Page 54 of A Twisted Gift

“But you couldn’t stop, could you? You came for my family next. Killed my mother and father where they should’ve been safe in their own home.”

“Dad, what the hell is he talking about?” Benjamin asks faintly. He’s clutching at his bleeding arm, his face inhumanly pale.

Father ignores him. “Your father was a bad, bad man.”

“I don’t care,” Erik shouts, making me jump. He must catch it out of the corner of his eye because he turns to me. “I’m sorry, little rose. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s all right, I—”

Father takes the break in Erik’s focus to fling a dinner plate in my direction. I yelp as Erik yanks me behind him, the plate crashing to the floor and shattering. When Erik re-aims the gun at Father, he freezes.

“I’m sorry about your parents, son, but it had to be done. You were…”

“I was supposed to die with them. I know,” Erik spits out. “It didn’t matter that I was innocent in my father’s plans. It didn’t matter that Raina was innocent in her own conception. You still chose to punish us.”

“There are always sacrifices that need to be made to achieve greatness. You’ll learn that one day.”

“I already have,” Erik says darkly, nodding to the Christmas tree in the corner. “Raina, the lights.”

I spring into action, stripping the tree of the yellow string lights. Ornaments fall to the ground as I go, some shattering, but I don’t stop to be more careful. After what we have planned, it won’t matter, anyway.

“Call security,” Father hisses at Benjamin. “Or the police. Someone!”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Erik says, but there’s a playfulness in his tone. A dare, almost.

He’s enjoying this,I realize.And… so am I.

It doesn’t hurt me, seeing Danny’s lifeless body and the pain on Benjamin’s face. Erik is right. This is only a small taste of what they’ve put me through. The isolation, the loneliness, the knowledge that I’d never truly belong anywhere.

It nearly destroyed me. But getting payback? It’s as vindicating as I always dreamed it would be.

“Fuck… you,” Benjamin wheezes out as he unlocks his phone.

“Raina,” Erik says.

“Got it.” I cover my ears, and a moment later, another gunshot goes off.

Blood sprays across the dining room table and splatters the wall behind my half-brothers. It stains the tablecloth, too, and from where I’m standing, I can see a large, red puddle gathering beneath their chairs.

With the Christmas lights bundled up in my hands, I step toward them.No more.No more bullying, no more laughing at my tears, no more taunting me about not knowing things. They’re gone. Forever.

“Raina! What’re you doing?” Father shouts. “Those are yourbrothers.We’re your own family. How could you—”

“You’re no family of mine.”

Erik is behind me now, placing a reassuring hand on my back. Kissing my temple, he murmurs, “That’s my girl.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Father says. “He’s only—”

“Shut up,” Erik snaps, advancing toward him.

My father scrambles away, but Erik grabs him and forces him into a chair. Keeping the gun pressed to Father’s temple, Erik beckons for me to join him.

“Touch her, and I’ll make this ten times more painful than it needs to be,” Erik bites out.

I can hear my father’s panicked breathing as I wrap the string lights around him. His arms are trapped against his body, and I tug at the lights to keep them as tight as possible. I wind them until there’s nothing left and Father is secured to the chair.

When Erik nods in approval, I grin. This was his idea. He was worried that Father would try to hurt me if I got too close to him, but now he can’t get to me.

---