By eight the kitchen hummed with the small, cruel rituals of the Lyons.

Lunchboxes snapped shut, lids clicked, the little business of pretending everything was normal. Cerise finished the last box and wiped her hands, the batter smell clinging to her like an insult.

She had also finished cooking the pasta. She saved some pancakes and pasta for herself so she could just eat alone in her room later.

Besides, how could she eat comfortably here when she’d always be up on her toes, protecting herself from whatever might come for her?

This had always been the routine.

Just as she was continuing to fix their food, heels clipped across the tile. She didn’t need to turn to know who was coming. She already knew, anyway.

Ah, shit… here we go again.

“Cerise!”

She turned. The slap landed like cold leather. Hard, practiced. The sting bloomed red across Cerise’s cheek, but she kept her face calm—the way you keep a poker face in a room full of sharks.

The older woman towering over her was Catherine Lyons: matriarch, queen of the household, the woman who swallowed humiliation and spat it back at anyone beneath her.

“How dare you hurt Julian!?” Catherine barked, the outrage theatrical, hawk-eyed and loud. “You could’ve cut his tongue!” Another hand cracked against Cerise’s cheek before she could answer. Pain sang through her jaw. She tasted copper and laughed, low and sharp.

She didn’t even scold him for being a predator. Talk about a parent who consents to such acts.

“Well?!”

“That would’ve been perfect,” Cerise said, voice flat as glass. “Maybe then he’d stop shoving that tongue of his everywhere.” She shook her head like a judge disgusted by evidence. “You have such a repulsive son.”

Catherine’s face contorted. “You—”

Cerise didn’t wait for the rest. She grabbed the extra pancake batter and launched it slick and warm into Catherine’s expensive blouse. The batter hit like a slap that left a stain.

“Ugh! How dare you! You’re nothing but the daughter of that bitch who seduced my husband!” Catherine spat, the scent of her floral perfume now tainted with egg and flour.

Cerise cocked her head, smiling the smile that always made people nervous. “Yet here you are, using the daughter of your husband’s whore to keep your house running. Shame.”

“Stop it!” Catherine demanded.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Cerise said, amused. “Boring. Didn’t you ever wonder that this might be the reason why he cheated on you?”

The sound of footsteps punctuated her words. Other family members spilling into the kitchen. Julian’s eyes flashed, surprise cutting through his usual arrogance. Theodore watched with a nervous smirk on his face.

Charlotte stormed in last, her face a mask of entitlement, and shoved Cerise hard enough that she staggered.

“You’re just a maid!” Charlotte hissed. “Why do you pretend you’re anything else?”

Cerise straightened, blinking slow. “Please. You can’t even keep your life together without me. High and mighty? I provide the ladder you climb.” Her voice wasn’t loud so much as controlled, an accusation laid flat and cold.

Charlotte’s hands clenched. She lunged, fingers snagging Cerise’s hair with animal force.

“Nngh!”

Pain flared as Cerise’s head snapped back. The world tilted and then slammed hard into tile. Charlotte dragged her across the floor by her roots, the hair ripping at the scalp with every step. Each tug felt like a wire being pulled tight.

Cerise tasted metal and fury. She let the pain sharpen her focus. This was the script they all lived by—her body, her silence, her bruises. She could play the part. She could scream. She could beg.

Or she could wait and burn them on her terms.

She bit back whatever would come next and breathed cold, steady, ready. She couldn’t even end her life even if she wanted to. It always failed!

Then she would have to look for ways to get back at them!

“Aargh!” She clutched the table leg, teeth grinding, fighting the pull as Charlotte dragged her across the tile.

“Let go, you bitch!” Charlotte snarled, fingers digging into Cerise’s scalp. “Taste your own medicine!”

The brothers leaned in like bloodthirsty audience members. Catherine watched, lips thin with hungry delight. It was a show for them, her humiliation was their entertainment.

Cerise ignored the taunt. With all the strength she could summon, she wrenched the table. The scissors skittered and clattered to the floor. Her fingers closed around the cold metal. In one hard motion she snapped the blades through the hair Charlotte still clutched.

“Aah!”

Charlotte screamed as the strand she held was severed. Momentum threw her back into the chairs. Cerise slammed on top of her, breathing hard, the broken scissors raised like an accusation.

“Charlotte!” the brothers barked together and lunged, hands grabbing at her, but she spat in their faces instead. Straight at Theodore—so contemptuous it made his jaw twitch.

“You two couldn’t find your balls if they were handed to you,” she snarled. “You’re nothing but cowards with fancy names.”

Charlotte scrambled up and pried the scissors free, shrieking, “Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!”

Cerise let out a laugh. It was wild, edged with something feral. Her hair was ruined, chopped, ragged, and short. It didn’t matter to her.

She looked dangerous in it.

“Do it,” she hissed, each word a dare. “Kill me. I dare you. Do it now and be done with it.”

Her grin fell away. The smile drained from her face until only something cold and patient remained. She leaned in, eyes dark and steady, and spoke low so every one of them felt it like a threat under their skin.

“I’ll haunt you,” she said. “Not in the stupid ghost-story way. You’ll feel me. I’ll be the demonic shadow you’ll ask to exorcise. I’ll sit outside your windows. I’ll watch you sleep. Every night. Forever.”

Silence swallowed the kitchen. Even Charlotte’s hands trembled. They had expected a scared girl. Not this.

This promise that tasted like a threat to every family member.

Even Catherine, Julian, and Theodore froze staring at Cerise as if she had slipped into pure madness.

Insane. Dangerous.

Her chest heaved, her eyes wild as she laughed. It was sharp—manic…the sound echoing through the kitchen like broken glass.

“I’ll leave little reminders I’m still here,” she hissed, grinning wide. “I’ll tap on your doors. Hide under your bed. Lie down beside you with open eyes and a wide smile, and you won’t even realize I’m dead!”

“You!”

The brothers’ grips loosened, unsettled. Her laugh only grew louder, more jagged, and they dropped her entirely as if she burned their hands.

Even Charlotte’s fingers trembled! The scissors clattered to the floor as she pointed at Cerise, shaking.

“You’re insane! Completely insane!”

“Oh?” Cerise tilted her head, eyes narrowing on her stepsister like a predator sizing prey. “You’re only figuring that out now? How slow…”

In one sudden movement, she lunged forward and snatched the scissors from the floor.

“Aaah!” Charlotte shrieked, stumbling back.

“No, Charlotte!!” Catherine’s panicked cry cut through the tension.

Cerise crouched low, ready to spring, when a deeper voice rolled over the chaos, slicing the air clean.

“Cerise! Enough!”

The room went dead still. All eyes snapped to the doorway. Edward Lyons III. The patriarch. Her biological father.

“Oh, Daddy!”

Charlotte wailed, rushing into his arms like a damsel running to a savior. Edward pulled her close, stroking her hair, murmuring comfort. The brothers and Catherine clustered around him for protection, as if he was a shield.

Cerise rose slowly, brushing dust from her sweater, and began clapping. Slow, deliberate, each strike of her palms echoing with mockery.

A twisted ovation.

“Well, well, well,” she drawled, her eyes glinting. “The hero arrives.” She smirked. “Daddy.” She spat the word like venom.

Charlotte whipped her head around, face blotchy with tears and rage. “You have no right to call him that!”

Cerise rolled her eyes so hard it was theatrical. “Please. He doesn’t even deserve the title. I thought you were smarter than this. I’m mocking you, stupid.”

“You—”

“Charlotte.” Edward’s smile was all sugar and authority. “Go get your lunch and head to school. Ask one of your brothers to escort you.”

They all stared at the packed lunch boxes behind Cerise, faces suddenly thin with the kind of calculation that comes before cowardice. Cerise felt a grin pull across her face.

This was working.

She snatched up a lunch box and held it out like an offering. She dared all of them to pick it up with her eyes.

No one moved.

For a beat, the room held its breath. Then Theodore shambled forward, the one with the least nerve, and snatched the box from her hand.

“Boo!” she playfully shouted, surprising the youngest child.

“Fuck you, Cerise!” Theodore growled, yanking the box away as if it might burn him. Cerise doubled over laughing, clutching her stomach because the absurdity of their fear was delicious.

Julian’s face darkened. He looked to their father, need written in his features. “You escort her, Dad. Theodore and I will give her a lesson,” he said, voice flat.

Nobody needed to translate what “a lesson” meant. Cerise heard the threat loud and clear. She straightened slowly, eyes cold as steel.

Fine. Bring it on.