Chapter One
Helios
Twenty-Three Years Ago.
Stupid.
She was stupid.
I hated her father.
And I hated how she looked even more.
That dress. Her tears. Her shiny shoes like this was a real church day. His hand holding hers too hard like he was hurting her. Like I cared.
I hated all of it.
“Helios, Ares, meet your new sister. Feralyn, these are your brothers.” The stupid jerk who was gonna marry Mom smiled at my brother. “Ares plays the piano.”
“Liar,” I blurted. “My brother hasn’t played the piano since we started baseball.” Something a real dad would know. This jerk wasn’t my dad, no matter what Mom said. She was crazy. I hated her too.
“And this is Helios.” The jerk smiled at me, and I hated him more. “He’s apparently the expert on his brother’s activities.”
I didn’t know if he was trying to make fun of me, and I didn’t care. Someone had to look after Ares, and it sure as hell wasn’t him or our useless mom. “She’s not our sister.”
The same stupid smile stayed on the jerk’s face when he hadn’t smiled at us since the first time he met me and Ares.
Right afterwards, Ares had gone to our room for two days straight and read his stupid books.
Didn’t talk to Mom. Didn’t even talk to me.
The third day, I ripped a chunk of pages out of one of his favorite books, the one about a hobbit and a ring and some dumb shit called Middle Earth.
There was no Middle Earth. I told Ares that when I’d ripped out the pages. He’d cried.
Like Fera-whatever-her-name was crying now.
All silent-like.
I hated it.
I hated it more than the stomachache I got when I taped all those stupid pages back into Ares’s book.
Anselm Grayson gripped my shoulder a lot harder than he was holding his kid’s hand, but I didn’t flinch. “Within the hour, once I marry your mother, Feralyn is going to be your sister, and you’re going to be nice to her. Do you understand me?”
I stood taller because I knew a bully when I saw one. I’d punched a bunch of them, and one day, I’d be taller, and I’d punch this jerk. “You’re not my dad. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Helios,” Ares whispered under his breath.
I didn’t listen to his warning or pay attention to the way Ares spoke all quiet-like when he was scared. I wasn’t afraid of this jerk. He couldn’t push me and my brother around. “What?” I demanded, not backing down or looking away from the jerk as I answered Ares.
Still all quiet—Ares was always quiet—he spoke only a little louder. Just enough for me and the girl to hear him. Maybe the jerk too. “He’s right. When he marries Mom, Feralyn becomes our stepsister.” He looked at her.
The second he said her name and got that look on his face, like she was some kinda prize, I got mad.
Real mad.
My fingers curled into fists, I started to turn toward Ares, and the hand on my shoulder clamped down hard. “Listen to your brother, Helios. He’s smart. He knows what he’s talking about.” The jerk smiled bigger at Ares. “Don’t you, Ares?”
My brother looked from the girl to the jerk, then at his shoes. “Yes, sir.”
“Good man, Ares. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my bride is waiting. All of you behave. Helios, take care of your new sister.” The jerk walked off.
Getting even more mad, I turned on Ares. “Don’t call him sir. He’s a nobody to us.”
“Daddy’s not nobody. He was in the Air Force.”
The second I heard her voice my glare snapped from Ares to her.
Her weird eyes that were the same color as her hair—like dead grass gone all yellow-brown—dipped and her head followed. Then I noticed two things at once.
She talked even quieter than Ares, and her voice sounded like music.
Not real music.
The kind those tinkling wind chimes made.
Suddenly, my chest felt tight like it did when I had to tape Ares’s book back together, and I was opening my mouth. “The Air Force is stupid. Everyone knows the Army is better.” I set my glare to challenge, but she wasn’t even looking at me. “I’m gonna be an Army Ranger.”
Tears dripped on her dress, and she took off.
Ares followed.
I stood there. Mad… and something else.
I hated weddings. I hated dancing. I hated stupid music, and I hated parties.
The girl was still crying.
I hated that too.
Her face was like a faucet that just dripped, dripped, dripped.
Ares kept giving her pieces of toilet paper.
She didn’t even take them.
She just cried. All through the ceremony, the gross dinner, the stupid cake cutting, and now the dancing.
Sitting at a table in the back of the room that the jerk had put us at after he’d married our mom, telling us not to get up until the housekeeper came to take us home, I kicked Ares’s chair.
Handing her another piece of toilet paper, Ares looked up at me.
“Quit giving her toilet paper,” I ordered, wondering if he’d shoved a whole roll’s worth in his pocket when he’d snuck off to the bathroom.
“She’s crying,” he argued.
I looked at her. “Quit fucking crying.”
Her face scrunched up, and she let loose.
Ares looked at me like he wanted to punch my face in. “She’s just a kid.” Patting her shoulder, he shoved more toilet paper at her.
We were all kids. Or me and Ares were. She was a baby. Or a toddler. Or something. I didn’t know how old she was. She’d only talked that once, and she was fucking small. And stupid. And her stupid fucking tears kept coming like her jerk of a father hadn’t already married our shitty mom.
Fuck this.
I shoved my chair back and stood.
Ares looked at me with wide eyes. “He said not to get up.”
“I don’t care what he said. He’s not our dad. Wait here.” I took off.
Walking around the outside of the room to avoid the tables and all the people dancing, I made my way toward the front of the small stage where the shitty band was playing shittier music.
I made it all the way to the table that was next to the dance floor without the jerk or Mom looking up once.
Spying the biggest piece of cake that was already dished up, I swiped the plate and headed back.
The girl was still crying.
Holding out the plate, I bargained. “Stop crying, and you can have cake.”
She and Ares looked up at me, but neither said anything.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “You hear me? You want this?”
She looked from the cake to me. Then she spoke for the second time. “Wh-what about your piece?”
You couldn’t pay me to eat wedding cake. Not for a million bucks. “You promise to stop crying?”
She nodded.
I gave her the cake.
She dug in, and her faucet turned off.
I sat back in my chair.