoke. Nikolai and Sylvia’s faces burned until only ash drifted into the air. Damon’s face changed in a way that pulled something in me apart. He froze, then scooped Harper into his arms like she’d just broken.
“I didn’t mean to,” she blurted, tears starting to fall. “I didn’t mean to! Please don’t be angry.”
For a second he was nothing but panic. He wiped her cheeks like a man who’d been taught that soothing hands could fix anything. “It’s okay,” he murmured into her hair. “It’s fine.”
That look... how he softened, how he rushed felt like a blade twisting in my chest. I ripped free of the guard’s grip and shoved him hard. “Wake up! She’s not Sylvia! She’s a cheap copy who had surgery just to look like my sister.”
Damon’s face shut down into something cold and hard. He grabbed my wrist so tight I thought my bones might crack. “I know she is not,” he said, voice low. “I know. But can you bring Sylvia back to me? No!”
I opened my mouth and nothing came out. I wanted to scream that she was dead, that nothing could fix this, but all I could taste was metal. Tears filled my eyes. He was so close I could see the steam rising from his skin.
“Tie her up,” he ordered. He stepped back and watched like a judge.
They bound my hands with coarse rope and forced me to my knees in the center of that hall, the place I used to run wild as a kid. My wrists chafed, my dress was soaked with blood, and the smoke from the burned photos stung my nostrils.
I knelt there while he cradled the woman I’d loved him into hating. I knelt while the family portraits blackened into nothing. I knelt and thought about how long I’d been falling and how there might not be any ground left to hit.
When Damon walked out with Harper, he didn’t even look back at me. The door slammed shut so hard it shook the floor. Darkness filled the ancestral hall. The ropes cut into my wrists as I fell to the ground. My knees hit cold stone, and tears just… fell on their own.
I looked up at what was left of Sylvia’s portrait. Half of it had burned away. The part with her smile was gone. I laughed through the tears. “You see that, sister?” My voice was shaking. “He can’t even tell what’s real anymore.”
I leaned my head against the floor, whispering to no one. “I’ll see you soon. When I get there, tell him yourself, okay? Tell him how stupid he’s become.”
Outside, I could faintly hear Damon’s footsteps. The faint click of his lighter followed, over and over. He smoked like he was trying to burn the air. I imagined Harper’s voice next... sweet, high, the kind that used to make him melt.
“Damon, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”
“Go home,” he said flatly.
“But I want to stay with you—”
“I said go.”
She left eventually. I heard her heels fading down the hallway, one by one. Then there was silence.
He stayed there, though. I could feel it. Maybe he was staring at the door, maybe thinking about breaking it open. But he didn’t. He left me there like he always did.
I don’t remember falling asleep. When they finally untied me, the sun was already setting again. My legs wouldn’t move right. My knees were black and blue, and my back ached like someone had taken a bat to it.
A servant tried to help me, but I shook my head. “Don’t. I’m going out.”
They looked scared to argue. I didn’t have much time left anyway. I just wanted to see my parents once. Just once.
I stood across the street from the old house. The lights were on inside, warm and soft, like they used to be. For a moment, I almost turned back. But the door opened.
The old housekeeper gasped when he saw me. “Miss Rhea? My God, it’s really you—”
Before he could finish, my father came out. His face went pale, then red. “Who told you to come here?”
“D-dad…”
“Get out!” he shouted. “You killed Sylvia, and you still have the face to come back?”
My mother stormed out behind him with a belt. “We don’t have a daughter like you! You’re cursed!” She swung it hard. The belt hit my back again and again. I didn’t move. I didn’t even block it.
“I just wanted to see you,” I whispered. “Just for a minute.”
“What’s there to see?” He kicked my leg. “Go back to your husband. Go die there if you must!”
Die? I smiled bitterly and nodded.
The rain started suddenly, pouring down, turning the ground to mud. I slipped when they shoved me. The belt fell from my mother’s hand, but she didn’t reach for me.
I stayed there, on my knees. Then I bowed three times, forehead touching the wet pavement each time. “Take care of yourselves,” I said quietly. “I won’t bother you again.”
Then I turned away.
The rain got heavier. It soaked me until I couldn’t tell the difference between tears and rainwater. I just kept walking. I didn’t even know where I was going.
A car slowed beside me, black and sleek, headlights cutting through the downpour. The window rolled down. Damon’s face appeared, stone cold, cigarette between his fingers.
He looked at me like I was just another stranger on the street.
"Get in the car," he ordered.
