Renna Rose Lancaster is the girl people stare at like she belongs in a glass case, carved with angel-soft beauty, a life airbrushed into unattainable perfection. But Renna knows perfection is nothing but a golden prison, coated in pretty lies that k...
"He saw her before he saw anything else in the room"
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The night didn't just settle-it crawled. Heavy as smoke, clinging in your lungs until you forgot what clean air tasted like. The mansion sat at the end of the gravel drive, hulking and mean, shutters sagging like drooping eyelids. French baroque carved into Scottish rot. Gargoyles gawked from the roofline like they'd been mid-scream for centuries.
Perfect place for six arseholes to pretend we weren't trespassing.
"Holy fuck," George muttered, jaw tight as he stared up. "This is giving me aneurysms already. Place looks like it eats priests for breakfast."
"Priests don't drink whisky, Georgie boy. We do." Cameron was bouncing, grinning like the devil himself had dared him. "And you know what French nutters kept hidden in their cellars? Wine older than your gran's dentures."
"You're not nicking bottles, Cam." Isla's voice cut through the night, sharp as her ponytail whip. "You get caught, you're rotting in jail. And I'm not visiting."
"Correction." Cameron flourished the pilfered keys like he was performing a magic trick. "We get caught, and you will be visiting, because you're in it with me."
Freya rolled her eyes, arms folded. "You're not Danny Ocean, Eriksen. You're a caffeine-addled biology reject who thinks Tesco meal deals are a food group."
Cameron pressed a hand to his chest. "Low. And true. But still low."
I stayed quiet, watching Renna out of the corner of my eye. She wasn't scared-far from it. She looked like a bloody arsonist at a fireworks display, practically humming with energy. Her smirk tugged at the corner of her lips, her hand swinging casually close to mine, just begging me to catch it.
I bent close to her ear, muttering, "Still time to turn back, Lancaster. Don't need you fainting on me when the wallpaper starts breathing."
She tilted her head up, eyes shining with something dangerous. "Faint? You're the one who'll be running. I'll be the one laughing."
I bit out a laugh. "You couldn't scare a toddler."
Her grin sharpened. "But I can torment you."
Yeah, no shit.
The gates towered above us, rust bleeding down the bars like they'd been crying for a century. Cameron jammed the key in, and the metal shrieked loud enough to wake the graveyard.
We all froze. The night guard sat five metres away, chin sunk into his chest, bottle clutched like a lover. His snore rattled through the night.
"Smooth," Isla hissed.
"Oi, perfection takes time," Cameron muttered, wrestling the lock until it gave a miserable click.
