My whole body is sore. The Varners make me do so many sports that my body can’t keep up. Half of my side is bruised from yesterday’s kickboxing lesson. Adrien is a little better at it and they keep comparing us—thank God neither of us gives a fuck.
And I’m better at shooting, even if it’s just airsoft.
The morning sun isn’t hot yet and a light breeze makes the morning almost pleasant. We walk to the church and sit in the back, just in time.
Adrien is already wheezing into his sleeve laughing, because Father Matteo just said “The Lord enters us when we open ourselves fully.”
I stare at the floor, fighting a laugh too.
If the Lord saw the Varners’ mansion, he’d pack his bags and run.
Isn’t it enough that we’re seen as emos because we’re homeschooled? Do we also have to attend this religious shit?
When this holy moly torture finally ends, we walk back to the house. Our steps slow down automatically as we reach the lake behind the property, our only place that doesn’t feel like it’s watching us.
I sit in the grass while Adrien lies down, one hand under his head, the other playing with his tie.
My ribs throb and sting when I breathe. Yesterday’s kickboxing drills were brutal. The coach kept saying “again” until I saw spots in my vision.
“I found a nice stash in your mother’s bathroom,” Adrien says lazily. “Tried some of it.”
“Jesus. Stop taking that stuff. You’ll end up like one of those disgusting addicts.”
He just snorts.
“And stop calling her my mother,” I add.
“Sorry. Force of habit. Nat sometimes calls her that.”
Sylvia Varner. The coldest woman I know. Vampire.
She sucks the life out of me.
Natalya doesn’t hate her that much just because they keep her away from all the shit they do.
But I observe. They want me to learn. They even started taking me to some meetings in the city. There are things I see or hear that a fourteen-year-old probably shouldn’t.
Adrien is the only person I can talk to about all that.
Sometimes I’m jealous of him. He can live in the staff house on the other side of the property and doesn’t have parents forcing him into all this shit.
People are always coming to our house—mostly men, sometimes with their wives. They almost always have guns tucked behind their belts and they smoke one cigarette after another, just like the staff in the mansion. I got so used to thesmell I almost like it. All the staff carry guns tucked behind their belts too, except the women.
It doesn’t scare me anymore.
Sylvia says I’m their future. The heir. She watches me more closely every year. The way I stand, hit, breathe, react.
They make me do everything—kickboxing, krav maga basics, running drills in the woods, grip strength training, target shooting.
All while pretending to be a normal family. And if I don’t attend something and run to the staff house to watch movies with Adrien instead, Sylvia punishes me in the most original ways.
She hides my medication. She takes my favorite books and throws them in the fireplace, just for fun. Or my favorite, she locks me in the basement for an hour of “darkness therapy” to think about myself.
Bitch has no idea I snuck a battery and books in there.
Adrien is a bit luckier than me. As long as he does what he’s told, they leave him alone. But he wants to do everything with me anyway. He’s always had a stronger stomach for those kinds of things.
Sylvia looks at him like he’s trash she forgot to take out. Every time he pisses her off, I’m scared she’ll throw him out on the streets.
