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Dad’s grief has transformed him into a monster.
I drag my feet as I approach the reception room. My fingers curl around the doorframe. Dad stands beside the fire, a whisky glass in his fingers. He grips it so hard his knuckles are white. He doesn’t look up when I enter.
I stand behind the sofa, gripping the carved back so I don’t fall over under the weight of Felix’s presence. My brother’s portrait hangs over the fireplace – he’s practically life-sized, painted in photographic detail with a dramatic sky behind him. I can practically hear the crowd roaring as his results are announced – not only did that famous throw qualify him for the Olympic team, but he broke a national record.
The painter had every detail right – except for the eyes. Felix’s eyes were always warm, kind, shimmering with light, like dipping your feet into the emerald water at the beach on a hot summer’s day. But the Felix in the portrait has Dad’s eyes – cold, stormy, demanding.
“Dad.” The word catches in my throat. He makes no movement, no sign he registers I’m here.
I cough, swallow, try again. “Dad, Mackenzie Malloy is back at school.”
There. It’s out.
I can’t take it back now.
Dad’s shoulders stiffen.
He turns to me, but he can’t meet my gaze. He stares past me, doesn’t see me.
His coldness breaks something inside me. The red mist falls over my eyes. I need answers. “Did you know about this? Did you hear anything? What about her parents? She didn’t say—”
“Don’t go anywhere near her,” he rasps. The sound is a snake, coiling through the silent house, wrapping around my chest and squeezing the void until the sides collapse in.
“What?”
“You stay away from Mackenzie Malloy.”
For the first time in months, in years, he tilts that aristocratic chin of his to meet my eyes. Cold green orbs study me, his one remaining son, and I catch the glimmer of a secret burning away the edges, eating my father from within.
He turns away, but it’s too late. I’ve seen.
It’s not rage in burning at the edges of his eyes.
It’s not hatred that tenses every muscle in his body, that tears the glass from his fingers and hurls it into the fire.
It’s fear.
Mackenzie
Alec LeMarque wastes no time in exacting his revenge.
When I walk into Stonehurst Prep the next morning, all eyes turn toward me. Conversations stop. My footsteps echo along the hallway. It’s worse than yesterday – the stares, the whispers, the judgment.
I square my shoulders and toss my hair. I spent an hour in the bathroom with a YouTube makeup tutorial, and I know I look fierce. My skirt hugs my hips, the hem just high enough that anyone looking can catch a glimpse of the garters holding up my thigh-high socks. I’ve got my spike-heeled boots because to hell with Mrs. Foster’s write-up.
I am Alec LeMarque’s wet dream, and he can’t touch me.
I’m Mackenzie Malloy, and I’ve donned my armor, ready for battle.
I pretend their judgment means nothing. I pretend that I revel in their attention. I pretend I crave the eyeballs that crawl over my skin like ants seeking their next snack.
When I arrive at my locker, there’s a photograph tacked to the grating. It’s my face Photoshopped onto a porn star taking it in the ass from a fat guy in a bondage suit. I have to hand it to whoever created it – they did an impressive Photoshop job. As I tear the photograph down, snickers erupt along the hall.
Behind the photograph, someone scrawled ‘Mackenzie is a ghost slut’ in blood-red paint. I scratch the edge with my nail. Yeah, that’s not coming off.
Fine. Whatever. If this is the worst they’ve got, I’ll be their ghost slut. They think this is going to chink my armor. They have no fucking idea what I’ve seen, what I’ve done.
All I need to do is graduate. I’m here for that high school diploma and nothing else. I can get it with graffiti on my locker.
