The morning light cut through the tall windows like blades of gold, warm on my face—but it didn't match the cold knot sitting in my stomach.
I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the tiny silver blade in my hand. Adam's words echoed in my mind from the night before: "It won't take much. Just a little pain. Just enough to unlock it… if you're willing."
My fingers trembled. It wasn't the pain I feared—it was what I might see… or fail to.
I took a breath and nicked my finger. Just a clean, shallow cut. The sting flared instantly, and my breath hitched.
I focused—on Marcus. His voice. His smirk. His twisted laughter. I closed my eyes and tried to push the pain outward, to channel it into something more… something psychic. A vision. A glimpse. A thought. Something.
But it was like pressing my palms against a wall of steel.
Nothing.
Instead, a low knock creaked the door open.
I flinched.
Marcus stood there.
My heart nearly exploded out of my chest.
He stepped in slowly, eyes narrowed. "You tried something just now, didn't you?"
My throat dried up.
He tilted his head. "I felt… something. In my mind. Like a thread pulling."
I didn't answer. I couldn't.
His eyes dropped to my hand.
Blood.
His whole expression changed.
In one moment, Marcus—the twisted, cruel devil with a sharp tongue—turned soft. Gentle, even. Like I was a breakable thing.
"Darling…" he whispered, walking toward me, voice low and… worried?
He crouched beside me. "Are you hurt?"
I blinked at him.
What the hell was this?
He took my hand with a kind of tenderness I didn't know he was capable of. I stared at him, dumbfounded, as he carefully wiped the blood with a cloth he pulled from his pocket. His fingers were warm. His face… unreadable. Serious.
"Don't be reckless," he murmured. "You're not ready for that yet."
And for a second—just a single second—I felt safe.
With Marcus.
Until his smirk returned.
"Unless you're cutting yourself for attention," he added, raising a brow. "In that case, I can recommend better methods."
There it was.
The devil.
The flirt.
I yanked my hand back. "Stay away from me. Next time you touch me, I'm cutting your hand off."
He stood, clearly amused. "You wound me, Rhea. I thought we were bonding."
I scowled. "Get out."
He winked before stepping out, like he hadn't just bandaged me like a big brother and then flirted like… something much darker.
I collapsed back onto the bed, my head spinning.
Seconds later, Adam knocked softly and entered.
"I felt something," he said. "Did you try?"
I nodded.
"Did it work?"
"No," I whispered.
He sat beside me, eyes scanning my face, then my hand. He took it gently—just like Marcus had—but there was something different in his touch. Something safe. Steady.
"You'll get there," he said softly. "Just… don't hurt yourself alone again."
Our eyes met.
Butterflies. Uninvited.
And this time, I didn't stop them.
The next day, I kept my distance from everyone.
Adam tried to talk to me over breakfast, but I barely looked up from my bowl of cereal. He made some dry joke about me stabbing myself for "spiritual research" and I rolled my eyes so hard I think they almost got stuck in my skull.
He didn't push.
But I could feel his eyes on me.
Watching. Measuring. Always trying to figure me out like I was an unsolvable puzzle.
Whatever.
We were not friends. Not really. Not after all the secrets he kept.
And Marcus?
God.
I hated him now.
Not the fake-hate I used to feel when he teased me or made some inappropriate comment. No, this was the real deal. The kind of hatred that simmers just beneath the skin. The kind that makes your breath go short when you even hear their name.
Because he had power.
Real power.
And now I knew that behind that charming smirk and devil-may-care attitude, there was something much darker. Something dangerous.
I didn't trust him. Not after what happened.
And yet, I couldn't stop watching him.
That afternoon, while everyone else was distracted—Jane with her piano lessons, Ava dancing in the courtyard, and Adam mysteriously missing—I wandered the east wing of the estate.
That's when I saw Marcus.
In the library.
Alone.
He didn't see me. Or maybe he did, and he didn't care.
He was crouched beside a fireplace, one hand pressed against a carved stone like it was a button. A few seconds later, I heard a click and the entire bookshelf to his left shifted, revealing a hidden passage.
My heart slammed into my ribs.
Marcus glanced over his shoulder once—his face oddly serious, no smirk, no playfulness—and then disappeared into the dark.
I waited until the wall closed behind him before rushing to the spot.
But of course, the trigger was gone.
Whatever he pressed, I couldn't find it again. I stood there, breath shaking, staring at the wall, feeling like I had just touched something ancient and secret and dangerous.
Why would he hide something in the library?
What was in there?
Later that night, I tried to ask Adam casually, but he gave me that blank stare he's mastered.
"There's no hidden passage," he said flatly.
"You're lying."
He didn't respond.
I went to bed that night feeling like the walls of this place were closing in on me. Like the estate itself was breathing—watching me—changing around me.
And Marcus?
He showed up outside my door just before midnight, leaning casually against the wall like a dream—or a nightmare.
"Did you enjoy the show earlier?" he asked, voice low.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
He smirked. "Sure you don't."
Then he slipped something under my door.
A torn page from one of the books in the library.
It had only one sentence written in old ink:
"To remember is to bleed again."
And just like that, he was gone.
Yeah, I forgot to tell you about the sisters.
Ava and Jane. Adam's younger sisters.
It's weird I haven't mentioned them until now, but honestly, everything's been so chaotic that my brain's been playing hopscotch between trauma and survival.
But they were there. From the very first week.
Ava was the first one I met. She literally burst into the room during my second breakfast in the Blackthorn mansion, wearing neon green socks and a messy ponytail, holding two mugs of hot cocoa like she was in a sitcom. She plopped down beside me like we'd been best friends for years and said, "So... are you gonna be my new sister-in-law or what?"
I choked on my cereal. Adam turned the color of a dying tomato.
And Ava? She just grinned.
Then came Jane—older than Ava by two years, calmer, prettier, quieter. She walked in gracefully, took one look at me, and gave a polite smile. Not cold... but not warm either.
That smile said everything.
She was the type of girl who noticed everything. And didn't like change.
Especially not in the form of a strange girl suddenly living under their roof.
Still, she was kind. Respectful. Supportive even, when I needed her. But there was always this lingering tension in her eyes whenever I was around Adam. She never said it out loud, but it was there.
And I understood. Because Jane had always been the only girl in Adam's life—his baby sister, his friend, his shadow. Now I was here.
Taking space.
Taking attention.
Still, they both helped me in their own ways. Ava with her chaotic energy and terrible taste in boybands. Jane with her calm advice and knowing glances. And both of them?
They absolutely despised Marcus.
Not in the dramatic "he's the villain" way—at least not openly. But in the cold, careful, never-mention-his-name-unless-you-have-to kind of way.
Ava once said during dinner, "I still remember the day he came back. Everything felt... colder."
Jane just pressed her lips together, like she wanted to say something but didn't. She looked at me, then at Adam, and said softly, "He shouldn't be here."
They never told me what exactly Marcus had done. Just that it was terrible. The kind of terrible that changed everything for their family.
But no one talks about it.
No one wants to remember.
And somehow, I know... that memory is tied to me.
I just don't know how yet.
But I will.
Soon.