19

The heavy thud of her footsteps faded down the hallway, leaving me completely alone in the suffocating darkness of the locked stall. I leaned my head against the cold divider, a bitter thought crossing my mind. I honestly wished I had just died from that long fall off the castle walls. It would have been so much simpler. I still had no idea how I had managed to survive that impact, or if it was just some cruel joke by the universe. Was it because I actually wanted to die that night?

I had noticed a strange pattern about life over the years. It felt like the moment the universe notices you truly want something with all your heart, it takes a malicious joy in making sure you never get it. Then, it waits until you don't even need it anymore to finally throw it at your feet.

Even though I was currently trapped on a dirty floor, bleeding and covered in filth, a small, dark sense of pride flared in my chest. My plan had actually worked. I was probably still going to die in this room from my injuries anyway, but I had successfully played the game. It was a sick plan of psychological manipulation—the one and only lesson my father had forced me to learn years ago.

Even though I hated that man with every single fiber of my being, his twisted words were the only weapon I had left to pull from my memory. He used to drill it into our heads: *When you are faced with a powerful enemy and you are completely weak, standing on the very verge of death, your only escape is pretending that you want to die.* He taught me to look the executioner in the eyes, tell them to be hasty with the blade, and claim that death would finally bring you absolute peace. By saying those words, you completely rob the enemy of their victory. You convince them that killing you won't give them any satisfaction. And when they try to threaten you with something else, you twist the odds in your favor, acting like their threat is actually doing you a massive favor.

I had used that exact psychological trick on Veronica, and it had worked flawlessly. It was a desperate gamble, because for the first time in ages, I realized I didn't actually want to die today. I didn't know what had changed inside me, but my mind simply refused to give up. It felt like a deep, whispering gut feeling that something major was coming, though I couldn't guess exactly what it was.

As I sat there, my mind began to drift backward to a time before the hatred took over, back when we were just innocent children trapped in a terrible house. I vividly remembered when we were younger, long before she became the cold-blooded Veronica. She had been Freya, the older sister who patiently taught me how to dance in our small bedroom. She would always smile and hand me the beautiful dresses she no longer used, gently teasing me because I was always terrible at maintaining my composure and picked the worst outfits imaginable.

Back then, every single teenage girl in our pack was constantly being courted by one boy or another. My sister had about five different boys begging for her hand in marriage at the same time. Despite the fact that she was a bit chubby, the local boys would constantly show up at our porch, bringing her sweet gifts and handwritten notes. She always turned them down with a wave of her hand, but surprisingly, they just kept coming back for more.

I, on the other hand, was always ignored. But one afternoon, a boy from the village actually asked me out to dinner. I was so incredibly happy. I had rushed straight to my sister, begging and pleading with her to lend me her absolute best dress for the evening. I was practically vibrating with excitement, but when I finished telling her about the invitation, she didn't say a single word. She just stared at me with a blank expression.

Later that night, as the boy and I were sitting at the small diner eating our meal, he reached into his pocket and slid a folded letter across the table toward me. He looked away nervously and muttered, *Please, I only asked you out tonight so I could beg you to talk to your sister for me.*

I had run all the way home that night, my face covered in hot tears. The moment I burst through the door, my sister wrapped her arms around me, holding me tight against her chest while whispering that she already knew what he was going to do. I had looked up at her through my tears, my heart aching as I asked her, *How do you do it? How do you have so many guys who like you? What is your secret?*

A sad, knowing smile had crossed her chubby face back then. She had patted my hair gently, her voice quiet. *There is no secret, Fedora. They simply like me because I don't like them. Life is just not balanced.*

I was still deeply lost in the bittersweet memory, staring blankly at the locked door of the stall, when a sudden, violent thud shattered the silence. The wood groaned under immense pressure, and the heavy door burst completely open, ripping the metal lock straight out of the wall.