by Selena
Then I can go home and figure out what to do. I have to get out of here. Somehow, I have to get out of the mental asylum that is my family. If I don’t, I’m going to go as crazy as all of them. I can already feel it bubbling beneath the surface, the urge to break into hysterical laughter and never stop.
Ten minutes later, Royal swears under his breath, and the car slows. I lift my head to see a narrow, one-lane wooden bridge in front of us. A white wooden frame covers the bridge, although it’s not enclosed or roofed. Below the bridge, a gushing brown river of water churns past, and around it, darkness and shadowy woods without a house in sight. On the far end of the bridge, two cars sit blocking the road, their front ends angled together, their headlights bathing the bridge in light and glaring into our faces, blinding us to anything but streaks of driving rain.
“Hit ‘em,” Duke says.
“I don’t think I can get enough speed going across the bridge to knock them out of the way,” Royal says. The bridge looks sketchy as fuck, with wide boards forming a path for each tire on top of the regular wooden slats that form the floor of the bridge. What kind of bridge is made of wood?
“If they’re waiting for us, they’re probably armed,” I say, reaching forward to grip my twin’s shoulder. “Can we just go home? Please. You’ve more than made your point. I don’t want to die tonight, and I’m not planning to bury a brother, either. King can’t even fight.”
“Bullshit,” King growls. “Give me the gun. They can try to come at me.”
“The gun?” I ask incredulously. “Since when do you fight with guns?”
Royal’s always fought, but he does the underground, bare-knuckle kind of fighting. I was horrified when he said the guys who took him had guns. Yes, my parents have a pistol for protection, but I’ve never touched a gun in my life. We’re rich people from New York. We have security at the front door for a reason.
“I got it off the guy who shot King,” Royal says. “Would you rather I’d left it on him?”
“Can we just go home? Please?”
“I bet it’s Devlin,” Royal grumbles, gripping the wheel tighter. “I bet it’s him and his asshole cousins. If they’re looking for a fight, we brought it.”
“No, no, no,” I say as Royal shifts into gear and revs the engine.
Duke grabs me before I can do something stupid like lunge over the console and try to wrestle control from Royal. My breath catches in my throat as Royal’s foot hits the gas.
“What if it’s a trap?” I gasp out. “What if the bridge collapses under us?”
“There’s only one road here,” Baron says with complete confidence. “They had to drive across already.”
The Range Rover lumbers onto the rickety wood, and all I can do is grip the seat and try not to hyperventilate as nightmare images flash through my mind. It’s been raining all month, and though the river below is probably small during most of the year, it’s swollen and rushing now. If we go in, we’re not getting out.
I’m not going to die this way. I’m done with this mess, with the whole fucked up feud, with the violence and the crazy. I open my mouth, take a deep breath, and make my voice heard. “Let me out,” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Let me out of the fucking car right now!”
For a second, a shocked silence fills the car, leaving a vacuum in the space my huge voice just filled. My brothers aren’t used to me yelling. Demanding.
And then Royal presses harder on the gas, and Duke holds me tighter. There’s no way out.
Is this how it ends? Trapped in a fucking car with my insane brothers because they can’t let go of Dad’s ambition to win, to be the best, any more than he can. I’m so sick of it I could scream. I didn’t want any part of it, from the moment we stepped through the doors of Willow Heights. But I fought for it just as they did, for them, the same way they fight Dad’s battles for him. But I’m done. I’m so fucking done. I’m not going to die this way.
I’m done putting my family first. I’m done being an obedient little puppet for my father, done being smothered by my brothers. I’m done putting their needs and wants and petty fights before my own safety, my own life. They’re not keeping me safe. They’re dragging me down with them. And this time, I choose me.
twenty-six
Crystal
Duke whoops as I feel the drop, and my stomach lurches into my throat in the split second before our tires hit smooth, solid asphalt. But it’s enough.
Enough to send my heart blasting into my throat, jackhammering inside my chest.
Royal doesn’t barrel into the two cars. He’s not here to wreck them the way he did Devlin’s old car. He has places to go this time, and nothing’s going to stop him. He spins the wheel, the tires biting into the shoulder as he tries to skirt the two cars before they can right themselves to face us head on.
The tires skid, sinking into the soft mud of the shoulder before the car slides to a stop. Royal curses and tries to gas the car, but the tires only spin in the melting earth.
“Let me the fuck out,” I yell again, grabbing the door handle and jerking so hard I think it will break off in my fingers.
Royal hits the button, and the locks release. I spill out into the rain, my whole body shaking, my heart racing, my mind numbed with panic. Royal was the one who always calmed me, but now he does the opposite. Now, I have to calm myself, and I haven’t mastered the art yet.
My twin gets out of the car, and I turn to him. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I scream. “You would have sacrificed all of us for a taste of someone else’s revenge?”
I watch the conflicting emotions flicker across my brother’s face, lit by the headlights of the three cars. Anger. Defensiveness. Guilt.
“Baron said we were safe.”
“You didn’t know that,” I answer. “You don’t know what could have happened. You could have killed us all, Royal. I’m done. I’m so fucking done with all of this. With all of you.”
“Crystal…” he starts. But I never find out what he was going to say. A car door slams behind me, and Royal’s eyes snap to the road behind me. The cold, hardness returns to his face, and he straightens, glaring over my shoulder at the person approaching.
“You okay?” Devlin asks, moving up behind me and putting a protective arm around me.
Suddenly, everything in me breaks. I’m so relieved that he’s here that I can’t stop the tears from rising to my eyes. I just want the comfort of him, the safety of this boy who was once a threat and is now my refuge. I want to lie in bed with him on a Friday night and laugh and talk and love. His warm arms around me are everything I need right now, everything I’ve always needed. He may have hurt me before, but he is not the danger anymore.
I turn and bury my head in his shoulder.
“You’re okay,” he murmurs, this time not asking.
“Get your hands off our sister,” King growls behind me.
I want to hold onto Devlin, but I know I can’t right now. I have to be strong now, not fall apart, not let him do the dirty work for me. I force myself to lift my head, drawing strength from the firm certainty of his grip.
I turn back to the Rover, where King sits inside, the back door still open from when I jumped out. “Get back in the car, King,” I say. “You’re injured. You’re going to get yourself killed, and what good will you be then?”
The twins come around the front end, but I only look at King. I can’t see his injury, but even in the darkness, lit only by headlights and the occasional flicker of lightning, I can see that his face is stark white. I can see blood covering the hand that holds the sweater to his side. He starts to get out of the car, then grimaces, gripping the door and dropping his head to draw a breath.
Behind me, I hear two more car doors slam. My brothers were right. The Darling cousins came to meet us, to defend their territory from our invasion. This must be the last house, the one with the party. It strikes me then that they’re doing what the Darlings did twenty years ago. I heard it from the Dolce side t
hat time. Now, I can see it with my own eyes. I can see that things aren’t so simple. I can only hope my brothers aren’t consumed by revenge for the rest of their lives. This has gone on long enough. It ends here, tonight.
“She’s right,” Baron says quietly to King. “Just sit tight for a minute, and we’ll get you home to clean that up.”
King nods, his lips pinched together so hard they’ve lost all color. I know it will kill him later, that he’ll consider it a weakness that he couldn’t fight. But he has the sense to know that he’d only get in the way, that he would put our brothers in danger if he tried to fight like that. He slides back on the seat, and Baron closes the door and turns to us.
And then it’s the seven of us.
Colt and Preston fall in on Devlin’s either side. I guess Colt’s a fighter when he has to be. Royal stands at the driver’s side door of the Range Rover. Duke and Baron stand next to him, my three brothers facing the Darlings.
And then there’s me, standing in the middle, not wanting a fight at all. It’s just as it’s been all year, but now it’s more than that, too. Now I know more. Now I am more.
“Stop fighting,” I say, raising my voice to be heard over the driving rain. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“But it is this way,” Preston says from my left.
“You heard my brother,” Royal says slowly. “Take your hands off our sister.”
“Whoa there,” Colt says behind me. “Guess it’s time to bring out the big guns.”
A second later, I see what he’s talking about. Royal lifts his hand slowly, and my heart lurches in my chest. The pistol points straight at my chest.
Devlin tries to move past me, but I grab his hand and step the same way, blocking him from Royal with my body.
“Get behind me,” Devlin growls, but I ignore him.
All my focus is on my brother, on the deadly weapon in his hands. “What the fuck are you doing?” I scream at him. “You’re pointing a gun at me, Royal. At your own twin sister. Are you really going to kill me for this? For some fight that’s not even yours?”
“I’m not pointing a gun at you,” he says. “I’m pointing it at your boyfriend. You just happen to be standing in the way, or he’d be dead on the ground right now.”
“We’re all carrying,” Devlin says behind me, his voice calm and even, though I can hear the strain in it. He’s pissed as fuck that I’m in his way. “You really don’t want to mess with us.”
“Don’t you dare pull your guns,” I snap at him.
He grabs me and tries to pull me back, but I twist away from him, panic tearing through me. I’m the only thing stopping Royal from killing him. I wrench away and dive toward Royal, my heart slamming in my chest and my whole body shaking.
“Royal, put the gun down,” I scream, dodging aside when Devlin swipes for me. He doesn’t stop until I reach Royal, standing in front of the gun so close that the muzzle presses to my chest. I widen my stance and spread my arms, as if my little body can protect all three of the Darlings, as if it could stop a bullet.
“Crystal,” Devlin yells, his voice harsh with panic. “What the fuck are you doing?”
For a second, no one else moves or speaks. I just put a gun to my own heart, and I can feel it racing wildly, careening out of control at the reckless, insane thing I just did, but I don’t pull back.
“What I should have done a long time ago,” I say, my eyes locked on Royal’s. “I’m standing up to my family.”
Royal stares at me in shock before yanking the gun down, pointing it at the ground. “So, that’s how it is,” he says slowly, a slight quiver in his voice. “You’re on their side now.”
I open my mouth to protest, to tell him that of course I’m not on their side. I’m Crystal Dolce, a flawless Dolce Daughter, a proud Italian, forged with a steel spine and blood thicker than chocolate. This is who I am, who I’ve always been. Family comes first—always. My twin is my life, and he’s in pain, and all I want to do is protect him. How could I take anyone else’s side?
Or maybe that’s just who I’ve been told I am. Now I can see my family loyalty for what it is. Something demanded of me, not earned. Now I see the truth. I was too hard on my brothers. They’re not monsters. They’re just kids, like me. They’re kids who have to believe what they do because if they stopped believing, they’d have to admit the truth of who they are. And admitting that truth is too horrible, too painful, for them to bear. So they go on with the charade, keep playing the game, keep letting the gamemaster tell them their next move.
I’m done with the game. They’re never going to let me off the gameboard, so I’m taking myself off.
“I’m not on anyone’s side,” I tell him. “I’m on the side of what’s right. On the side where everyone lives. You don’t have to fight our parents’ battles. This isn’t about us. Isn’t it time we stop letting them be our puppet masters? Time we stopped playing their game and joined forces to fight back against them?”
Lightning knifes across the sky, illuminating the churning water rising on the banks of the river below. Thunder shakes the earth underfoot, and for a moment, we all stand silent, as if listening to the decree spoken from the sky.
Then the thunder rumbles away into the distance, and Royal speaks. He steps backwards and raises the gun again, steadying the butt on the palm of his other hand as he aims behind me. “If this is a game, then you should know it doesn’t end until it’s game over.”
“No,” I scream, leaping toward him, panic clawing up my throat and out my mouth. “Don’t shoot! Royal, you’ll go to jail. That’s murder. Do you really want that on you for the rest of your life?”
“It could be an accident,” Baron says. “Anything can look like an accident.”
Of course it can, to a boy who will probably be a lawyer like Uncle Vinny. Baron’s the quiet one, the thoughtful one, the observer. But he’s just as dangerous as the others.
I stand in front of Royal, pleading with him now, needing him to understand. “If you kill him, it’ll kill me, too. If you hurt him, it hurts me, too.”
He stares at me like he’s never seen me before. Maybe he hasn’t. “Who are you?” he asks at last.
“I’m your sister,” I say, tears streaking down my cheeks with the rain. “And you’re my brother, Royal. I want you to be happy again. Don’t you want me to be happy, even if it’s not with the man you would have chosen for me? What happened to the brother who supported me, who was always there for me, who would give his life to protect me before he’d pull a gun on me?”
Slowly, he shakes his head. “The man you’ve chosen, the one you want me to be happy with? His family killed your brother. I’m not that guy anymore, Crystal. And you’re not my sister. I don’t know who you are, but you’re not the sister I did that to protect. You’re a stranger, an imposter. You’re not a Dolce. I had a sister once, but she died in that basement with me.”
A sob wrenches from my throat, and I hunch over, trying to keep from sinking into the earth. Cold rain beats down on me, soaking my hair, my clothes. But I’m not shivering. I don’t even feel the cold. All I feel is pain.
“Fine,” I say. “Then fucking kill me, Royal. But if you’re going to kill Devlin, shoot through me to hit him. I don’t want to live even one second knowing that my twin brother is the one who killed the boy I love. If you cared about me at all, you would see that I can’t help who I love, Royal. I can’t help that I love Devlin any more than I can help being a Dolce. Sometimes, you don’t get a choice.”
“You just made your choice,” Royal says, his voice hard. Rain is streaming down his cheeks like tears, but I don’t know if he can cry anymore. He’s broken, something inside him gone. “You chose not to be a Dolce. You don’t deserve to carry our name. Crystal Dolce is already gone. I don’t have to kill you. You’re already dead to me.”
He drops the gun into the mud at my feet. My legs give way, and I fall to my knees, my body wracked with sobs.
“Crystal,”
Devlin says behind me.
“We’re not done with you, asshole,” Duke says, stepping forward with his fists up. I don’t want to see the fight. I don’t want to be here at all.
I am dead to Royal. If I’m dead to him, am I even alive at all? My twin, my other half, just tore me out from the roots, and I want nothing but to end all of it, for the pain to be gone.
Royal steps around me as if I’m not even there, and I hear the first punch connect. I don’t exist to him anymore. I’m nothing. And if I’m nothing to him, how can I be something to myself? I pick up the gun, push myself to my feet, and stumble down to the bank to the water.
twenty-seven
Devlin
Crystal staggers off down the bank, and I turn to follow, but Royal steps into my path. “You think you’re going to go after my sister?” he taunts, his fists up. The asshole slid on a pair of brass knuckles while I was distracted by the sight of her in distress.
“You just disowned your sister,” I say. “She’s not your sister anymore. She’s my girl. Get out of my fucking way.”
Royal’s fist comes quick and hard, before I can step past him to go after her. I dodge at the last second, but not quick enough. His knuckles glance off my cheekbone, and I curse under my breath when I feel the metal slice open my skin. I use my own momentum to sink a fist into Royal’s middle, going for the solar plexus. He doubles over, cursing and growling.
Beside me, Duke tackles Preston. The guy’s only got one good arm, but I don’t have more than a second to worry about him rebreaking it and what that will mean for his future. Royal’s back up and swinging.
I’m bare-knuckled, but I’m faster than him. I dodge the next blow entirely and sink a left hook into his side. This time, he stays upright, getting in a quick jab before dancing back into a defensive stance.
Colt and Baron are trading insults as their fists fly like a couple of boxers. But Duke’s got Preston on his back, whaling on him again and again while Preston tries to block the blows with his broken arm. I duck away from Royal and grab Duke by the back of the neck, flipping him off my cousin and onto the muddy ground. He’s on his feet in seconds, diving at me like a left tackle.
