Kit woke slowly. Early light crept through the blinds, striping his bedroom in thin gold lines. His phone lay untouched on the nightstand—screen dark, but the ache in his chest still pulsed from the night before. That call. That name.
Downstairs, he heard soft footsteps. His stepmother—already awake, already in motion. Probably heading to the kitchen like always. The house felt sterile. Unfamiliar. Like even the walls held their breath. Without his mother, it had never felt like home. Just a shell pretending.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, the sheet sliding away from bare skin. The ink on his ribs caught the light—a moth poised in front of a pale crescent moon, thin ribbons of smoke curling around its wings. He'd stopped noticing it most days, but this morning it felt heavier, like the weight of something that had once tried to burn free.
He pulled on a shirt, stiff movements betraying the knot still lodged in his gut. He forced his shoulders to straighten. Delorah couldn't see this version of him. Not the one his father summoned by name. Not Adrian. Not the obedient son wrapped in someone else's future.
He tugged the hem of his shirt down, fingers ghosting once over the ribs where the ink lived, hidden now beneath cotton. The fabric still felt too clean, too stiff—like it didn't belong to him any more than this house did. He grabbed his hoodie from the back of the chair, pulling it on out of habit, even though the morning was already warm.
The mirror over his dresser caught him in passing. Hair mussed, shadows under his eyes a shade too deep. He raked his fingers through the dark strands, coaxing them into something that passed for order. The ache from last night was still lodged in his chest, but he buried it under the rhythm of small tasks: wallet, keys, phone.
Each step down the stairs felt heavier, the silence of the house pressing in from all sides. The faint smell of coffee reached him first—rich, bitter, too precise to be comforting.
In the kitchen doorway, he paused.
Downstairs, she was waiting.
Arms crossed.
Eyes sharp.
"Well, Adrian," she said, her voice smooth but carved from ice. The faint clink of her crystal bangle punctuated the words as she folded her arms. Her perfume reached him before she did — sharp bergamot laced with a sweetness that clung to the air, a scent he'd learned to associate with ultimatums. "Did you sleep at all? I trust last night's conversation with your father gave you plenty to think about."
Kit gritted his teeth. Nodded once. "I'm handling it."
Her nails — that precise, unchanging shade of lacquered red — drummed once against her sleeve before her mouth curved into a tight smile. "Good. Because the contract with that family… it was signed last night. Your father expects you to be ready."
Ready. The word curdled in his mouth.
"I understand," Kit said softly. "I'll do what's necessary."
For a brief second, her gaze flickered — something almost kind, almost human — but the mask didn't slip. "We're all counting on you."
She left the room, perfume and bangle-click trailing in her wake, and Kit stood alone. The silence pressed in, thick and suffocating. The name Adrian — the boy who'd watched his mother burn, the boy who lived — tightened around his throat like a noose.
He pulled out his phone, thumb hovering over the screen for a long moment. The words felt heavier than they should have, each letter a stone he was setting in her hands.
> Things are getting worse. Just… don't forget who I am when this all hits.
Not Adrian. Just me.
He stared at the message until the edges of the text blurred.
Maybe she wouldn't reply.
Maybe she couldn't.
But the thought of her forgetting—of letting Adrian swallow what was left of him—was worse than silence.
He sent it, screen glowing in the cold light of the kitchen. For a second, he imagined the hum of the refrigerator was her voice, humming the same tune she'd filled the night with on the swings. The warmth of her fingers brushing the hair behind his ear still lingered like an ember, small but stubborn.
Then the moment passed, and he was just Kit again. Standing alone in a house that would never be his, waiting for a war that was already halfway here.
He moved without thinking, feet carrying him to the fridge like muscle memory had taken the wheel. The light inside was too bright, too clean, bleaching the neat rows of glass containers. Every one of them was labeled in precise block letters—meals prepped by the chef, portioned like Kit was just another obligation to be managed.
He took the top one without reading it, set it on the counter, and peeled back the lid.
Fork. Plate. Microwave.
Each step slow, methodical, like he was following a script someone else had written for him.
The hum of the machine filled the silence, low and constant. He leaned on the counter, eyes unfocused, watching the numbers tick down without really seeing them. Somewhere upstairs, his phone buzzed again. He didn't move.
When the microwave chimed, he pulled the plate free, steam curling into the air, and sat at the table. It was routine, it was survival—chewing, swallowing, existing—nothing more.
Kit pushed his plate away, the faint scrape of ceramic on marble louder than it should've been. The last bite of breakfast sat untouched, cooling to a dull, greasy sheen. He couldn't taste it anyway. His stepmother's voice was still circling, steady and surgical—The contract was signed. The words had no blood in them, but they carved all the same.
Somewhere near the foyer, the front door eased open. The hinge gave a small, traitorous creak.
"Looking for me?"
Sebastian's voice slid in like the first cut of a knife—thin, gleaming, too close before Kit could brace. Footsteps followed, measured and unhurried, until he was framed in the kitchen doorway. Perfect posture. Perfectly pressed charcoal suit that caught the morning light on its clean edges. He carried himself like a storm in its quiet phase, electricity waiting for permission.
He didn't walk into the room so much as claim it, leaning a shoulder into the counter like he'd been born there. The shift in air temperature was immediate—where the house had been cool and stale, he radiated a kind of oppressive warmth that made it harder to breathe.
And then came the smile. Not the one strangers got—polished, disarming—but the sharper one, cut to fit only for Kit. The kind that never reached his eyes.
"I hear you're still in the dark about some family business," Sebastian said, his tone a slow incision. His eyes—gray, unyielding—caught the thin light and hardened to steel.
Kit's jaw locked. "What are you talking about?"
Sebastian's chuckle was deliberate, shaped like he wanted it to linger. He took a step forward, then another, his shoes soundless against the floor. Close enough now for Kit to catch the faint trace of YSL cologne under the scent of coffee and autumn air.
"Last night. Delorah and I."
He reached past Kit with unhurried precision, fingers curling around an apple from the counter. Without breaking eye contact, he tossed it lightly into the air and caught it with the ease of someone who'd rehearsed the gesture a hundred times.
"Our families made it official."
A bite—clean, decisive, the wet crunch loud in the stillness. He chewed as though they had all the time in the world.
"We're engaged." He let the word rest between them, heavy and smug. "She's going to be my wife, Adrian. Isn't that something?"
The breath left Kit's lungs in a rush. The kitchen tilted, edges blurring into a pale wash of light and shadow.
Engaged? Last night?
No. No, that couldn't—
That wasn't—
"You're… what?" Kit's voice caught halfway out of his throat, the syllable scraping raw as it left him.
"Surprised?" Sebastian tilted his head just enough to make the question a provocation. Another bite of the apple—sharp teeth, wet crunch, the sound punching into the quiet between them. Juice glinted briefly at the corner of his mouth before he swallowed. "You should be. You didn't even know, did you? Funny how these things happen behind your back."
Kit's hands slid under the table, curling into fists so tight his nails bit crescents into his palms. He forced his shoulders still, forced his breath to stay even. "You're gloating."
"I'm informing." Sebastian's tone was silk over glass. He brushed invisible lint from his cuff with the care of a man already bored with the conversation. Then—just the faintest lift at the corner of his mouth—"And maybe gloating a little. Can you blame me? She's perfect for me. Powerful. Sharp. From a family that actually means something."
He leaned in—not much, just enough for Kit to feel the warmth of his breath, the faint, deliberate waft of expensive cologne that always clung to him after a morning meeting. His smile thinned into something surgical. "Not like you. Just the forgotten son playing dress-up behind a fake name."
The words struck like hot wire, winding up Kit's throat until it burned just to swallow them down. But he refused to flinch. Not here. Not in front of him.
"This isn't over," Kit said, voice low and steady enough to be dangerous.
Sebastian's smile widened into something almost joyful. "Oh, little brother… it's barely begun."
He dropped the half-eaten apple onto Kit's plate with a muted thud, the fruit still warm from his hand. Then he turned for the door, his stride unhurried, voice floating back like a hook on a line. "You'll get your part in all this, whether you like it or not. Daddy made sure of that." He lingered on the word, letting it drip with mock affection, like it was a private joke only he understood
The echo of his shoes faded into the hall. Kit didn't move.
The weight of Sebastian's words sank in his chest like a stone dropped in deep water—down, down, until it pressed against the bottom of his ribs.
Delorah.
Engaged.
To Sebastian.
It didn't feel real. Couldn't. The edges of the kitchen swam, the muted clink of the fridge settling swallowed by the roar of blood in his ears. Everything outside him stood still, but inside—things cracked. Splintered.
He tried to find something solid to hold onto. A thread. A sign. Any warning she would've given him. But there had been nothing. Only the night air on her skin, her laugh tangled in the dark, the brief heat of her fingers brushing his. Just her.
He swallowed hard. Coffee and ash clung to his tongue, bitter enough to turn his stomach. Of course it was Sebastian. Of course his father would choose the golden son to knot the families together—the one who wore the name like it was armor. Kit had only ever been the shadow at his heels. The smoke left after the fire. The silence after something beautiful burned down.
His hands found the counter's edge and gripped until his knuckles whitened. Shaking. And now Del—Del, the one person who had seen him instead of Adrian—was being folded into the same performance. Given a part in a play she didn't audition for.
A laugh scraped up his throat and broke halfway out. She didn't know. She couldn't have known. She would've told me.
…Wouldn't she?
The whisper came anyway, soft and sure: You're not the one they want. You're not Adrian. You're Kit. The mistake.
His jaw locked. Breath dragged in, jagged and sharp, as if he could pin himself together with it. It didn't work.
No—he couldn't stay here. Couldn't let this take root. His thoughts spun, clawing at every locked door, every unsaid thing, every moment already gone.
He pushed off the counter. Walked out of the kitchen, fast, like if he stopped, the grief would catch him by the throat and never let go.
.
.
.
.
Delorah sat at the kitchen table, her untouched toast cooling into something limp and uninviting. The butter had soaked in and left the crusts damp—one more thing dissolving without her permission.
Across from her, her mother cradled a tiny porcelain cup, sipping espresso with that same unshakable grace she used for delivering catastrophic news. Relocating to Switzerland. Pulling Del from school to attend a last-minute gala in Milan. The way she could upend an entire season of Delorah's life without so much as a raised brow. Always with elegance. Always with distance.
But this morning, the quiet between them wasn't the usual porcelain smoothness—it was heavier, set down with intent, like a paperweight keeping some dangerous truth from slipping free.
Del picked at the corner of her toast until it broke away in a small, soggy triangle. She set it down. "You're being weird," she said finally.
Her mother's lashes lifted. She set the cup down with a soft clink on glass. "Am I?"
"Yes," Del said, sharper now. "And you've been weird since last night."
Through the wide glass doors, her father stood on the terrace, a phone pressed to his ear, his free hand cutting through the air like he was sealing a trade deal. But it wasn't his voice or posture that made her stomach pull tight—it was the glance he and her mother had exchanged earlier. The one she'd caught in the mirror when they thought she wasn't looking. Quick. Knowing. Final.
And there had been last night's dinner—unexpected, formal, and just vague enough to keep her awake afterward. The weight of it still sat in her gut.
Her mother folded her hands on the table, the diamond on her wedding band catching a spear of sunlight. "You're seventeen now."
"I'm aware," Del said, her voice flat, a defense.
"And you know how important our family name is," her mother continued, tone smoothing into something almost ceremonial. "How delicate these arrangements can be."
Delorah's pulse slowed, like her body was trying to shield her from whatever came next. Her stomach dropped. No. No.
Her mother reached into her handbag, movements crisp and deliberate, and drew out a thick, cream-colored folder—tied with a satin ribbon, as though it were a gift. Something to be opened with gratitude. She slid it across the table.
Del stared at it but didn't move. "What is this?"
"A proposal," her mother said, her voice dipped in silk. "An opportunity. For all of us."
Her fingers felt wooden as she pulled the ribbon loose. The folder sighed open.
Preliminary Marital Agreement… Sebastian Victor Honey.
The name screamed up at her in block letters, too loud to belong on paper. It had teeth. It bit.
Her vision tunneled; the sunlight through the glass doors was suddenly too bright, her father's voice on the terrace a meaningless hum.
"You can't be serious," she said, her voice thin.
"We are," her mother replied, each word perfectly measured. "It was finalized last night in good faith between both families. Sebastian is an excellent match—"
"Sebastian is—" The sentence ripped out of her, unprepared. She shot to her feet, the chair legs screeching against the tile. "He's Kit's brother. He knows I—"
Her throat seized.
Her mother's gaze sharpened, cold glass under pressure. "You've been seeing Adrian? The one who hides behind that other name?"
"I haven't been seeing anyone," Del said quickly, the lie splintering in her voice. "He's in one of my classes. That's it."
A long pause. The rhythmic tap of her mother's nails against the espresso cup cut the air in measured beats.
"Be careful, Delorah," she said softly, though there was nothing gentle in it. "You're not a little girl anymore. And in this world, there's no such thing as harmless attachment."
Delorah's jaw trembled. "I didn't agree to this."
"You didn't have to." Her mother's tone softened—almost kind—but it only made the words sink deeper, colder. "You're part of something bigger than just yourself now."
Del's breath caught. Her heart twisted, tight and unforgiving.
"I won't do it," she whispered.
Her mother didn't answer. She didn't need to.
The contract sat between them like a loaded gun. The silence that followed wasn't stillness—it was the click of a safety coming off, the held breath before someone pulled the trigger.
.
.
.
.
Delorah slammed the door so hard it rattled the glass in its frame, like the bones of an old house remembering violence. The lock caught with a gunshot snap. For a moment, she just stood there, back pressed against the wood, heartbeat ricocheting up her throat, threatening to choke the last word out of her—except her mother had already taken the last word, polished it, and hung it on a chain around her own neck.
She could still hear it: her mother's voice, silk over ice, slicing the air into neat, manageable pieces. "Family legacy." "Opportunity." "This is best for all of us."
Words that turned people into assets, daughters into bargaining chips. Delorah LaRoche: not girl, not blood, not even the heat of a heartbeat. Just a cold calculation on someone's ledger, an elegant signature in ink that would never come out of the carpet.
She paced the length of her room—once, twice, back again, feet moving but getting nowhere. Her breath snagged in her lungs, shallow and sharp, as if the air itself had grown suspicious. Her hands curled and flexed like stray animals, restless, looking for a way to tear out of her own skin. If she could just find the zipper, maybe she could crawl out and leave the husk behind for her mother to sell.
Her phone buzzed—an electric jolt, too loud in the graveyard hush of the room. She flinched like it was a threat. The world shrank down to that tiny, hungry sound.
She spun, snatching the phone off the tangled bedsheets, already bracing herself for disappointment: Cassie, with another chain-text apology. A bank alert. Her mother, again, digitally reasserting her control. Something pointless, something that would bounce off her like a stone on water.
But no.
Kit.
His name was a bruise beneath her thumb.
The message blinked up at her, trembling a little, like it was afraid of what it might become when she opened it.
Things are getting worse. Just… don't forget who I am when this all hits. Not Adrian. Just me.
She stared. The words crawled into her chest and dug their hooks in, pulling at all the parts of her that still remembered how to ache. Kit. Not Adrian.
Just him.
For a split second, the world tilted. Not legacy, not contract, not anything her mother could monetize or bury. Just the echo of a boy's voice in her hands, fragile as glass, begging her to remember the name he chose when everything else was burning.
Her grip tightened. She pressed the phone to her sternum, as if it could anchor her to the floor, as if memory could be armor, as if love—stupid, reckless, radiant love—might still mean something after the signatures dried and the ash settled.
The ache in her chest surged, hot and aching as a tongue pressed to a broken tooth—not just at the words he wrote, but at the way he wrote them. Like the letters were already smoke. Like he was already slipping out of his own skin, dissolving at the edges, a ghost not yet dead but already giving up the fight to stay. Every letter a quiet admission: they're winning. And he could feel himself—Kit, not Adrian—being whittled down to something small and disposable, something they could break and sell and rename.
She stared at the message, the words bleeding their quiet, desperate pulse into the blue-lit hush of her room. The screen glared back, expectant. For a long moment, all she could do was swallow—pain blooming in her throat, chest tight as a fist, grief rising sharp and new with every breath.
Then her fingers moved, clumsy at first—like learning to pray for the first time in years, like trusting the sound of her own voice after a season of silence. One letter. Then another. Each word a tug at the seam holding her chest together, each one pulling until the old wound split open and something raw and blinding poured out:
I won't forget. Not now. Not ever.
I don't care what they're planning, I still see you.
The one who stayed with me that night.
The one who looked scared when he said his real name.
That's the one I'm holding on to.
Her thumb hovered above the send button—just for a moment. Just long enough for the old fear to crawl up her arm, whispering, What if it's too late? What if you already lost him? What if you're the only one left who remembers how to say his name?
But she pressed send anyway, thumb trembling. The message shot off with a gentle, irretrievable whoosh—like an exhale after a held breath, like the hush after a slammed door.
And for the first time since morning bled through the blinds, her hands were still. Not healed, not whole—but steady. As if by naming him, by refusing to let the world erase his edges, she'd carved out a space where the fear couldn't reach. Not yet.
She closed her eyes and clutched the phone to her chest, as if she could anchor him there—Kit, not Adrian, the boy made of smoke and soft terror and sharp, stubborn love. The world outside was still spinning, contracts still waited on the kitchen table, but for now, her hands didn't shake.
Not when she held him like this.
.
.
.
Kit sat on the edge of his bed, shoulders caved, every vertebrae pulled taut like a marionette slumped after the show. Something had settled into his spine—heavy, invisible, permanent. The weight of himself, or maybe just the echo of Sebastian's voice. Delorah. Contract. Marriage.
The syllables still clung to the wallpaper, oily and slick, impossible to scrub out. Even the air felt colder, like the house was listening, like the Honey walls had learned how to be cruel.
He stared at nothing, hands limp between his knees. His chest was full of splinters and static. Each thought skittered away before it could finish, as if even his brain was on edge, unwilling to trespass in this hush. The silence wasn't peaceful; it was carnivorous. A beast with too many teeth, gnawing at the base of his skull. He wanted to scream, but the sound was jammed somewhere behind his molars, caged by the ghosts of a hundred unspoken threats.
His phone vibrated against his palm. He flinched, nearly dropping it. For a moment, he didn't dare look—already bracing for another missed call from his father (the ringtone alone made his skin crawl), or a text from Sebastian, twisting the knife with that immaculate, cruel composure.
But then he saw her name, soft and urgent. Delorah.
The message bloomed across the screen, every line a lifeline:
I won't forget. Not now. Not ever.
I don't care what they're planning, I still see you.
The one who stayed with me that night.
The one who looked scared when he said his real name.
That's the one I'm holding on to.
Kit's vision stuttered. For a moment the words broke and blurred, and he realized he hadn't breathed since the notification flashed. He drew in a breath so jagged it felt like swallowing glass, every inhale scraping his ribs raw.
She sees me—not Kit, not Adrian. Not the burn-out, not the heir, not the echo. Just… him. That ruinous, unclassified thing in between. The trembling pulse caught between wanting to run and wanting to be found.
His thumbs hovered, uncertain, over the digital glare. What could he possibly say back that wouldn't shatter under its own weight? The old panic twisted tighter—what if he said the wrong thing? What if he ruined it? What if she was the last person in the world willing to remember his name?
He wanted to spill everything. He wanted to crawl out of his own skin, bleed all over the keys, tell her how the house was haunted, how Sebastian's shadow stretched down the hallway and smothered the light, how his real name felt like a mouthful of ash and the world was closing in—
Instead, he just sat there, trembling. Trying to gather the pieces. Trying to find a voice that sounded like his own.
His thumbs hovered for a lifetime. He erased the first draft, then the next, watching little ghosts of words vanish and reappear, like breath on a cold window. In the end, what survived was small, almost shameful—bare and bruised, the confession of someone who'd been taught not to ask.
I don't deserve that.
But I need it anyway.
He stared at it, heart in his throat. Then—another message, an aftershock:
You're the only thing that feels real right now.
No punctuation, no armor, nothing but the trembling, unvarnished marrow of it. He pressed send. The phone slipped from his grip, landing in a tangle of sheets, the notification sound echoing like a stone dropped in deep water.
Kit hunched over, elbows digging into his knees, both hands cupping his face. The old prayer: make me invisible. Make it all stop. The world pressed in—thick with secrets, with walls that watched and doors that knew too much.
She didn't know yet. Not really. She didn't know about the rooms where men with cufflinks and dead eyes passed contracts across tables slick with oil and inheritance. She didn't know what his father had promised, or what Sebastian had threatened, or how Kit had watched it all happen with his hands shaking in his lap, unable to do a thing but nod.
But she would. Soon.
And when she did—when the ink dried and the trap snapped shut and everything they were trying to save turned to dust—he could only hope she'd still see him. Still mean every word. Still hold the trembling, animal-soft thing he tried to keep alive in his chest. Even if he didn't deserve it. Especially then.
For now, he stayed hunched there, listening to the silence roar, waiting for another message, wishing he was someone she could believe in.
---
He didn't even realize his hands had moved until the battered notebook was open in his lap, spine cracked and trembling like his own. A torn page fluttered loose—one of those old wounds he kept returning to, softer at the edges from too much thumb. The pen's cap clung to his teeth, plastic and bitter, as he began to write—not planning, not thinking, just letting the words spill, raw and aching, across the lines.
Kit's Private Journal
I don't remember who I was before her.
Maybe I never existed properly until that night.
Maybe I'm just a half-written name, waiting for someone else to finish the sentence.
She looked at me like I was something more.
Not a ghost. Not a lie.
Just a boy.
Just a heartbeat.
Just enough.
If I'm slipping—hold on.
And if I fall—burn the world until you find me.
(In the bottom corner, scrawled sideways, half-hidden in the margin:)
If they take everything else, please remember I was real.
He sat with it, the ink still damp, the paper curling where his palm had pressed too long. It didn't make anything easier. Didn't make the walls feel less close or the silence any softer. But it was something—a proof, a pulse. The unkillable hope that someone, somewhere, might see the truth of him, even if he couldn't.
He closed the notebook gently, tucking it beneath the pillow, a secret under a secret, and sat in the hush, waiting for morning. Or for her reply. Or just for the ache to settle back into something he could carry.