Page 28 of Teach Me How To Fly

How come they were sisters, but Katya’s ordinary, colorless smile could never be related to my Anna’s, so bright and adoring. So kind and inviting. So pure.

“Oh, I didn’t know you were here, Maksen! Aren’t you happy that we’ll be leaving today for Seychelles?” she chirped and jumped on her feet.

“I am,” I lied as I felt Lukyan’s gaze forcing me to play my role for his favorite daughter. “You should go and pack your bags,” I added and gave her the fakest smile I had.

“I’ll go do a retouch of my makeup. The bags are done,” she informed me and passed by us on a run.

The moment she got away and the sound of her bedroom door slamming filled the hallway, Lukyan and I looked at each other and I could feel his icy gaze looking straight into my soul.

“This, son,” he growled, poking me in the chest with his finger. “This heart continued beating because of me and it could stop beating at any moment also because of me,” he added, applying more pressure onto my flesh.

I clenched my jaw, trying to keep a still face as I looked at him. I knew he saved me and I had to be grateful for what he did for me, but I realized that it wasn’t something that could stop me from living my life as I wanted. I had to escape this cage he had locked me in.

“Take my words as a joke one more time and you will face the consequences,” he threatened and pointed his finger at me.

The only consequences I would face were the ones that would come after I would’ve actually agreed to stay away from Annalise. Because those consequences would come from my own mind — and that’s a dark, dark place.

“Leave.”

I was content to just look at him, without showing any emotion on my face. I wanted him to think about what my silence meant because the few times I didn’t talk were the ones when I was killing people.

So I just turned on my feet and left him standing there. But as I walked down the hallway, I felt his eyes pinning me from behind and my lips curled into a smirk as my right hand reached to the back of my pants, hitting the sheath of the knife twice with the tip of my fingers.

I knew he saw it.

I wanted him to see his future, because he was going to die bymy knife.

11

MAKSEN

The flight was tiring, but not because of the timezone, mostly because Katya couldn’t keep her mouth shut for a minute even though I pretended to be asleep.

After a few hours of hell, the rage toward this woman and her father grew even more as we were getting closer to the private beach house she booked for us. We were going to stay together in the same house, so that meant we needed to get along with each other. I was curious how that would turn out.

After I took a nap and recharged my batteries, I woke up and saw Katya who was already prepared for the beach. She was wearing a revealing swimsuit with little sparkly gems on it, and I couldn’t be dumb not to admit that she looked good, but she just wasn’t my type.

“C’mon! Wake up! You slept a lot already!” she chirped and jumped from one foot to another.

“And I would rather sleep again than do anything else.”

She gave me a disgruntled facial expression and put her hands on each side of her waist. “I don’t know why you hate me, really,” she complained and walked towards the bed.

I stood up, supporting my weight with my elbows and looked at her attentively. She seemed concerned, even a little upset over the fact that we arrived in a place like Seychelles and I wasn’t up for anything she had in mind.

“I don’t hate you,” I replied and ran my fingers through my hair.

“Spare me! I know you’ve hated me ever since we were children and I really don’t know why,” she explained, her lips moving into a straight line.

“You were always doing and saying things just to piss everyone off, Katya. You were keen to get attention and you would’ve done anything to have it.”

She scrunched her nose, wrapping her hands around her chest.

“I was just being myself, so I’m sorry I can’t be a fake bitch like my sister is!”

A fake bitch.

She called Annalise a fake bitch.

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