The Undoing of Regent House

Chapter 3

Medea was eighteen when she decided to run away. It was three years since she met Edward Cox and three days since Bella got engaged. Her sister had changed from the spindly girl with claws for hands and knives for teeth into a vicious siren with glossy hair and luring lips.

She always dreamt of Bella in red- red dresses, red lips, red nails- her hair luscious and her eyes hooded and her cheeks sunken to a pout. Her hands would be gorging into chests and ripping out hearts and Medea would wake to the sound of her screeches.

When Bella laughed, when Bella screamed, when she slapped Dylan's neck, when she scratched Ryan's cheek, when she pulled Celia's hair- Medea felt a shiver run down her spine. Whatever it was her sister was becoming- or whatever it was she had always been- scared her. The more she talked to Edward about it, the more she began to see. There was a hidden insanity, a glinting monstrosity, that her parents had never noticed, that her cousins were only victims to, that she was slowly started to edge away from.

The distance aggravated Bella who began to lock Dylan is dark rooms, slash Celia's paintings to shreds and threatened to poison Ryan's morning tea. The more Medea edged away, the more vicious her sister became.

"Don't forget that it's your life, Medea," said Edward. "Not hers. She can't control it."

The wheat fields hid them, a basket of strawberries between them, the sultry summer swathing through the sultry summer breeze.

"She's trying to," said Medea. "She's succeeding. I can't stand them crying. Not Dylan, not Celia... not even Ryan, and it takes a mountain and more to make him cry."

"She'll get over it."

"No, she won't. I know Bella."

He leaned back and let the sun touch his face. She traced the freckles pouring down his forehead, dripping down his nose and spreading across his cheeks. He peered at her through rusty lashes. She grinned. He smiled. The sun sweetened the strawberries.

"Then leave," he said.

Her smile slipped off her face. His widened.

"What?"

"Leave," he repeated.

"And go where exactly?" she cocked a brow.

"Far away," he spread his arms. "As far as the eye could see. Far away." His smile wavered. There was a flicker of fear in his eyes. Medea furrowed her brows. More quietly, he said, "with me."

Her stomach lurched. Edward looked away. He didn't mutter an apology.

"My parents won't allow it," she said.

His face was tilted to the western wind. It was cool. The blood beating through their thrashing veins wasn't.

"My family would never allow it," she said.

He squinted. She didn't know what for. They were hidden by the wheat.

"I'll be disowned," she said.

He swallowed. Medea watched the tense tightness of his neck and watched the skin rise and fall like a sheet of pebbled water.

"I'll have nothing."

He turned to her sharply. For once, he wasn't smiling.

"But, you'll have me," he said. He scooted closer to her. He took her hands in his. Her fingers trembled. So were his. "I'm already working. I have a job. I have an income. You can write, be the novelist you want to be. We'll go far from here, to the city. We'll start anew. You won't have to think of them- of Bella, of your family, of their connections, of their rules. You can think of yourself. Of me. Of the family we can have."

His offer was like a poisoned grape rolling in front of a starving woman. She pulled her hands back to her chest. The strawberries were too sweet, like a dream far too good to true.

"I should go," said Medea.

Edward said nothing- she didn't give him the chance- but he kept his eyes on her back, her hair, her arms, her legs, her heart. To think that she'd never live in this big grand house, to think that she'd never see Dylan and Celia grow, to think that she'd never be forced into a marriage she didn't want and cope with the family of a man she had just met. To think that she had a choice in what she wanted. To think that she could venture out into the unknown, her hand warmly held. To think she could have, for the first time, something she wanted.

Was that what lay behind that big, red door? The unknown that she craved for? The warmth that she knew existed? The love that was true to her heart?

A big, red door with eyes that watched. Was that what lay behind it?