Page 11 of Vulnerate

“I’ll be ready at three tomorrow, maybe park outside the gates?”

I have the widest smile on my face and agree. Carly is still glaring at me as Leno drives away. Ignoring her, I dip down kissing Dani’s cheek while holding my middle finger up behind her head. My little artist is blushing when I move back, and she stuffs her hands in her pocketsgetting nervous.Cupping her jaw, I chase that soft blush on her cheek with my thumb and lower my voice as I meet her eyes.

“Be good, Dani mine.”

She nods and looks away from me, so damn adorable I just want to bite her cheek and never let go.

My good mood fades as I drive home, Vlad’s going to have an even bigger stick up his ass about Leno. He’s never told us the full story, just enough to know why we hate him. For my brother to allow him to live the snake must know something he shouldn’t, and I delay the inevitable rage as I drive home. I’ll let Dima tell him instead of me being in the line of fire.

1 Fuck you

FOUR

Daniela

Carly grabs my arm as soon as Val’s car is out of sight. Her fingers dig into my bicep, and I try to pull the limb back as she drags me into the house screaming, “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

My fight leaves as confusion washes over me. She’s talking as though I’m the one who was sticking my tongue down some drug addicts throat. The door slams echoing around our empty home, and I let her continue screaming knowing she’ll need to get it out of her system before our parents come home.

“Do you know what’s going to happen to you?” She takes a step closer to me, her eyes wild and nostrils flared. I’ve never seen her enraged, she doesn’t give enough of a fuck about me to actually get angry. Pausing before her shoes can touch mine, she looks me up and down, forcing me to make myself smaller. “You’re a stupid bitch.”

We’ve never really argued before and my eyes burn, trying to hold back the natural impulse to sob.

Somehow, I manage to find my voice but it comes out weak.

“I didn’t do anything. You can do better than him anyway, he’s probably using you if he’s in debt.”

The logic is sound, but her hand is harder as the full expanse of her knuckles and fingers slam off my cheek so forcefully that my head turns. My cheek throbs and for the first time in my life, I wish my sister was ignoring me. The cruelty in her voice sticks to my skin like acid melting through the flesh to sink into my bones and becoming a part of me.

“And what use do you have? Fucking your way through the Vartanov’s like some fucking whore? At least Leno loves me, no one loves you. We all wish you were never born, it’s why we forget that you fucking exist, because that’s our biggest wish.”

A scream rips through my throat as I turn to face her ignoring the way my entire body burns. “SO DO I!”

I can see my chest move in my periphery. The edge of my overalls nearly become a blur from how harshly I’m breathing. But there’s no lie or remorse as my admission bounces off the museum playing as a home. I continue as Carly freezes for once and I take a step closer to her until we’re nose to nose.

“So do I. I know you hate me, trust me I get it. But you don’t get to call me a whore or hit me. You know nothing about me and if I died right now, you wouldn’t even be able to tell anyone anything other than my name. So, you don’t get to do shit to me because you’re not my family, you’re nothing to me.”

Her face falls and she lifts her arms trying to hug me while my cheek probably has her handprint on it. Smacking them out of my way I step around her and go to my room as she shouts at my back, “Dani. I’m sorry.”

Fuck her.

She said the truth, we both know it. My parents will only come home because they have to, they have to maintain the image and my birthday is public information due to their lives being in all the papers. It will get them their sympathy and applause while I wait for them to actually look at me,to see me.

It will never happen and I’m the biggest fool for expecting anything to change. A new year but the same shit and I sink down with my back against the door as soon as I’m in my room. The walls are boring underneath my sketches, so is the bed. It used to be the guest bedroombefore I was born, and they didn’t even change the furnishings to accommodate for things that I might like. I haven’t either, I’ve made sure that I can removemefrom their house without a trace.

I must have fallenasleep during my pity party because my room is dark as something touches my face and Tali whispers, “Hey, why are you on the floor?”

He’s squatting beside me, and my cheek is pressed to the carpet as I blink to look up at him. It makes my voice mumbled as I have no energy to move.

“I was tired.”Lie.

He moves back and stretches to the side, hitting the switch for the lamp as I squint, anticipating the light burning my eyes.

The weirdo has his hood over his head like a stalker and I ask, “Why are you in my house?”

He shrugs and looks around my room, specifically at the drawings littering the walls before he nonchalantly says, “Carly’s out, I knew she wouldn’t be if your parents were home.”

She might not be my family, but Tali is. He grabs my arm forcing me up, his eyes automatically go to my cheek and there’s a tic in his jaw as he allows anger to enter his eyes.

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