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2024-10-29 19:42:56PARKER WAS PACING in the living room when we got back. He was biting his nails like he was nervous. I was slightly offended.
"What happened?" he asked impatiently when he saw us walk in.
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I DECIDED TOtake a walk.I had spent the entire morning the following day, in my room, avoiding Justin. Avoiding social interaction, really.Now that I had dyed my
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I WOKE UP the next day feeling better than ever. Feeling lighter than ever.I stretched lazily and just gazed out of the window for a long minute, then I walked into the kitchen to satisfy my incessant hunger.Not to
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I STOOD IN the center of the room, admiring my work. Not bad. Not bad at all.Immediately after I had managed to kick a reluctant Justin out, I'd spent the next half an hour convincing myself that Parker wouldn't mind if I re-arranged his room a little.
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"PARKER?" I called, knocking on his door softly in case he was asleep."Come in," he called.I poked my head in. "It's nothing, really," I shook my head. "I just wanted to say goodnight."
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WE WERE SITTINGcross-legged on the floor in a circle, my phone in the center and I felt like I was a part of a weird cult that worshipped phones."I still think this is a bad idea."
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WHEN I WALKEDinto the living room the next morning, I should knew I should never have woken up by the look on Aria's face. She was sporting the look of a predator."The boys told me you're going to a fundraiser next week?" she asked without a greeting. Her creepy grin was feral just like her brother's often was.
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AS SOON AS Parker, Drake and Justin left the house the next day, I decided to go job-hunting. I had nothing to do but wait until Al's fundraiser, and this would be a way to put my time to use.The last time I'd been out, I'd seen quite a few diners and fast-food places which had hung up signs for employment. I was willing to bet that some of them were desperate enough to hire me. And besides, they don't have many people working in the day.
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WORKING AT THEDowntown Diner was harder than I thought it would be. It wore me down so immensely that the moment I went back home I'd fall asleep on the couch. The guys condescended me thinking I was being lazy.The place was almost always bursting at the seams and more people filtered in every minute. There was a long wait for a table a couple of days ago. People refused to leave, and waited for the table, no ma
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I WATCHED AS Justin's face fell. He knew it was pointless to fight further."Okay," was all he said.The look on his face in this moment would haunt me forever. It was plain, undiluted sadness that reflected on his fa
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I FROZE INplace, paralyzed from shock.He's here. Right in front of me.He was lounged on a chair, unmoving, eyes fixed on
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THE MORNING WASchaotic.Al tripped over his feet multiple times before he reached the door, mumbling about having to meet someone somewhere, and beingincrediblylate. Shocker.
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WE JUST SAT there on my bed, holding each other until my chest stopped heaving with heavy breaths."You don't have to hold on to this. It's not your duty. It was wrong of your father to do this to you," Lola reminded me."I know, but I want to try," I said. I wante
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AFTER A WHOLE day of meetings, I fell onto my bed, exhausted and ready to go to sleep, but Lola had other plans for me.She barged into my room at midnight, her hair unbound and swishing. She looked nowhere close to sleepy. Her dress was still wrinkle-free after a whole day of work, and I wondered how she pulled that off.She shut the door excruciatingly slowly, and I had a feeling this was going to be bad."Um, what happened?" I asked her. Lola no longer came over at this time at night.When she turned to me and away from the door, I almost fell off the bed when I saw the fire in her eyes. I had done something majorly wrong.She took a deep breath. "Al told me," she said, and I immediately regretted not telling her before. I was pretty sure that Al had also gloated because I'd told him first. If Lola hated anything, it was being told about something second. They always had been petty when it came to each other. Always competing."Oh," was all I said."Oh my god, Auttie!" she exclaime
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2 MONTHS LATERDRESSING PROPERLY WAS the hardest part of being the new CEO of Shade Enterprises.No more loose shirts and jeans because a meeting apparently required you to be dressed in a 'civilized' manner, whatever that was supposed to mean.I, Autumn Shade, who hardly owned a single dress, now had a cupboard full of them along with various suits. I didn't know if I was ready for a sacrifice of this magnitude. The heels were the worst part.Managing the company for just a couple of months was already weighing heavily on me. I didn't know how my father did this for such a long time.When the police had finally reached the Shade Mansion and announced that Christopher Shade would be taken into custody, my father didn't look surprised or angry.He only looked for me."Where is she? Where is my daughter? Is she safe?" was all that he had asked, and for a moment I had forgotten about everything he had done wrong. I wanted to fall to my knees and beg him to forgive me for what a horrible d
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WHITE WAS A depressing color, I'd decided. It was too empty, too constricted. It wasn't the best color to be around when someone wanted to know something for certain. The entire hospital was white, and the longer I stared, the more I thought—something I really didn't want to do now because my thoughts were my safe place no longer.I was at the verge of losing my mind and running out of the hospital screaming when Justin finally came around the corner. He was still wearing the same clothes, although they were crumpled now. His blue eyes looked dull and tired."She's fine," he said hollowly. He even sounded tired. He sat down in the chair next to me, which was also frustratingly white.The relief that flowed through me was like a drug—calming, numbing and decreasing the pressure in my chest until it was only a dull throb of dread for what I knew I had to do next. "I need to talk to you," I said, voice low enough to not be heard by the people seated around us.Justin sensed it—the strai
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HE GOT OFF of the couch he had planted himself on, wincing as his feet touched the ground, which usually happened when you'd been sitting for too long, and I suspected that part of the reason he didn't want me to see what was on that drive was that it would require him to go retrieve it.I sat down in his spot just to taunt him."What does it have? Files? Emails?" I questioned Parker, my curiosity getting the best of me when Drake hadn't come back for a long time.Justin chuckled like he knew I would crack, and I elbowed him. Parker spared a curious glance before turning his attention back to what I asked."It's CCTV footage. Blurry, but evidence indeed," he said.I wondered why my father would have committed murder knowing he would be captured on a camera. He couldn't have been that stupid. Even if there were cameras, he would have seen to it that the footage was completely obliterated.Parker seemed to catch onto the silent question, because he answered, "William had set the cameras
