The beginning is the end.
The beginning is when you decide how the finale will be.
For some people, the ending is a mystery and the greatest discovery of all.
Not for me.
I’d already decided the end before I’d even started. It’s all in folders, tucked in neat boxes and waiting to be unleashed on the world.
Like Pandora’s box.
I’ve come so far. I dreamt of this — or rather had nightmares about it. This scenario has existed in every night terror, in every sleep paralysis where he sat on my chest like a fucking grim reaper.
He stole my breath, my life, my damn existence.
And now, I’ll steal his.
My name is Teal Van Doren, and I’m a thief.
The type who’s not interested in pieces of jewellery or goods, but the type who’s after lives.
His life.
“Teal?”
At the sound of the soft voice from my right, I lift my head from my phone, shifting my focus from the article about Napoleon’s war tactics.
My foster sister, Elsa, watches me with a slight furrow between her brows. Her golden blonde hair is tucked into a long ponytail that covers her slender back. The look in her electric blue eyes is filled with concern and…something else I can’t identify.
The only reason I figured out the concern is because of the twisting of her lips, the furrow of her brows, and the way she’s clutching the strap of her backpack. It’s some sort of a tell with her, which makes it easier to figure out her emotions.
At least this one. Usually, she maintains a resting bitch face that’s hard to decipher.
Or it’s probably because I’m bad at this human interaction business.
Some are born for peopling; I was born for anything that doesn’t include that.
Elsa is the definition of angelic beauty with her pale skin and slim figure. However, I’ve never once felt non-existent beside her, even with my short black hair in a blunt lob and my generally grim makeup. When people started calling me adorable with snow-like beauty in my youth, I smothered it.
What others find beautiful escapes me, so when I first met her, I thought she was the bitch heiress to Dad’s fortune. She proved me wrong by the way she acts — like right now.
As if she took lessons from my brother, she always makes sure I’m not too lost in my head.
We’re walking to the first class of the day. The grand hall of Royal Elite School, or RES, nearly swallows us. It’s one of those schools the privileged have direct access to, the type of school the greatest names in the UK attend, Dad included. The feeling that I’m continuing in Dad’s footsteps is one of the reasons why I tolerated the idea of leaving Birmingham to come all the way to London.
And him.
The one who’ll soon go down.
Other than that, nothing interests me here. Not the high towers, the prestigious education, or the students with millions in their trust funds.
They look at me like I’m a freak, and I don’t acknowledge them at all.
Why?
Because I was never interested in fitting in.
You can’t covet something you never actually wanted or even thought about.
I have my world, and no one is welcome in.
Sometimes, like now, their faces blur until their features blend into each other, leaving stark lines behind.
Wrenching my attention from them, I focus on Elsa. “Yes?”
“I heard about your deal with Dad.” She retrieves a bar of dark chocolate.
I don’t hesitate when I take it from her and have a bite, savouring the rich taste. Elsa acts like an older sister even though she’s only a few weeks older than me.
“You don’t have to do that, Teal.” Her voice softens.
“Don’t have to do what?” I steal another look at the Napoleon article.
“You know.” She clutches me by the elbow of my uniform’s jacket, which is my cue to pay attention.
“It’s not rocket science, Elsa. Dad needs help, so I stepped up.”
She traps her lower lip under her teeth, and I’m not sure if it’s some sort of seduction tactic or her way of reining something in. I’ve seen her do that with her boyfriend, and I still can’t figure it out.
I’ll go with the need to suppress something because I doubt she’d want to seduce me. That would be, eh, awkward, especially since I’m almost certain she’s kind of figured out who my crush is.
“Dad would never make you do something you don’t want, Teal. Remember how he acted when I refused the arranged marriage?”
That’s because you’re his biological daughter and his pride.
Not that Dad doesn’t like me and my twin brother. He’s taken care of us since that day he found us curled up in balls, bleeding and starved to death.
But the fact remains: we’re only his foster children. Elsa is his real daughter.
“I volunteered,” I say.
Elsa stops in the middle of the hall, drawing some attention from onlookers. “What?”
I lift a shoulder. “I told Dad I’d do it.”
“But the other time you asked me if this was what I wanted to do. I thought you were against arranged marriages.”
“I was asking if you wanted to do it, and if you didn’t, I would step up. Someone has to help Dad after you chose not to.”
“Ouch.” She grimaces.
“Eh, sorry, I guess.” Since I started to somehow grasp human nature, I’ve learnt they get offended when the truth is shoved in their faces. My twin brother Knox says I’m too direct and that I sound like a bitch.
“It’s okay. I know your mind is only thinking about getting the point across.”
My lips part as her mouth pulls into a smile. She…knows. All this time, only Knox and Dad understood the way my brain works. I never thought Elsa would catch on this soon.
“Thank you.” My voice is barely above a murmur, and I take another bite of the chocolate to fill the silence.
“Teal.” She clutches my shoulders and meets my gaze. “It’s not that I didn’t want to help Dad. It’s that I couldn’t marry someone else since I’m in love with Aiden. That’s not how it works.”
In love.
Not how it works.
I allow my brain to pause on those words and their foreign meanings. Elsa keeps saying these things, and I crash into them every time as if they’re a metal wall.
Sure, I know the dictionary definition of love, but that’s only theoretical. The real world is the practical field, and there’s no such thing as love.
There are hormones, neurotransmitters, and endorphins — chemical reactions.
I wonder when Elsa will finally figure that out. She’s smart in everything except for this.
“Sure,” I say instead. There’s something else I’ve learnt about human interactions: if you agree with them, they drop it, which means less headaches and more peace of mind.
“Besides, Dad will join forces with Aiden’s father, so there’s no need for more allies.”
“Of course there is. Dad returned from a nine-year coma, during which he was cut off from the world. He needs all the allies he can get. Aiden’s father, that Jonathan King bloke, isn’t trustworthy. Do you really think he’ll play nice with Dad after the grudge he held for ten years? He holds Dad responsible for the death of his wife, and that doesn’t just disappear.”
She drops her hands from me and bites her lower lip again. This time, I’m almost sure it’s because she’s contemplating something.
“You’re right.” She sighs. “But I believe Jonathan and Dad will fix their problems over time. You don’t need to sacrifice yourself.”
My brows furrow. “Sacrifice?”
“Well, you already have…you know, a love interest. Marrying someone else is a sacrifice.”
“A sacrifice means slaughtering an animal or a person as an offering to a deity. In other words, it means giving up something valued for other considerations. I’m doing neither.” I allow a small smile to curve my lips. “If anything, I’m gaining something valuable.”
She releases a breath, which means she doesn’t understand my logic. It’s fine, I guess. It’s true Elsa understands some of my thinking, but she won’t get everything so fast.
Besides, no one actually knows me — or at least not the way they think.
They don’t see the constant shadow over my shoulder or the tears trapped in the middle of nowhere.
Only I do.
“What does Knox think about this?” she asks.
“He—” I’m cut off when a strong hand wraps around my shoulder. It’s so sudden, I stiffen and lift my elbow.
A dark figure is grabbing me, his fingers are on me, his smell, his damn —
“Did I hear my name?” An awfully cheerful voice cuts into the usual vicious cycle of thoughts.
My brother. Knox. It’s only Knox.
Usually, I’m okay with someone touching me when I see it coming, like when Elsa clutched my shoulders earlier. I saw her before I felt her and that was fine, but a sudden attack always triggers this stony state.
“Sorry,” Knox whispers, and he loosens his hold.
He of all people knows how it feels. That darkness, feeling without seeing — all of it.
I lift a shoulder, pretending I wasn’t on the verge of an episode. He masks his apology with a grin as he plants himself between me and Elsa, clutching each of us by a shoulder.
Knox and I are fraternal twins, but we barely look like siblings. Where my hair is black, his is chestnut. All his features are like those of models — or gigolos; I can’t actually tell the difference. It’s a serious issue — don’t judge. I don’t think it’s okay to compare your brother to a gigolo, but he is one in some ways. For one, he’s charming with a happy-go-lucky personality he only uses to get things done.
And he talks a lot, like a fucking lot. It gives me headaches.
“So what’s with me?” He nudges us both. “Is this some conspiracy, Game of Thrones-style? Because I watched all the seasons — I can tell.”
Elsa laughs. “I was just asking Teal what you think about her new decision.”
He retrieves a packet of crisps and throws two into his mouth then offers the rest to us. We both refuse — Elsa because it’s forbidden to eat food outside the cafeteria and she follows the rules a lot, and me because I don’t eat that junk food. I picked my poison, and it’s dark chocolate.
“More for me.” He grins, swallowing a handful.
I nudge him so he’ll give me some space. He’s crunching in my ear, the sound heightened with his proximity, and that’s another way for the triggers to seep in.
Knox releases me, now only holding on to Elsa.
“So, what do you think?” she insists.
“Me?” He feigns innocence. “I don’t care.”
Liar.
“Really?” Elsa grabs him by the elbow.
“I’m T’s brother, not her father. She gets to do what she wants. Do you know how freaked out I was when she said she had something to tell me? I thought she was going to say she’s pregnant and was planning a party to mourn my youth.” He points at me with his bag of crisps. “I forgive anything except making me an uncle this young.”
“Anything?” I smirk.
His grin falters for a second. “You’re a pain in the arse, T.”
“Compliments first thing in the morning?” I feign a gasp. “What have I done to deserve you?”
“You kind of stole my egg.”
“Your egg?” Elsa asks.
“Ellie, you know how twins are formed, right? Like once upon a time, I was swimming in my whore mother’s womb and I fought all the other fuckers who wanted to go into the egg. I won, by the way. So there I was, happy in the egg and shit, and then T here sneaks in and shares my egg.”
Elsa bursts out laughing as I just give him my signature blank stare.
“What are you laughing at?” Knox squeezes Elsa’s shoulder. “That’s really how twins are formed.”
“Identical,” she says.
“Huh?”
“That’s how identical twins are formed. You and Teal are fraternal. She didn’t steal your egg — there were already two.”
“How do you know that?” He narrows his eyes on her. “Were you there?”
“God no.”
“Then we’ll go with my story.”
He’s so daft, my brother, and I have no words to describe how much I appreciate him for it.
I wouldn’t have come this far if I didn’t have him.
When the darkness swallows me and I have nowhere to go, he’s there, telling me without words that we have each other.
We always have, since our whore mother’s womb.
We had each other even when that same whore wanted to make us like her.
When we thought we were going to die in that hollow, dark place while we almost bled out.
I retrieve my phone, ready to go back to my article about Napoleon. There’s something interesting about war, not the mass destruction or the casualties, but the ways they’ve started.
They ways they’ve been finished.
In between, there’s chaos, but chaos doesn’t come randomly.
I’m at the beginning phase, where the smallest action can trigger a bloody battle.
The first of many.
As I’m about to get lost in the words, in the debauchery of the human mind, another presence steals my interest.
He walks towards us with an arm around Aiden’s shoulder. The latter — Elsa’s boyfriend — is the tall, dark, and handsome type, and he’s playing the role with that scowl that says Come close and I’ll slaughter your family tree. It’s why the onlooking students admire him from afar, not daring to get in his way. For Aiden, only one person exists in the female population — or the entire population, actually — and it’s my foster sister.
Aiden King is one of a group known as the four horsemen of this school’s football team, something stupid about the damage they do to their opponents’ defences. Aiden is Conquest, and true to his name, he’s already conquered Elsa.
While he ignores everyone, his attention falls solely on her, as if he can cut the distance and magically appear beside her.
The one by his side is doing the opposite of ignoring his surroundings.
He winks at one girl, high-fives another, and tells a random freshman to call him with a huge grin that nearly splits his face open. They all eat it up, nearly tripping over their feet in front of him.
Ronan Astor.
An earl’s son with a Prince Charming complex.
Nicknamed Death for his position on the team.
He doesn’t know that death isn’t a title. Death is the beginning of every war, and I’ve already started mine.
I stole his will, his future, and soon enough, his life will follow.
I have a secret, I’m a thief.
Ronan Astor is my next target.
As well as my future husband.
