ANMELDENMELANIE I wake in the dark with a deep, heavy ache low in my belly. For a long moment I lie still, waiting for it to fade. It does not. The day has gone entirely; the lamp beside the bed is turned low; beyond the glass wall, the garden lies pale in the moonlight.Then the first real cramp hits.It seizes my whole lower belly, so sharp and so sudden that I curl in half with my mouth open and no breath coming. I know this pain. I would know it anywhere. It travels into my lower back, then down both thighs, in a hard, grinding pulse. My breasts are tender, my stomach swollen and tight. Warm wetness spreads between my legs.Fuck no. Not now!I throw back the blanket off my body. Red. Dark red against the white sheet, dark red soaking the soft shirt, dark red streaked down my thighs.My period. I have not seen a single drop in months, now it has arrived all at once, tonight, in their house, in their bed. A second cramp rolls through me before I can finish the thought.The scream leaves
MELANIE I cannot say anything until I am sure he will believe it."I understand," I tell him, and my voice is rough from crying but steady. "You were such a young boy, Xavier, standing in a hallway with a knife aimed at you, and nobody who has ever loved you could blame you for what happened that night. I'm not afraid of you, and I'm not afraid of Valentin or Cassian, and I only wish I had known sooner so Eva wouldn’t have used it to…manipulate me.”He lets out a breath that shakes all the way through him and lets his lips spread out in a thin smile. "I thought you would look at us differently," he whispers."I could never look at any of you differently than I do now, at least not in a bad way. No one in this world has stood up for me since my father…" I cannot complete the sentence. Every conversation I had with Eva about him comes flooding back. I wonder if he also blamed me in his last moments, if he also wished he hadn’t been the kind of great dad he was to me. I shake my head
XAVIER My breath catches in my throat, the sharp, jagged sound cutting right through the heavy silence of the bedroom.Melanie is shaking so violently her entire body trembles like a leaf caught in a gale. Her skin is stark white, her eyes wide and bloodshot, fixed on nothing at all. She looks like a woman who just stared down the barrel of a loaded gun and watched the trigger pull.I don't think. I move.I close the distance between us in a single stride, dropping to my knees right in front of her. I wrap my hands around her ice-cold, trembling fingers, squeezing them tight to anchor her to the earth."Mel. Hey, look at me," I say, my voice cracking at the edges. I pull her forward, dragging her upper body against my chest so she can feel my heartbeat, trying to force the panic out of her bones. "Look at me, sweet cheeks. You're safe. You're here with us. Breathe."A choked sob tears out of her throat, hot tears spilling over her lashes and soaking directly into the fabric of my s
MELANIE I blink heavily, my eyelids feeling like they are weighed down with lead. My throat is bone-dry, burning with a deep, hollow thirst. As my vision slowly comes into focus, the first thing I notice is a faint, rhythmic drip... drip... drip... coming from somewhere above my head.I turn my head lazily to the right.A massive, floor-to-ceiling glass wall spans the entire far side of the room, exposing a breathtaking, sun-drenched garden filled with vibrant white roses, lush greenery, and a magnificent upside-down champagne flute fountain catching the morning light.My heart instantly violently slams against my ribs.The glass bungalow. They brought me back to their house.Why? Why will they bring me back after everything I said to them? I try to push myself up, but a sharp, stinging pain shoots through the back of my left hand. I look down and freeze. A clear plastic tube is taped securely to my skin, fed by an IV bag hanging from a metal pole beside the bed.Panic, cold and s
MELANIE I can barely see straight, but I know it’s Xavier who reaches me first, and he drops to his knees on the tile. His hands stop an inch from my face and hover there, shaking, because he does not know where on me it is safe to touch, or if…just if it is safe to touch me at all. The warmth from his hands kisses my cheek, and I can’t help it; I like that he’s here, that they’re here…that they…they came for me. "Mel—" he starts, and stops, and I watch him swallow before he tries again. "Melanie. Look at me. Please look at me."My eyes find his, and the sob that comes out of me is so loud and so ugly that I press the back of my wrist against my mouth, but Xavier's face crumples anyway, and his eyes fill with tears. I would laugh if it didn’t hurt to even smile. He’s such a cutie, isn’t he? What is wrong with me? Is he…shiny? Valentin is already beside him, down on one knee in his dark suit, and he does not touch me either; his eyes move over my cheek, my split lip, my bandage
MELANIE I keep my eyes on the tiles, because they are the only things in the room that are not looking at me, and I count the lines of grout between my knees so that I will not have to hear the girls giggling behind Tessa's chair. "Look up," Tessa says.I do not move."I said look up." Her fingers close around my chin, and the wet polish on her fresh nails presses into my skin while the sharp smell of acetone fills my nose, and she tilts my face toward the phone with a grip that leaves no room to turn away. "Eyes open, Melanie. The proud prodigal daughter and sister has realized her place. Your dearest brother should see your face.”My eyelids lift on their own, and Cassian's face fills the screen.He is closer to the camera than I expected, and so perfectly still that the only way I know he is breathing is the muscle that tightens once at the corner of his jaw. His eyes find mine through the glass and stay there, and heat rises in my face so fast that my ears burn, and the tears







