Heartless Hero (Crowne Point 1)

“What…the…fuck?” Gemma finally screamed, coming out of shock. Her hair fell from my grasp, fluttering to the floor.

“You take everything from me,” I yelled at her. “My family, my love, my own birthday.”

I didn’t care Mom was watching, or that I was confirming who Grandpa had accused me of being. I was Abigail, the fire starter, the worst of them all.

All I could think about was her fucking hair in his hands.

She never even looked at me funny, never even looked slightly guilty. I wasn’t insane enough to expect an apology, but it was like I’d imagined it all.

So I lunged for her, my fingers tangling in her now unevenly cut hair. We were barely at each other for a few seconds before the men at my back pulled me away, and the men at her’s did the same.

“You idiot!” Gemma’s crudely cut blonde hair was mussed. “This was for you.”

She waved her arm around, at the smashed cake. At the champagne fountain, smashed to crystalline shards on the floor, leaking gold to the marble.

Then I noticed more little details. A table of presents with my name on it. The dining table had a name card for me between my mother’s and Gemma’s. This was the birthday I’d always dreamed about.

The cake was so smashed the letters now read appy irt day gai.

“Surprise.”

Hours and a few more pills later, I found my sister in her room.

“Gemma,” I said.

“If you’re here to cut off more of my hair, could you wait until the mask I’ve put on sets.” She eyed me from the oval mirror set in gold in her vanity. “I’m deep conditioning.”

I sobbed. I fell to her floor in a heap and sobbed, sobbed, and sobbed.

I’d meant to come up here strong, but the minute I opened her door, every goddamn thing I’d been trying to ignore flooded me, and my knees gave out.

I don’t know how long I was on the ground, but Gemma whistled when I was done. “You’re fucked up.”

“Why did you do it?” I lifted my head, looking up at her through bleary eyes.

“How high are you right now?”

A minute passed. I summoned enough energy to get to my feet. “Why did you have to sleep with him? You can have anyone you want. Why did it have to be him?”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Theo!”

Guilt slashed her pretty face—I’ve never seen her look guilty—but all she said was, “Ew.”

I flew at her before I realized what I was doing, my hands sliding through the creamy conditioner in her hair, pressing her into her bed. She yelled, trying to shove me off. All I saw was white hot rage.

“Get off me.” She elbowed my stomach. “I don’t like him.”

“That’s worse you sociopath!” I got her on her back, arm pinned behind her, using the move Theo taught me. I pressed her arm down and she yelped.

“I had no choice!”

I didn’t let her go, but I eased up the pressure on her arm.

She huffed, turning her head so she could somewhat catch my eyes.

“Do you want me to say sorry? That I felt bad? I didn’t. I didn’t think about your feelings, like you didn’t think about mine when you had Horace’s tongue in your throat and hand up your leg.”