Untouchable

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Lynne's POV

I used to want to be one of them.

The Untouchables.

Adrian. Nathaniel. Alistair. Sebastian.

The golden boys of this school.

The rulers of this world.

Back then, I thought if I smiled enough, if I played along, if I proved I was worth something, they'd see me.

They'd let me in.

But that was before I learned the truth.

Before I realized that people like me?

We don't get happy endings.

We don't get to stand beside gods.

We're just ghosts to them.

And I've been haunting them ever since.

-

I wasn't supposed to be here.

Not at this school.

Not in this life.

Not standing in the same halls as Kennedy Lee Jones, my half-sister, the girl who spent her entire life pretending I didn't exist.

My father had made sure of that.

He had two daughters.

One he paraded around like a prize.

And one he discarded like a mistake.

Guess which one I was.

I didn't meet Kennedy until I was fourteen.

And by then, she had already been shaped into everything I wasn't.

Beautiful.

Charming.

Loved.

She didn't acknowledge me when our parents forced us into the same room for the first time.

She barely even looked at me.

And that's when I realized-

She wasn't just ignoring me.

She was ashamed of me.

And so I learned.

I learned how to blend in, how to move unnoticed.

How to watch without being seen.

And as I watched, I saw them.

The Untouchables.

Back then, they weren't legends.

They weren't kings.

They were just a group of boys who had the world handed to them.

They didn't work for it.

They didn't earn it.

They were it.

They didn't need to prove themselves.

People just knew they were special.

They had the right names, the right connections, the right blood.

And that's when I realized-

No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I wanted it-

I would never be one of them.

Because I wasn't born for it.

I wasn't entitled to it.

Because I was Lynne Richardson.

The forgotten daughter.

The unwanted sister.

The nobody.

And nobodies don't get to sit with gods.

-

But Ivy Mae Collins?

Oh, she didn't have to try.

She just existed, and suddenly, the Untouchables were orbiting around her like she was the center of the universe.

Adrian, the coldest of them all, looked at her like she was a puzzle he was desperate to solve.

Nathaniel, who barely showed interest in anyone, chased after her like she was the only thing worth catching.

Even Alistair, the most untouchable of the Untouchables, let his walls slip for her.

And Sebastian?

He didn't look at her like the others, but he let her in.

And that was enough.

They chose her.

They let her in.

The same boys who never once spared me a second glance had handed her a throne.

And maybe it wouldn't have bothered me so much-

If I didn't see myself in her.

If I didn't see who I could have been if my life had been different.

But Ivy didn't have to fight for it.

She didn't have to claw her way up from the bottom.

She just walked in, and they gave it to her.

The kind of acceptance I had spent years craving.

The kind of belonging I would never have.

And that?

That made me hate her.

More than I hated Kennedy.

More than I hated anyone.

Because she had what I would never have.

And I refused to let her keep it.

-

Kennedy thinks she's the manipulative one.

That she's the one pulling the strings.

That she's always a step ahead.

But she's so easy to control.

So desperate to be wanted.

So pathetic in her attempts to claw her way back into Alistair's life.

That's why it was so easy to humiliate her.

All it took was a few carefully placed words.

A whisper here. A nudge there.

And she believed me when I told her that Alistair had forgiven her.

That he wanted her back.

That she just had to wait, and he would come running.

I knew it would never happen.

Alistair would never take her back.

Not after what she did.

Not in a million years.

And I let her believe it.

I watched as she got her hopes up, as she started dressing up more, lingering near him, waiting for something that would never come.

And when the truth finally hit her?

When she realized I had played her from the start?

Oh, it was glorious.

Because for the first time in her life-

She knew what it felt like to be me.