10. Arson
Arson
T he flashing of Lee’s name on my cell phone screen interrupts my review of the warehouse security footage.
“Yeah?” I answer in Aries’s voice—slightly softer than my natural tone, with that hint of consideration my brother always affects.
“Dude, where’ve you been? The housing office is up my ass about clearing out your room. New students are coming in next week.”
Fuck. I’d forgotten about the Mill House situation. I’ve been too focused on Lilian, on the way her fear and desire tempt me like blood tempting a shark.
“I’ll be there in twenty,” I say, already reaching for one of Aries’s designer jackets. The costume I wear to play the golden boy.
The drive to campus is quick, but it gives me time to slip fully into character. Aries doesn’t grip the steering wheel until his knuckles whiten. He doesn’t check his mirrors for tails. Doesn’t imagine creative ways to make his stepsister scream.
Stop thinking about her.
The Mill House looms ahead—one of those pretentious Victorian mansions converted into student housing for the wealthy elite. Aries lived here for four years while I rotted in a padded room. The contrast isn’t lost on me, and I wrangle my emotions before I exit the car. Lee’s waiting on the front steps, concern etched into his features.
He’s been my brother’s best friend since freshman year. Now he’s technically mine; he just doesn’t know it.
“You look like shit,” he greets me as I approach.
Coming from anyone else, it would trigger a violent episode. But Lee’s genuine worry comes from a place of kindness, of care, and it makes my chest ache because he’s the first person to show he gives a fuck about me, even if he doesn’t know I’m not Aries.
“Thanks.” I manage Aries’s self-deprecating smile. “Been a rough few weeks.”
“Yeah, no kidding. After the whole ballroom scene, you basically disappeared.”
“Just needed some space.” It’s a vague response but good enough. Slipping past him, I head inside. The house smells like privilege—old wood, expensive carpet, legacy.
This could’ve been mine, should’ve been mine.
I can sense Lee’s presence behind me, lingering like a ghost as I walk up the stairs and head into Aries’s room. “You know I’m not mad about what happened, right? Bros before?—”
“It’s whatever, man.” I cut him off.
The thing with Salem was nothing but a game. I had intentions of using her against him, of hurting him, of fucking Aries over by alienating all of his friends, but then I witnessed Lee spiraling, and I knew I couldn’t go through with it. He showed me he gave a shit when no one else had, so I showed him mercy in return. “Really. No hard feelings. It’s ancient history.”
The room is exactly as I saw it in photos during my surveillance. Exactly as I leave it every time I have to make an appearance here. Everything perfectly Aries—organized, tasteful, controlled. The life I should have had.
Time to dismantle it piece by piece.
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I feel like there’s something different about you,” Lee confesses, leaning against the doorframe as I rummaging through the drawers.
Different is an understatement . If only you knew the truth. I grunt noncommittally, and focus on maintaining Aries’s precise movements while packing. My brother folds everything perfectly, even when in a rush. One of his many irritating habits that I’ve had to adopt.
“Is something going on that I don’t know about?” Lee asks.
“No.” The response is sharper than Aries would say it. I catch myself and soften my tone. “Nothing going on. I’m just...rearranging priorities. Trying to figure out what I want to do with my life.”
Lee’s concern is worn proudly, and it makes my skin itch. No one’s worried about me like this since...well, since before the boathouse. Before Aries proved loyalty to your family meant nothing. I disappear inside the closet, grab a duffel bag and return to the bed. Then I start filling it with the essentials. Aries’s belongings mean shit to me, but I can’t blow my cover, not yet. I can sense Lee watching my every move. He’s more intuitive than people give him credit for.
When I glance back at the desk, my eyes catch on something—a photograph tucked into the drawer. I reach over and pull it out. My eyes scan the picture. It’s Lilian at some charity event, looking directly at the camera with those perceptive blue eyes.
The perfect daughter. Innocent and fragile. A delicate flower that I intend to rip out of the fucking ground. Rage simmers just beneath the surface, and I barely contain it, my fingers tightening on the edge of the photo. He got everything while I rotted in that place. I grit my teeth and toss the photo in the bag.
I snatch the shoebox out of the closet, and dump the contents in the bag. Paper crinkling makes me pause, and I risk a glance at Lee, but he’s not watching my packing anymore. Newspaper clippings. It headlines about the tragic accident that took place at the Hayes family boathouse.
I skim the carefully crafted story they wrote about me, a troubled teen who was sent away for mental health treatment. How could they so easily reduce my life to carefully worded lies? I shove them into my pocket.
“Look, I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I know there’s something going on. Maybe you’re afraid to tell me or aren’t ready to talk about it. I don’t fucking know. What I do know is that you’re lying to me, and I don’t like it.” Lee pushes off the doorframe, moving closer. “First you ghost everyone, then you stop answering calls and text messages. I mean, you can’t even bother to hang out with me anymore, and now you’re just what? Leaving?”
If he knew that I was only playing the role of best friend, while his real best friend is stowed away in a call at the warehouse, would he be pushing so hard to befriend me?
“I won’t lie, it feels like I don’t even know you anymore.”
That’s because you never did.
“Maybe I’m finally choosing to grow up?” I continue packing, adding some of Aries’s designer clothes to maintain appearances. “I’m not leaving. I’m just taking a break from campus life. We can’t live at The Mill forever. Plus I need to focus my attention on the family business.”
“That’s bullshit.” I pause at the venom coating Lee’s words. “It’s well-known that you hate the family business. For fuck’s sakes, you spent all last semester talking about your plans to break away from it, and how you plan to get out from underneath your father’s thumb.”
He’s right—according to my research, Aries had been planning to reject Father’s company position. Another way my twin tried to distance himself from our family’s sins.
Stupidly, I find myself wanting to explain, to tell Lee the truth. Not because it would hurt Aries—though it would—but because a small part of me craves being honest with the first person who’s shown me real friendship.
It’s a fleeting thought. No point in explaining myself and putting the plan further at risk. It’s bad enough with Lilian knowing what she knows.
Gritting my teeth, I zip the bag closed and turn to him, forcing a smile onto my face that doesn’t feel even a little real. “Weren’t you the one to tell me that people change? Maybe I have too? Maybe this is me trying something new, trying to change.”
“Yeah,” Lee says quietly, “people change, but this isn’t you changing. I know it. You’re my best friend. This feels like…you’re surrendering. Like you’re giving up.”
The newspaper clippings crackle in my pocket as I move around the room. Ten years of carefully constructed lies printed in black and white.
Local Teen Hospitalized After Boating Accident. They didn’t even use my name—just the Hayes youth . It’s almost like I was already being erased. Fuck them. All of them. I remember that day with perfect clarity, and I guess most people would. The day their life ended. The flare gun in Aries’s hand. The look of panic on his face when it went wrong. The split-second decision I made to step forward and take the blame. Not out of brotherhood or love, but because I thought it would finally make them see me. Acknowledge me.
Instead, they saw an opportunity to solve their problem child situation permanently. I’d spent so long trying to be seen, trying to get them to understand me that I never realized how much space they had put between Aries and me. They were preparing him to be the golden child long before they removed me from the picture.
“I’m here for you, man. You’re my best friend.” Lee’s voice slices through the memories, pulling me back to the present.
“You can be my best friend and allow me to live my life. I’m not giving up. I’m exploring my options.”
“Your options?” Lee’s voice carries a note of apprehension with it. Have I blown my cover already? “Do you hear yourself right now? Working for your father was never an option, Aries.”
“Everything is an option. I was just trying to decide.”
Lee shakes his head, but hope shines in his eyes. “Is this about Lilian? I saw you two at the party together. She was here last night.”
The blood in my veins turns to ice, while I try to keep my voice nonchalant. “What about her?”
Lee shifts uncomfortably. “Are we still playing this game? Really? After all this time? I’ve seen how you look at her. The way you danced with her. Word spreads like a wildfire around here.” Fuck. My performance as Aries at the party drew more attention than I intended.
All because I couldn’t resist touching her, marking her as different from the rest of the Hayes family rot.
“Okay? She’s my stepsister,” I say, forcing dismissal into my voice.
“And your point is? You’re only related through marriage, not blood.”
“Dancing with someone doesn’t mean I’m fucking them.”
“It doesn’t mean you aren’t, either.” He winks.
“Drop it, Lee.” And this time, I let some of my real voice seep through—the tone that makes orderlies step back and doctors reach for sedatives.
He raises his hands in surrender, but his eyes narrow—like he sees something that he wants to investigate or ask about. “No need to be defensive. All I’m saying is you look at her differently than you have any other girl. Like she’s a prize to be earned and not some fuck toy.”
Again, if only I could spill the truth to him, but I can’t. I need to finish this and get out before I slip up any further.
“Lilian is nothing to me, not outside of being my stepsister,” I lie, feeling this strange possessiveness to keep what she might or might not be to Aries and me a secret.
“Sure. Whatever you say.” He rolls his eyes and then continues onto something else. “I meant to tell you but didn’t get the chance. Your parents called me. They’re worried you’re spiraling again, thinking about what happened?—”
“They called you?” My voice is definitely not Aries’s now. It’s darker, harder?—
Lee steps closer standing in front of me now with worry in his eyes. “Yeah, last week. Said you’ve been talking about your brother again. The one who?—”
“Died?” I cut him off, and a bitter laugh escapes my throat. “The troubled twin they sent away for everyone’s good? Is that what they told you?”
I close my eyes against the memory.
I’m trying to spend as little time with Patricia and Richard as possible, but that fucking house is where I’m going to get the most answers. And I always have to go when summoned.
Patricia, vapid, stupid even, only concerned with her status...brushed me off when I showed up at the house. Once we were all settled in Richard’s office, I casually mentioned dropping flowers off at Arson’s grave, and I swear you could have heard a pin drop in the silence as they both stared at me.
“Aries?” Lee takes a step forward, then stops as I turn to face him fully. “You’re starting to scare me, man.”
Good. He should be scared. They all should be. I’m this way because of them.
Think of your plan, of the time, bargaining, of the energy spent getting to where you are.
Don’t slip up. Don’t react.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” I say, smoothing my voice back to my brother’s careful tones. “I’m just stressed about all the up-and-coming changes.”
I know he doesn’t believe me. I can see it in his eyes. He’s caught a glimpse of me, the real me, the version that doesn’t match his best friend’s behavior.
“I should get going,” I say, shouldering the duffel bag. “I have a meeting with my father to prepare for the company position.”
The lie tastes bitter—another piece of the life they gave Aries while locking me away. Lee’s scrutiny is becoming dangerous, making me want impossible things. Like genuine friendship. Like someone knowing who I really am.
“Since when do you call him Father ?” Lee blocks the doorway, his features twisting with a mixture of disgust and confusion. “You’ve called him Richard since the day he tried to buy your silence about those illegal imports.”
Fuck. Another detail I missed in my research.
“Move,” I demand, and this time I don’t bother hiding my real voice.
“No.” Lee stands his ground, loyalty to his friend overriding his instincts. “Not until you tell me what’s really going on. Is someone threatening you? Is it about what happened with?—”
Snapping, I grab him by the shirt and slam him against the doorframe. For one fractured moment, I let him see me—really see me. Not Aries with his careful control, but Arson with a decade of pent-up rage and pain.
“I said move .”
His gaze widens as realization dawns on him. I’m the stranger who looks just like his best friend but isn’t.
“You’re not—” he starts, but then stops, like he’s thought better of it.
I release him, smoothing his shirt with Aries’s habitual gesture. “I’m not what?”
He swallows hard, self-preservation warring with loyalty. “Nothing. Just... call me, okay? If you need anything.”
In another life, this kind of friendship might have saved me. Might have made me something other than the monster I am today.
“Goodbye, Lee,” I say softly, letting him hear the finality in it.
I brush past him, taking the stairs two at a time. I hope he doesn’t think he can save me or him . By the time anyone acts on their suspicions, it’ll be too late. There is no saving Aries, just as there is no saving me.
Once outside, a strange emotion settles deep into the dark crevices of my chest. For a few months, I had what Aries always took for granted—a true friend. Someone who gave a shit if I lived or died. There’s no way to lie to myself. I’ll miss having Lee as a friend, miss having him as someone who gave a shit about me when no one else did.
After acknowledging the thoughts I shove them deep into the box of feelings I keep locked tight. Sentiment is weakness. Friends are a liability. The only thing that matters right now is revenge. It’s time to put my plan into motion, starting with sweet, innocent Lilian. Time to find out why she decided to pay me a visit last night.