THE NEXT MORNING WAS THE FIRST TIME IN A LONG WHILE I HAD SLEPT IN. Probably because I didn't get any sleep at all when I was supposed to.

I rubbed my eyes, too tired still to care about my bedhead appearance, and made it to the kitchen of our suite, "Morning Johnny," I grumbled as I plopped down on a chair not so far away from him and Alisa. 

Oren gave me a nod. I looked at him with half-lidded eyes, "Say it back."

"Good Morning, Arlene."

"Leena," I quietly corrected. Before crossing my arms on the table and resting my head on them, "It's a good morning indeed..." before I knew it, I had dozed off again.

A while later Ave woke me up and Oren briefed me on all the security protocols. Keeping me safe from kidnappers, stalkers, and paparazzi. What a great thought to wake up to, am I right?

I yawned and then stretched. Listening to his every word. Avery went to freshen up. "Where is Libby?" I asked since I hadn't seen her since I woke up.

"On a plane," Alisa answered. "Specifically, your plane."

"I have a plane?"

"You have several," Alisa told me. "And a helicopter, I believe, but that's neither here nor there. Your sister is en route to retrieve your things, Avery's, as well as her own. Given the deadline for your move into Hawthorne House—and the stakes—we thought it best that you remain here. Ideally, we'll have you moved in no later than tonight."

"The second this news gets out," Oren said seriously, "you will be on the cover of every newspaper. You'll be the leading story on every newscast, the number one trending topic on all social media. To some people, you'll be Cinderella. To others, Marie Antoinette."

Some people would dream of being me. Some people would hate me from the depths of their bodies and souls.

"On the topic of Disney princesses," I smile, my signature lazy grin. As if I had not a care in the world. "I wanna be Elsa. Let it go." I grinned to myself as I softly sang to no one but me, thinking about stupid gray eyes, "Turn away and slam the door."

Oren sighed and Alisa looked at me as if questioning which planet I belonged to.

"Let the storm rage on," my eyes narrowed, "the cold never bothered me anyway."

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For the rest of the morning, Alisa and I played what I had mentally termed The Uprooting Avery and Arlene's Life In An Instant game. I quit my job. Avery quit hers. Alisa took care of withdrawing her from school.

"What about my car?" Ave asked.

"Oren will be driving you for the foreseeable future, but we can have your vehicle shipped if you would like," Alisa offered. "Or you can pick out a new car for personal use."
For all the emphasis she put on that, you would have thought she was talking about buying gum at the supermarket.

"Do you prefer sedans or SUVs?" she queried, holding her phone in a way that suggested she was fully capable of ordering a car with a mere click of a button. "Any color preference?"

"You're going to have to excuse me for a second," Ave told her. She ducked back into her bedroom. 

"Take it easy on her, Alisa," I began my way behind her. Before entering the bedroom I glanced back at her from the corner of my eyes, "We were underdogs. Humble people. The rich life takes a while to set in."

Suddenly I froze up. The picture of the shaggy old man, playing chess with me, Ave funding his breakfast with her poker games.

I whirled around on my heels, "What if we didn't want a new car—"

Avery too came out at the same time, "If we wanted to spend that money on something else—could we?"

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Bankrolling a place for Harry to stay—and getting him to accept it—wouldn't be easy, but Alisa told me to consider it handled. That was the world I lived in now. All I had to do was speak, and it was handled.

We were on our way to pick Libby up when I started to question whether money and power were the curse or if was it greed and addiction that came with it.

I knew that I shouldn't hope for this life to last a bit longer. That I should be fighting the curse. And I did. But there was a part of me that wanted this life for Libby and Avery. To give them the world they deserve not got. And maybe a sliver of it wanted something for myself.

What a selfish thought.

I let my thoughts wander for a dangerous moment. Could Alisa get Libby a coffee shop? Or a monthly supply of the latest books? Maybe Avery could also get a house full of puzzles? An application to Harvards? Or maybe I—
Crash. It all crashed down.

My mind froze. My body, taut. For some reason, the color I could comprehend was red. 

"Alisa," my voice was just like yesterday, but for some reason, deadlier, "I want someone dead. Better yet," I looked her right in the eye, my amber eyes cackling with malice, "tortured. You have someone I can hire?"

Alisa's voice was strictly professional. But I caught the slight waver in it and a shiver down her spine, "I could make some calls. I am very resourceful."

Libby immediately pulled me into a tight hug. Avery joined in. "Leena, don't."

"I listened to you last time," I gently caressed her bruised eye, "Oh my dear, dear Lib..."

I remember holding a gun. I remember holding it to his head.
I remember a pair of arms pulling and pleading with me to lower it
To let it go.
I almost did.
That night I almost let the bullet go.

My eyes were wild. "Let me. Please, stop doing this to yourself," I practically begged her, holding my sisters close, "Please. Let me do the one thing I am good at." Let me protect you like I forever vowed to.

 Libby sighed. Avery tried to reason with her too. But she was too stubborn.

"I am fine."

"Yeah, fine with a black eye." I was annoyed. And so so angry. Not at Libby. But that asshole. That stupid motherfucking piece of shit.

"I don't want to talk about it. And I'm fine.""But—"

"I'm fine."

I managed to keep my mouth shut, and all of us managed to make it back to the hotel. I didn't speak or look at Lib or Ave throughout the ride. But I held both of them close. Albeit Libby's insistence, I knew damn well that the next time I'd ever lay my eyes on that shit bag. 

I won't miss again.

The plan was to finish up a few final arrangements and leave immediately for Hawthorne House.

Things did not go exactly according to plan.

"We have a problem." Oren didn't sound overly bothered, but Alisa immediately put down her phone. Oren nodded to our suite's balcony. Alisa stepped outside, looked down, and swore. I took a look myself and immediately my hand shot up when Ave was going to come.

I glanced at her, Don't.

Down below, outside the hotel's entrance, hotel security guards were struggling with what appeared to be a mob. It wasn't until a flash went off that I realized what that mob was.
Paparazzi.

And just like that, every camera was pointed up at the balcony. At me.

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I thought you said your firm had this locked down." Oren gave Alisa a look. She scowled back at him, made three phone calls in quick succession—two of them in Spanish—and then turned back to my head of security. "The leak didn't come from us." Her eyes darted toward Libby. "It came from your boyfriend."

Libby's answer was barely more than a whisper. "My ex."

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He hit her. She left him. He went to the press.  I summarized to myself. And now they were here. 

A horde descended on us as Oren led me out a side door.

"There she is!" a voice yelled.
"Arlene!"
"Arlene, over here!"
"Arlene, how does it feel to be the richest teenager in America?"
"How does it feel to be the world's youngest billionaire?"
"How did you know Tobias Hawthorne?"
"Is it true that you and Avery are Tobias Hawthorne's illegitimate daughter?"

I was shuffled into an SUV. The door closed, dulling the roar of the reporters' questions. I squeezed my eyes shut. It wasn't the fact that the reporters and paparazzi felt new to me.

It was the fact that it didn't.

Like I was used to it. Like I had trained for it...

Yet had no memory of it at all.

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There were more paparazzi outside the gates of Hawthorne House, but once we pulled past them, the rest of the world faded away. There was no welcome party. No Pretty Boy. No Hawthornes of any kind. I reached for the massive front door—locked. Alisa disappeared around the back of the house. When she finally reappeared, there was a pained expression on her face. She handed me a large envelope.

"Legally," she said, "the Hawthorne family is required to provide you with keys. Practically speaking..."

"The Hawthornes are a pain in the ass." I finished her sentence. 

"That a legal term?" Oren asked dryly. I grinned, "Shush."

I ripped open the envelope and found that the Hawthorne family had indeed provided me with keys—somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred of them.

"Any idea which one of these goes to the front door?" I asked Ave, my gaze locked on the item. They weren't normal keys. They were oversized and ornately made. They all looked like antiques, and each key was distinct—different designs, different metals, different lengths and sizes.

Something about them... so so familiar...

She hummed in thought, "dunno..."

"You'll figure it out," someone said.

My eyes jerked upward, and I found myself staring at an intercom.

"Cut the games, Jameson," Alisa ordered. "This isn't nearly as cute as you all think it is."

No reply.

"Jameson?" Alisa tried again.

Silence, and then: "I have faith in you, M.G." a brief pause later, "and you don't disappoint me, Rina."

Rina? Arina.

That name again...

The intercom cut off, and Alisa blew out a long, frustrated breath. "God save me from Hawthornes."

"M.G.?" Libby asked, bewildered.

"Mystery Girl," I clarified, glancing at Ave. Maybe one of these keys was hers, that would explain why her locks were so shitty. "From what I've gathered, that's Jameson Hawthorne's idea of a nickname."

"And Rina?" Ave shot back. 

I shrugged, "Literally ever laid eyes on the dude once," I turned my attention to the ring of keys in my hand. The obvious solution was to try them all. Assuming one of these keysopened the front door, I'd get lucky eventually. But luck didn't feel like enough.I was already the luckiest girl in the world.

Or the unluckiest.

I handed the keys to Ave, "So, Sherlock?"

We loved playing the Sherlock And Watson Game.

Avery flipped through the keys, inspecting the designs on the handles. "Well, Watson. We have an apple. A snake. A pattern of swirls like water. There are keys for each letter of the alphabet, in fancy, old-fashioned script. There are keys with numbers and keys with shapes, one with a mermaid, and four different keys featuring eyes."

I studied the keys.  Sting. My eyes started to sting.

"Sometimes," said the wise man, "Simple is not simple enough, little Rina."
My eyes blinked at him, "How so?"
The man smiled, "Take it like chess, young one. The more complicated a person's strategy seemed, the less likely an opponent was to look for simple answers. If you could keep someone looking at your knight, you could take them with a pawn." He skimmed through the keys, "You know how to do this. You'll do it better than them."

Ignoring the sharp ringing in my head, I focussed on the lock instead. 

Though the keys differed in size overall, the lock end was sized similarly from key to key. Not just sized similarly, I realized, looking at two of the keys side by side. The pattern—the mechanism that actually turned the lock—was identical between the two. I moved on to a third key. The same. I began working my way through the ring, comparing each key to the next, one by one.

Ave, my dear Sherlock, caught on.

It was muscle memory for me. I skimmed through the keys too fast for Avery, said not a word, inserted the key with a different pattern, and pushed open the door.

Eureka.

"How did you know which key to use?" Libby asked me. Avery looked baffled. For once it was Watson faster than the great detective himself.

The answer came from the intercom. "Sometimes," Jameson Hawthorne said, sounding strangely contemplative, "things that appear very different on the surface are actually exactly the same at their core."

I didn't know if it was the intercom static or just my ears giving in. But suddenly I heard a flatline.

The world was spinning a thousand miles per hour and so was my head.

"And that's my good girl!" Big hands met tiny ones in the air, "Good job. Arina."
I smiled. Then two short arms wrapped around me. 
"You were so fast, the fastest!" the silver-eyed blonde smiled so brightly at me I might as well have been staring at the sun.

Soon we were captured by three more pairs of arms. Green eyes, Brown skin, and Red Hair. The laughter of kids and an elder filled my ears.
The wise man put his arms around all of us, "Oh my little treasures."

I let my body go limp. The world engulfed into a tight embrace of black. I felt strong arms hold me up. A name called out. My name. 

Void.

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