𝐅𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 [𝟏𝟖+]✓

39

7k words and I'm not kidding. I want comments. So I know that you've made it to the very last chapter... <3

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With Talin becoming utterly powerless, Bryson was nowhere in anyone's radar. No address, no trail. Everyone's theory was he might be wasting away his prime in some club. I sent out the search team. Of course, I did. I didn't want to pretend to care. I did not. But Corrine, who hated Talin, never hated Bryson. Corrine, a certified pathological liar according to Frankie and Tyrone, loved Bryson. Could she really have a positive bond with him if he was cruel to her? The obvious answer to the question made me want to help Bryson. Besides, he loved Estella and I had accidentally but surely killed her. After reading all the files Hayden had on my twin I had realised that Bryson was Corrine's brother—or at least he had been before the bottles replaced the person he used to be.

So, I swore to myself I would help him if he would ever let me. 

However, a part of me couldn't leave Francesca that way. 

If someone thought Dante's death could go unnoticed by anyone, they were utterly wrong. Francesca Halifax, Talin's younger sister, was the most affected by Dante's death. However she looked more affected by the death of my twin, Corrine.

When I told her the truth about how Talin swapped the babies, how she swapped my twin's body in place of mine to fool my brother, how she had used Valentino to torture me, aunt Frankie was visibly traumatised. Her face changed before my eyes, a silent storm brewing beneath her usually jovial countenance. Shock gave way to something heavier, something that clawed its way to the surface in slow, agonizing waves. Grief. Then guilt. It hit her all at once, her chest rising and falling in jagged movements, like she couldn't catch her breath. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused, as her hands hovered in the air, trembling uncontrollably. Then she dropped to her knees like a marionette whose strings had been cut, her breath hitching into shallow, uneven gasps.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice so faint I almost missed it. Her hands pressed against her face, fingers curling as if she wanted to claw the skin away. "I'm so sorry."

The sound of those words—fractured, broken—made something twist inside me.

"Frankie, listen to me," I said, kneeling in front of her. She didn't look up, her whole body curling inward, her shoulders shaking as she rocked back and forth.

"I couldn't save her," she choked out, the words tumbling out in uneven bursts. "I didn't— I wasn't—" Her hands dropped to her lap, trembling so violently they looked like they might shatter. I reached for them, folding mine around hers. They were ice-cold, her fingers limp in my grip.

"Frankie, breathe," I urged, my own voice tightening as I watched her unravel. "Please, you need to slow down. Look at me."

Her gaze darted up to mine, her eyes rimmed red, wide and glassy like a deer caught in headlights. "She's gone," she whispered, her voice cracking on the last word. "And it's my fault. I should've—"

"No," I said sharply, cutting through her spiraling thoughts. "You couldn't have known. You couldn't have done anything."

Her head shook violently, a tear slipping down her cheek and catching on her trembling lip. "I didn't stop. It wasn't enough. I'm—" Her breath hitched, and a sob tore out of her throat, raw and jagged.

"You were there," I said, squeezing her hands tighter, grounding her. "You did everything you could. This wasn't your fault."

But she wasn't listening, her whispered apologies coming faster now, tumbling over each other in a chaotic, senseless rhythm. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"