Chapter 1

After a wave of searing pain, my whole body felt weightless.

At that moment, my family was gathered around my sister, celebrating her birthday.

"Isa, look at you. Eighteen already. Make a wish and blow out the candles."

Isa wore a formal dress. An elaborate eighteen-tier cake sat in front of her.

There wasn't a trace of happiness on her face. After a moment's hesitation, she asked, "Where's Julia? Why isn't she here? Is she angry with me?"

My mother's gaze shifted. "Isa, sweetheart, the Cammarata family is causing trouble again. Julia's handling it.

"You're leaving tomorrow. Talk to us while you still can."

Isa finally broke down.

She wrapped her arms around our parents, her voice breaking.

"I don't want to leave either of you. I don't want to leave Julia."

It hurt to watch.

I reached out to wipe away her tears, but my hand passed right through them.

For a long time, I couldn't understand why my parents changed so much after Isa took that signet ring.

There was no limit to how much they doted on her, and no logic to it.

Without a second thought, they would make me give up anything for her.

When my sister looked twice at a dress I loved, my mother decided I had to give it to her.

It didn't matter that Isa said over and over that she didn't want it.

Isa once said she was afraid of blood, so I had to endure brutal training to stay by her side and protect her whenever she needed me.

I had someone I loved, but because my sister was being married into the Cammarata family, I wasn't allowed to choose who I married.

My parents were afraid Isa would be upset, so they forced Ethan and me apart.

I ended things with Ethan in tears, but he refused to give up. On his way to see me, his car went off the road.

I confronted my parents, but they shut me down with the same old line: "You owe your sister."

I owed my sister, so everything I loved went to her: my things, my future, the man I loved, and ultimately my life.

After that, there was nothing in my world but my sister.

Whenever I fought with our parents, Isa would cry, then quietly return the dress I loved to my closet.

She went on a hunger strike to get them to cut back on my training. She secretly carried messages between Ethan and me.

Whenever I was unhappy, she cried. She was crying now, too.

But Isa wouldn't let it go. "Mom, I heard Julia's voice a minute ago. It sounded like she was asking for help.

"Maybe we should end the party and go find her..."

"Enough!"

My mother's eyes reddened as she kept stroking Isa's face.

"Today is your birthday. Don't think about anything else. Have you forgotten? She's been jealous of you her whole life because we love you more. She always makes a scene, especially that time you were sick, when she..."

Everyone at the table went silent.

I looked at my sister's pale face, and guilt began to rise inside me.

When Isa was eleven, she came down with a severe case of pneumonia.

I'd already been sent to the training camp by then and only came home once a week.

The training was hard, and I was usually covered in cuts and bruises.

I dragged myself home, sore and exhausted, and found my parents tending to my sister's every need.

They stood around her bed, giving her water, their every movement gentle.

The tenderness on their faces was something I'd never known.

All my resentment surged to the surface at once.

I charged forward and knocked the cup out of my mother's hand.

The warm water splashed across my sister's pale face and ran into her hair.

She didn't move away. She just looked at me with those wet eyes.

"Stop pretending!

"It's just pneumonia. Does the whole house really have to revolve around you? I bleed at that camp every day. Has even one of you ever looked at me?"

My father rose from his chair and came toward me, his hand already raised.

"Julia, have you lost your mind? She's your sister!"

"My sister?"

I let out a broken laugh as tears spilled down my face.

"She's the only one you treat like a daughter! What am I? A dog you raised to take bullets for her? She took my future, and now she's taking the only love I've ever bled for!"

My father's hand never came down, but the look in his eyes was colder than ice.

My mother held Isa tightly against her and pointed at me, her eyes red. "When did you become like this? Isa took your place in a marriage that was a death sentence. What's wrong with us loving her a little more? And you pick now, when she's this sick, to make a scene!"

My heart turned to ice as I looked at them. "If Isa is the only one you care about, then why bother with me at all?"

I turned and ran for the door. Behind me, Isa called after me through her tears. "Julia! Don't go! Mom, Dad, don't blame her..."

I ran aimlessly through the streets until I ended up in an empty alley.

I slid down the wall. My body ached from training, but it was nothing compared to the pain inside me.

Before long, I heard unsteady footsteps and someone trying to stifle a cough.

It was Isa.

She was barefoot, and every step seemed to take all her strength. When she saw me, her face lit up. Then a coughing fit doubled her over.

"Why are you out here?"

I tried to scramble to my feet, but my leg gave out, and I fell back down.

She didn't answer. She slowly crouched beside me and pulled a bottle of liniment and some clean gauze from her pajama pocket.

She carefully rolled up my pant leg and rubbed the liniment into my skin.

"Does it hurt...?"

I watched cold sweat bead on her forehead, and my resentment drained away. All that remained was guilt. She had never done anything wrong.

"You idiot." My voice caught. I reached out to touch her face, but then I remembered my hands were filthy and pulled back. "Go home. You'll get sicker out here!"

She shook her head and finished bandaging my leg anyway. Then she leaned against my shoulder and spoke softly. "They promised me they'd send you to the training camp less often. Julia, come home. Please?"

I went still.

So she knew all of it.

She knew everything that hurt me. Clumsy as it was, this was the only way she had to make up for it.

"After I turn eighteen and go..."

She stopped and buried her face against my neck. Her tears were so hot they made me flinch.

"Then all Mom and Dad will have left is you. Take care of yourself, and love them for me, too..."

I wrapped my arms around her thin little body and held on.

After that, I stopped complaining. I was willing to be her shadow and her shield.

I thought that if I was obedient enough and gave up enough, my parents might one day look at me the way they looked at her.

But right up until the day I died, they always looked at me with suspicion.

I know they thought I was consumed by jealousy.

I was, once.

And now it has all died with me.

If my death frees my sister from that marriage and gives her a life of her own, then my life was worth something.

My only regret is that after spending my whole life wanting their love, I still can't have it. Not even now.