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“Jesus Christ, Amara. Stop scaring me.” Elara gasps, helping herself as she gets up from the ground.

“Always the attention seeker.” The contempt dripping from her voice makes my jaw tighten.

Elara chose this woman over me?

She believes blood is thicker than water.

I don’t.

That’s not even how the saying goes anyway, and even if it did, I’d still call bullshit.

Blood is the messiest liquid ever created. It’s red, sticky, and violent, and it sure as hell doesn’t give people the right to own or hurt the ones they happen to share it with.

What you choose, what you earn, is what holds weight. Not what you’re born into.

And her sister hasn’t earned a damn thing from her.

The imbecile opens her mouth again. “Why is your hair down? It looks so ugly. Fix it, Elara.”

I watch my baby’s eyes widen. Then the light inside them flickers…and disappears.

Just like that.

She’d only just started smiling again, laughing again. And with one sentence, her sister has her shrinking back into herself.

I know she wasn’t entirely opening up to me, like not removing her clothes unless we were shrouded in darkness, but she was better than when I first met her at KU.

Whenever Roman and Aleksandr would come over, she would always find a spot next to me, her head on my shoulders, randomly smiling when I would speak Russian.

The way she would search for me in her sleep, her hands shooting forward to curl around my neck as she rests her head on my chest. Not loosening her grip even when I needed to leave for my morning run.

Her random texts whenever she’d miss me but was too shy to admit it.

MOY SVET: Sergei, my brown heels are missing, can you come find them for me?

ME: Top shelf to the right, malyshka.

MOY SVET: Nope!

She attached a picture, drawing a big red circle on the empty spot where the heels should’ve been.

A few days later I found them, shoved under the bed. And it didn’t take a genius to figure it who hid them there.

The next day she texted me again while I was in Roman’s mansion, trying to keep a tab on my father’s whereabouts when my phone buzzed with a new message.

MOY SVET: Will adding two bars of white and one milk chocolate make my hot chocolate too sweet?

ME: Don't start anything. I'll be home soon.

MOY SVET: But I want it now !!!

ME: Malyshka, you'll hurt yourself.

MOY SVET: I won't. Just tell me. Please?

She sent me a video of herself standing by the stove. A white tank top clung to her, the thin fabric doing absolutely nothing to hide her nipples.

Entirely fucking intentional and entirely fucking effective. She lifted the camera towards herself.