Playing for keeps

10. 'F' for failure

He acts like an ass, plots my death, and then does shit like that. I've never met anyone so infuriatingly callous and cruel.

He opens his mouth to say something, but I beat him to it. "You're mean and a dick, and I wish you would just stop showing up everywhere -"

"You're gonna have to find out sooner or later that you don't get everything you want in life, Barbie," he shoots out, cutting me off. His voice is low and feels like poison the way it makes my skin pebble with goosebumps. 

"What?" I scoff out, frowning. 

He flicks his cigarette to the floor below the porch and begins to stalk towards me, his eyes like steel, and his face represents the disgust he seems to be feeling. "You gotta learn that you're just another pawn in this world and not everything revolves around you." He's towering over me now, so close that I can feel his breath, his words spilling out like venom. "Little Miss Beverly Hills Barbie, so snotty and entitled that she thinks she can just go around snapping at everyone and get away with it. Well, think again, Brat."

His eyes hold a hatred I've never seen before. It scares me, but also makes me confused as to where this hatred is stemming from. But most of all, it makes me even more angrier, for a whole different reason to what I was originally angry about.

I match his hatred as I stare right up at him, unwavering. "Fuck you," I spit out, pushing at his chest and heading inside. 

I slam the door behind me, which causes Damien and Sebastian to emerge from the living room, looking alert. But they seem to lower their guard when they see it's me.

"Oh, hey," Damien smiles. "Have a good night? What ice cream did you get?" He asks.

"It was fine. Salted caramel." My answers are clipped as I walk past them and towards the kitchen, heading straight outside to the back yard.

The lights are on out here, so it isn't completely pitch black as I grab one of my soccer balls from the pile of balls tucked under the trampoline.

I begin to kick it about, seeing how long I can kick it up in the air without letting it drop to the floor.

The back yard is one of the few safe places I've got. My brothers rarely come out here, only a few times a year if they decide to take a few hours off work and have a barbecue , or if they decide to have breakfast out on the porch. But I come out here the most, and that's why I like it.

 It's secluded with a large distance from the neighbours that are separated by large, tall trees. 

As you step off of the porch steps and onto the stone patio, to the right is the fire place and the seating area, the outside couch in the shape of a 'C.' To the left is the grill and barbecue area, which holds many memories of Damien getting pissed because Sebastian is a better griller than he is.

There's a pool right in front of the patio area with a row of sun loungers to the right. There are a few steps behind the pool, leading down to the lower part of the garden and onto the big, open stretch of grass with a trampoline taking up one of the widths of it.

The pool house sits at the bottom left corner of the yard, all the lights off and tightly locked up.

Even though Damien thinks he kept it a tight secret, I know that's where he hides more of his weapons and more important work, like documents etc. 

I'm in the midst of kicking the ball up in the air when a figure up by the pool catches in the corner of my eye.

I don't catch the ball as it drops to the floor, and instead turn to see who's standing there.