x
"Father!" I screamed, gripping the handle of the locked door. "Let us out!"
Silas Jontas, my older half-brother, stood under the single swaying light bulb in this dark room. He watched me with those eyes. "He won't let us out. Don't you understand? This is a game."
I shook my head, terror shooting up to me as the chained beast in the corner growled. "This isn't a game, Silas. Alexander would have said-"
"But he can't because he's dead," Silas snapped with cold eyes. "Isn't he?"
I stared at him, then the knife in his hands. "Don't. Silas, don't. That's a lion."
He only smiled. "Do you know how to win the game?"
"Please, Silas," I begged, knowing what he was about to do, "Please-"
"Understand how it works."
x
"Would they really let me in if they knew I was a Du Sang?" I questioned Avery as we took a seat on his roof.
We were watching the sea of stars up above because it turned out we were both insomniacs.
"Yes," Avery replied, his shirt rippling as he tensed. "You know that."
I managed a soft laugh. "So why aren't you asking why I'm still here with you?"
He smirked a little. "Why wouldn't you stay with me?"
There was no point answering his question and he knew it. I wasn't going to give up my last name as leverage unless I absolutely needed to.
I couldn't stop wondering why he was here with me instead of celebrating his birthday with his friends. Drunk, high, or with a girl who would make him forget.
Avery Dragomir was not the person I expected him to be.
Instead, he was quiet. Thoughtful. Witty. Curious. Intelligent yet boyish, with his lopsided grin.
"Tell me about them," I said, after flashing him a smile that made his eyes flicker to my lips briefly. "The blue bloods."
"What do you want to know?" His dark hair gleamed under the moonlight, shadowing the angles of his face.
Avery watched me, quietly gauging and dissecting me, trying to understand me and my motives. Suddenly, I could understand why every girl craved for his presence. He was carved like a Greek statue but had the intelligenceo of their philosophers.
"Anything."
"We hold traditions," he began and I found myself drawing into his words, his story. "Every year, we'll have some days we're always gone from the academy. They're highly private but not secret. Everyone knows of them but only blue bloods know the exact details."
"What do you do?" I asked, tentatively.
"Games," Avery said, after a moment, looking hard out to the sky. "We've played them since we were children. It used to be a harmless Truth or Dare. Now they're much more dangerous.l with real stakes. We've done this for so long that we've created our own games too."
There was something about these games that brought a chill up my spine. "You hate them. The blue bloods. Even though you pretend to be friends with them." Why? What was his motive?
Avery was silent for a long moment. "It took away the only person who mattered to me. It's taken many things from me."
His eyes traced the distant stars, remembering a past memory. A mixture of sadness and grief filled them but it startled me to see a stronger, unexpected emotion swirling. Fury. He was furious. And that anger nurtured hatred.
"Tell me about yourself," he said suddenly, and all the emotion drained away from his expression. He was also so guarded. "Anything."
Though I wanted to pry more about his past and his life, I told him a part of me. "I grew up like a Du Sang. I never understood what that meant but I did understand it meant isolation. Even from my brother."
The surprise in his eyes almost made me laugh. "You have a brother?"
"I had two," I was silent for a long moment. "Alexander was my older brother. We have the same mother. But I'm talking about my half brother, Silas. We were isolated individually most of the time during our childhood but the isolation ate away at Silas. It got to him."
"How long was your isolation?"
"Years," I said, quietly. Avery waited as I spoke. "I was lucky. Between the both of us, I could at least visit another estate, but he couldn't. Anyway, my father let the both of us spend a day together once a month with him." I smiled coldly. "Do you know what we did?"
"No," he admitted. He couldn't fathom it but I saw the intrigue in his eyes.
"Games." My eyes met his.
"What sorts of games?" Avery's voice was hoarse.
"The first time we played a game, we were fourteen. My father locked us in a room together. We weren't alone. He left a lion inside. Not a baby cub but a starving, full grown, lion loosely chained to the wall. He didn't tell us anything but that the door would open in twenty four hours."
My father believed in strength. He believed that fear for something chaotic and controllable like a lion would teach me strength. My family was messed up but the lack of surprise on Avery's face made me wonder how messed up his was too.
Avery leaned over with his hand to my face and I flinched backward, thinking he was about to show tenderness, maybe even kiss me. He paused, reading my eyes. Avery dropped his hand. He flashed me a rueful half smile.
"I didn't mean to startle you," he murmured.
"It's okay."
The smirk Avery made me swallow with difficulty, almost convincing me that he was just a boy and I was just a girl. I wasn't as immune to him as I thought.
He asked, "Is there more to the story?"
I looked away. "I was terrified but I didn't show it because that's how we were taught. My brother, though, he was so excited."
Avery was expressionless but I saw the wariness. "Your brother seems interesting."
"We grew hungry. All of us, including the lion. There was a long knife left in the room but I didn't want to touch that. My brother didn't care. He grabbed it as soon as he saw at it. He wanted to kill the lion." I paused, trying not to shudder at the memory. "I tried to stop him."
"For the lion?"
I coughed out a laugh. "I think you're starting to understand me enough to know the answer. I didn't care as much for the lion as I wish I did. I thought that if my scrawny brother tried killing that lion, the fragile chains on it would break and then I would be killed."
Avery nodded, accepting that with no judgement. That also surprised me. He didn't seem to mind that I wasn't a pure, good, innocent person.
"My brother didn't kill the lion because he thought it's claws could open the locked door. He didn't kill the lion because he was hungry," I shook my head.
"Why then?" His silver eyes glimmered.
"He killed the lion because he was curious to see how it's insides worked."
I waited for his response, but he struggled to give any.
"So you see," I nodded, speaking softly when he didn't saw anything. "People stay away from the Du Sang because in the end, they end up like the lion. Or my brother."
I've never told anyone this for the fear of seeing emotions I wouldn't be able to bear but Avery only seemed to understand me. "Did you get hurt?"
This question also surprised me. That never occurred to me or anyone, really.
Gently, I tugged down the dress I was wearing, almost forgetting we had just been at a party. Avery surprised me again by looking at my body respectfully, never lingering. This was what Avery had been reaching out to touch just moments ago.
A long scar carved down my collarbone.
"I got this scar from pushing away my brother," I explained, quietly.
Slowly this time, Avery reached out tentatively to the scar. I didn't flinch this time and let him run his fingers down the jagged surface. It had faded but it would never go away. I think Avery wanted to ask why I never got surgery to get rid of it like anyone else who could afford it but he seemed to understand the value in keeping scars.
Avery started to ask, "Did the lion give you that when you were saving or stopping Silas?"
"Oh no," I laughed at his misunderstanding. "I tried saving my brother, not stopping him, but you've got it all wrong."
"What do you mean?" He asked, confused for the first time tonight.
My lips curved. "I didn't get this scar from the lion."
x