Page 31 of Scattered Glitter

I manage a smile, trying to push through my growing discomfort. “It was nice meeting you. Sorry again. Please don’t call the police.” I try to slip past them, but my foot catches on some pebbles, and I stumble forward.

Koen’s hand shoots out, steadying me with a firm grip. “Careful.” His fingers wrap around the neck of the wine bottle in my hand, effortlessly taking it from me. “Don’t need you falling and hurting yourself on the shards.”

His touch is brief, but as his wrist brushes against my hand, a familiar sensation takes over—automatic, instinctual. My fingers move before my mind can catch up, slipping beneath the leather strap of his watch and undoing the clasp with ease. It’s muscle memory, and it happens so fast that even I’m surprised by it.

My breath catches in my throat as the watch slides off his wrist and into my palm. I don’t have time to think, only to react, so I straighten up, my cheeks flushing with heat as I quickly mumble, “Thanks,” barely able to meet his eyes.

Without another word, I turn and walk away, each step feeling heavier as the weight of what I’ve done sinks in. My fingers tremble as I pull out my phone to order an Uber for my shift at Euphoria, but when I slip the phone back into my pocket and glance down, my thumb traces the polished surface of the Patek Philippe nestled in my palm.

Holy shit. I stole Koen fucking Lane’s watch.

The rush hits me hard, a dizzying blend of exhilaration and panic that has my pulse racing.

Maybe tonight wasn’t just another mistake. Maybe it was a sign. A nudge to wake up, stop drifting, and start taking back control.

Or maybe it’s just another fuck-up I’ll add to the pile.

Either way, it’s mine now.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Koen

A whisper of something lingers in the air as she hurries away as if she’s trying to escape more than just our presence. My eyes stay on the path she took, unease prickling at the edges of my thoughts. There was something about how she carried herself like she’d been running from ghosts too.

What was she even doing here?

And why did seeing her sitting by my sister’s grave, speaking as if they were close, unsettle me so much?

We visit Rosie and Mom far too rarely. Maybe two times a year, birthdays, mostly. Which isn’t enough. And this is the first time we’ve been back since Oscar’s funeral, but it’s not easy for us. We can’t leave the house without being recognized. Not that I mind that so much, but this? This is different. Private. It’s not something I want to share with the public or the press.

Grief should be allowed its privacy.

That’s why we generally come at dusk, when the city is distracted, when everyone is on the Strip, forgetting the dead.

Everyone but us. Andher.

It’s been three months since Uncle Oscar was murdered, and I haven’t had the opportunity tofeelanything—grief, anger, fear. They’re all locked somewhere deep inside, buried under the weight of keeping everything together. Holding the edges of my crumbling family with hands starting to splinter.

I can’t let go or let my guard slip for even a second. Every stranger, every interaction is a potential threat. There’s no room for weakness. No room forme.

Sylus is slipping. He’s out all night, every night, and when he’s home, he’s high, numbing himself. And I get it. I do. But every time I see that glazed look in his eyes, I find myself gripping tighter. He’s barely holding on, and I’m terrified he’ll slip through my fingers entirely.

Alaric has hardly left his bedroom. He’s disappeared into his own shadows, locking himself away for days, and I’ve stopped knocking on his door, too pained from my dozens of attempts to reach him that only ended in silence. He’d only just started trusting us to fight his demons with him in recent years, but now I don’t know if I’ll reach him before he shatters entirely.

Ezra’s always been steady, the solid ground beneath our feet. Now, even he’s cracking. He’s grumpier, moodier, lost inside his mind. I see the haunted look in his eyes, the weight he carries that none of us are fit enough to help him lift. If Oscar was the one who kept the bonds of our pieced-together family strong, Ezra was the one who shielded us. From crazed fans to violent ones, he’s always been the one who protected us, but who’s protecting him now? Who’s keepinghimfrom breaking?

Levi had always been the wild one, who laughed too loud and lived too fast. But beneath all that glitter and chaos was a heart too soft for this world. My twin has been drowning his grief with anger, having more and moreoutbursts that are so out of line with his usual demeanor that it leaves me feeling hopeless.

I don’t know how to help any of them, but I know I cannot allow myself even a moment of weakness. If I let my guard down and my emotions surface, it wouldn’t be rage that spills out the same way it has for Levi. It would be despair.

A bottomless pit of it.

I can’t afford to fall into that.If I fall, who’s left to hold the rest of them up?

Oscar’s role in our family is mine now, to be the glue holding us all together. I never wanted it and didn’t ask for it. But someone has to do it.

So, I take it on—the responsibility, the fear, the endless exhaustion. I carry it, even as it grinds me down to nothing.

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