GIANNA "Where's that doll your grandmother sent you for your birthday?" I looked around from my place on the floor where I'd been playing with my new toys alone for the last half hour. Daddy had just left to go to work after promising to bring me back something special. I held my breath as I looked over and up at the woman standing in the doorway. Somehow I knew that the smile that she'd worn while my daddy was here would be long gone. It had taken my little brain forever to notice that it always happens that way. When daddy is here, she smiles and laughs with me, giving me the same special attention she gives to her own little girl who's the same age as I. But when daddy's not around, she's mean and hurts. My mouth became dry with dread, and there was that funny feeling in my tummy once again. I felt tears already prickling my eyes because I knew what was coming. No doubt Victoria will get my doll just like she'd got everything else of mine. I didn't use to mind before, back whe

GABRIEL With the weekend behind us, it was back to the grind; school, homework, grades, all the happy shit my parents pay attention to as if neither of them realized that the grown-ass man living under their roof had changed. I myself am not really sure why in the last year, things had become so drastic for me. It felt almost as if the clock was running out. Since the day I turned eighteen, it's like that thing that had been simmering inside since the day I first learned the truth went on boil. Maybe it's because, at eighteen, I'm now officially a man. Not when I jumped up to six-two out of nowhere the summer I turned sixteen, or when I found the first hair on my chin before that. Then I was still somewhere between innocent and wannabe tough guy. But as soon as the clock struck twelve-oh-one on the day of my birth, I knew I'd changed course. I don't resent ma for telling me, far from it. But I do accept that the knowledge changed the trajectory of my life. My dad has been doing e

GABRIEL I spent most of the evening and into the night thinking about her and trying to put the pieces together. That scene I walked up on was still bothering me, but unless I showed my hand and started asking questions, I wouldn't find any answers. I guess I'll have to wait until I see her again, though going by our first meeting, it'll take at least a month to get a full sentence out of her. For the first time in way too long to remember when it started, I laid across my bed thinking long into the night about something other than revenge. I'm a little annoyed, truth be told, that she'd infiltrated so deeply, so soon. In five years, nothing has been able to take me off course. I've kept everyone out and at arm's length, except Lancelot, of course, because I know it's a waste of time forming binding relationships when I don't plan on being here that long. Even my family, as much as I love them, have not been allowed beneath my guard for that same reason. "Gianna…" I almost

GIANNA I woke the next day with a start. It had taken the whole night for the reality of what Victoria had done to set in, and as is usual after one of our encounters, I'm left feeling like I'm suffering from PTSD. The therapist I'd been allowed to see before Becky put a stop to it when I was ten had been getting close to that diagnosis, I'm sure. Though at the time when I overheard her talking to dad, I had no idea what that was and how exactly I'd caught it, it was years later that I figured it out and also understood why Becky had freaked and talked dad into ending my sessions. One more year. That's the secret mantra I've been repeating to myself since my seventeenth birthday. Grandma Eloise had promised that it would all end as soon as I reached that magical age of eighteen. In the meantime, I just had to put up with the sisters grim. I laid there for a few seconds more, getting my bearings and preparing myself for whatever fiasco awaited me beyond the door. My mind was still

GABRIEL "I'm breaking into the school tonight, something I need to see. If anything happens, you're the only one who knows where I am." "Dammit, Gabe, can you like find some other hobbies that do not involve breaking the law? I won't get into the academy with a record." "I didn't invite you, asshole." "Yeah, like I'm letting you go alone. Go around back. I'll meet you there." He hung up before I could argue. I didn't have time to mess around with him, and I know from experience he wouldn't listen to shit I say anyway, so why bother. But we'd both promised each other when we were like twelve that we'd keep each other in the loop if no one else. I did it in part to keep his scrawny ass safe when the local assholes were messing with him on the regular, and he'd used that opportunity to switch shit around on me, so that now I have to do the same. If I'd known back then that he'd become such a nosy parker, I maybe would've come up with something else. The house was relatively qu