POV Blake
Watching Amelia prepare for her wedding is like watching someone train for their own execution, except with more tulle and passive-aggressive flower arrangements.
Mom's in full Luna Dictator mode, micromanaging every fucking detail from the napkin folds to Amelia's facial expressions.
I'm lurking in the doorway like the family ghost, watching my sister get programmed into a weapon wearing white. Through our link, I feel her screaming. But out loud? Perfect compliance.
"Blake." Mom notices me because of course she does. "Make yourself useful. Go organize Amelia's luggage. Try not to break anything."
I salute sarcastically and bail before she finds more creative ways to remind me I'm worthless.
Later, after Mom's finally fucked off to terrorize some florists, I find Amelia in her room surrounded by wedding shit. The dress hangs there like a silk prison.
"Surviving?" I ask.
She laughs, but it sounds like breaking glass. "Define surviving."
"Still breathing, minimal psychological damage, haven't committed any felonies yet."
"Then no." She's holding the wedding dress like it might bite her. Then her eyes get this weird, desperate shine. "Try it on."
"What? No. That's—"
"Please." She shoves the dress at me. "Just for fun."
There's nothing fun about the manic energy rolling off her, but I take the dress anyway. It's heavier than it looks, all that silk and lace and expectation.
I slip it on in her bathroom, and when I come out, Amelia's staring like she's seen a ghost. Maybe she has.
"Look," she whispers, turning me toward the full-length mirror.
Holy shit.
We're identical. Not just sisters-who-look-alike identical, but carbon-copy, could-be-the-same-person identical. Same face, same build, same everything.
Even I can't tell where I end and she begins.
"We could fool anyone," Amelia says, her voice cracking like thin ice. "Even Mother mixed us up as children, remember? Before you couldn't shift. Before they decided you were somehow broken."
"Am—"
"I used to pretend to be you sometimes." The confession tumbles out like she's been holding it for years. "When being perfect felt like drowning. I'd pretend I was you and didn't have to carry the whole fucking bloodline on my shoulders."
"Yeah, because being the family disappointment is such a vacation package."
"At least you're free to be yourself."
I stare at her. "Are you high? I'm not free to be anything. I'm free to be nothing."
She touches the mirror where our reflections merge. "We're both prisoners, Blake. Just in different cells."
The truth of it hits like a slap.
She's right. We're both fucked, just in different fonts.
That night, I was half-asleep when my door creaks open. Amelia slips in like a shadow, clutching her leather-bound diary like it's made of C4.
"Blake." Her voice is urgent, scared. "I need you to keep this safe."
I sit up, instantly awake.
Everything about her screams wrong. The way she's holding herself, the tremor in her hands, and Amelia's hands never shake. She's the steady one.
Something's fucked-up wrong.
"What's wrong?"
"Just take it." She presses the diary into my hands, and her fingers are ice cold. "Hide it somewhere Mother will never find it. It has... everything important to me."
Through our link, I feel her terror. Not about the wedding, not about Matthias, but something else. Something infinitely much worse.
"Amelia, what the fuck is going on?"
But she just leans down and kisses my forehead, her lips cold as marble. "I love you, sister. Never forget that."
"You're scaring me…"
"I'm sorry." She's backing toward the door like I might try to stop her. "For everything. For not being strong enough to—"
"Am—"
"I love you," she says again, and then she's gone.
I should've followed her. Should've known.
Should've done something other than hide her diary under the loose floorboard in my closet and go back to sleep like an idiot.
Dawn comes too early and too quiet.
No morning routine sounds from Amelia's room. No shower running.
Just silence.
By seven AM, the not-knowing is eating me alive. The diary sits under my floorboard like a loaded gun, and I can't stop thinking about the way she said ‘I love you.’
Not "sleep well" or "goodnight". I love you.
Fuck it.
I've read her diary before. She's written in it while I'm right there, like we're having some twisted literary sleepover. She won't mind.
But when I crack it open, my blood turns to ice water.
‘I can't do this anymore. I can't watch them destroy Blake piece by piece while I stand there playing perfect daughter. I'm so tired of being their Golden fucking Child. The thought of betraying Matthias, of living a lie for the rest of my life—it's killing me already. So I'm choosing my own way out.
Blake will blame herself. She always does. But this isn't her fault. It's mine for being too weak to fight, too scared to run, too tired to keep pretending.
I'm sorry, Blake. I'm so sorry. I can't pretend I'm strong enough to hold us both up. I can't marry someone I don't love to save a pack that doesn't deserve saving. I can't marry a good man just to destroy him.
I'm so tired of everything. Maybe if I'm gone, they'll finally see what they've done to you. I love you. I'm sorry. Don't follow me to the oak grove. Be free.’
“No…” The diary falls from my numb fingers. "No, no, no, no, NO!"
I'm running before my brain catches up, still in my sleep t-shirt and shorts, bare feet slapping against cold floors. I tear through the house like a fucking tornado.
"Where's Amelia?" I grab the first pack member I see, some nobody who usually pretends I don't exist.
He looks at me like I've grown a second head. "I... haven't seen her?"
Kitchen. Empty. Her room. Empty bed, window open, still carrying that awful finality.
"Amelia!" I'm screaming now, checking every room, every closet, anywhere she might be hiding.
More pack members stare like I'm having a psychotic break. Which, fair. But none of them have seen her.
I sprint toward the forest, toward our oak grove, my lungs on fire.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe she just ran away without me. Maybe she—
But I hear voices before I see anything. Male voices. Laughing.
I break through the tree line and there they are—four patrol wolves standing around something on the ground, smirking like they just won the lottery.
"About fucking time," one says. "Figured the pathetic bitch would eventually grow some balls."
"Bet it took her all night to work up the courage. Pathetic," another smirked.
They're talking about suicide like it's the punchline to their favorite joke. Like someone choosing death is entertainment.
That's when I see her.
Blonde hair fanned across dead leaves. Familiar blue pajamas. The body that should be mine, that everyone expected to be mine, lying perfectly still under our oak tree.
The world tilts sideways.
"No!" The word rips out of my throat like shattered glass. I'm moving before I can think, shoving past them with strength I didn't know I had. "Get the fuck away from her!"
I crash to my knees beside her, and my hands are shaking so hard I can barely touch her face.
"Amelia… Am, wake up. Come on…"
But she's cold. Not completely cold, but getting there. Her skin has that waxy quality that means gone, really gone, no coming back.
I'm sobbing now, pulling her head into my lap, and her face—Goddess, her face looks exactly like mine but will never smile again.
Same features, same bone structure, same everything except she's never going to open her eyes again.
Never going to tell me I'm more than the family disappointment.
Never going to fix me with that stubborn determination that kept us both alive.
The laughter dies like someone cut their throats.
"Wait," one whispers. "That's... that's not..."
"Oh fuck," another voice breathes. "That's Amelia…”
"But we thought—"
"Shut the fuck up," I snarl through my tears. "Just shut the fuck up."
They scatter like roaches when the lights come on, suddenly very interested in being literally anywhere else.
Cowards. Every last one of them.
Another few minutes and they left me alone with my sister's body and the crushing weight of reality.
It should have been me.
Everyone expected it to be me.
Hell, I expected it to be me someday. The family fuckup who couldn't shift, couldn't fight, couldn't do anything right finally taking the ultimate way out.
But it wasn't me.
It was her. Perfect, golden Amelia who smiled through every political machination, every arranged meeting, every sacrifice our parents demanded.
My fingers trace her cheek, still soft, still warm enough to give me hope for one stupid second.
"I'm sorry…" I whisper. "I'm so fucking sorry. I should have known. Should have stopped you…"
But I didn't. Because I'm exactly what they think I am—a useless, powerless disappointment who can't even save the one person who mattered.
And now she's gone, and I'm alone, and the joke's on all of us.