Lies.
It was also because every time that ghostly heartbeat brushed against my own, guilt followed right after.
When Rack first came to live with us, Aniyah was barely five. Ezra and I were just old enough to start terrorizing the school, old enough to notice when something in the house shifted.
I still remembered the day I walked through the front doors and stopped short.
All our parents sat in the living room with a boy perched stiffly on the couch across from them, his hands folded so tightly in his lap his knuckles looked nearly translucent against his skin.
Everything about him was dark. Dark brown hair falling into wary plum-colored eyes. Olive skin. Quiet posture. Even the way he looked at the room felt muted, and then there was me.
Pale skin. White hair. Rose-gold eyes. Hands in pockets, backpack on one shoulder, wild in a lazy type way.
It felt like staring at some twisted opposite version of myself, and something ugly immediately clawed up my throat.
My mom smirked the second she saw us.
“This is Rack,” she said warmly. “He’ll be living with us from now on.”
Ezra nodded without hesitation, assessing him, reserving her judgment until a later date. Aniyah waddled her way in, babbling her questions at him. Even Nova wandered over curiously. Only Riot stayed back and watched from afar, but she always did that.
Rack barely spoke through any of it. He just sat there rigid and alert, his shoulders tightening every time someone looked his way too suddenly.
Mom rested a hand on his shoulder.
“He’s family,” she told us firmly, leaving no room for disagreement. “Treat him like your brother.”
Brother. The word curdled in my stomach.
I didn’t want a brother. I liked being the only boy. The only male heir. While my sisters stormed around like tornados of manipulation and chaos, I got to slip beneath expectations. I got to play the lazy prince while everyone else fought for attention.
Then Rack showed up. Quiet. Disciplined. Smart. He was someone people could compare me to, and I hated him for it.
So I made his life miserable.
I’d hide his things, leave him out, or tell him the wrong information whenever we went anywhere. Set him up for pranks and laugh when he fell for them. Sometimes I’d catch him standing awkwardly in doorways while the rest of us argued or joked around like normal siblings, but instead of feeling bad, I’d double down harder.
Leave.That’s what I wanted to say to him.Leave and give me my family back.He never fought back against me once. Never complained to my parents. Rack just picked up whatever mess I’d caused and kept going like he expected it.
That was how life was until the day someone tried to kidnap me.
I was too arrogant, thinking I was untouchable, so I didn't see it coming when a dart flew at me. Stuck me right in the neck, and I fell to the ground. My whole body instantly began to convulse.
I remembered choking on my own breath, my fingers clawing uselessly at my throat while black spots swarmed my vision.
Then Rack appeared.
A gust of air magic blasted past my body, and the attackers were blown backward hard enough to send them skidding across the street. Rack dropped beside me so fast his knees slammed into the pavement.
It was the first time I’d seen him look scared.
His face was pinched tight with panic as his hands hovered over me, trembling, while he forced air magic through my bloodstream. Blood started dripping from his nose almost immediately, but he didn’t stop.
“Stay awake,” he kept saying over and over, his voice shaking harder every time my eyes rolled back. “Calix. Stay awake.”
The poison made every muscle in my body seize. I could barely hear him over the ringing in my ears, but I remembered his expression clearly.
Terrified. Determined.
