The Fallen Ugly Girl: Her Epic Comeback

Back in the sun-drenched memory, Christ hadn't pulled away immediately. He had stared at her, his thumb brushing the pulse point on her neck, his expression shifting from anger to something like curiosity.

Then, he flicked her forehead. It was a sharp, stinging sensation that broke the trance.

"Since you saved me," Christ said, a crooked, arrogant smile replacing the glare, "I suppose I owe you. Like in the fairy tales. Three wishes?"

Emely rubbed her forehead, scowling. "I don't want your wishes. I just want you to stop acting like a jerk."

Christ's smile faltered. For a second, the mask slipped, revealing a cavern of darkness behind those blue eyes. "Maybe I wanted to sink, Emely. Did you ever think of that?"

The air between them grew heavy. Emely didn't know what to say to that. The darkness in a twelve-year-old boy shouldn't run that deep.

Christ seemed to realize he'd shown too much. He reached into the pocket of his swim trunks and pulled out a ring. It was heavy, made of black obsidian, with a silver crest inlaid on the face. He tossed it into her half-empty cup of lemonade.

"A down payment," he said lightly. "If you're ever desperate. If you have nowhere else to go. Bring that to me. I'll grant your wish."

"I don't want it," Emely said, her face heating up. She felt like he was mocking her. She grabbed the cup, intending to fish the ring out and throw it back at him, but her hand slipped.

She spun around to run, eager to put distance between herself and his confusing intensity, and slammed straight into a wall.

Not a wall. A person.

The temperature in the pool area seemed to drop twenty degrees in a single second. Emely gasped, looking up.

Standing there was an older boy. Maybe sixteen. He wore a long black trench coat despite the ninety-degree heat. His skin was pale, almost translucent, and his eyes... his eyes were voids. No light reflected in them.

Brooks Collins. Christ's older brother.

He looked down at her with zero emotion. It wasn't hatred; it was the indifference of a boot regarding an ant.

Emely froze, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The cup fell from her hand, lemonade splashing onto the concrete. The black ring clattered, spinning noisily before settling near Brooks's boot.

Brooks looked at the ring. His pupils contracted.

"Don't touch her, Brooks," Christ's voice came from behind Emely. It wasn't the voice of a child anymore. It was a command. "She's mine. She saved me."

Brooks slowly lifted his gaze from the ring to Emely's face. He didn't speak. He just inhaled deeply, as if smelling the fear radiating off her. A strange, metallic scent mixed with something like sulfur drifted from him, overpowering the chlorine.

He stepped around her, his coat brushing her arm. The fabric felt like ice.

Emely shivered violently. Christ walked past her, picked up the ring, and pressed it firmly into her palm. His fingers were warm now, a stark contrast to his brother.

"Stay away from him, little fool," Christ whispered near her ear. "He eats things like you."

The memory dissolved, leaving Emely shivering in her damp, cramped apartment. The alley, Yvonne, the impossible task-it had all been too much. After stumbling away from The Sapphire Club, the sodden envelope slipping from her numb fingers and washing away into the gutter, she had somehow made it onto the subway and back to her building, collapsing into a fitful, nightmare-plagued sleep.

She woke up with a gasp, sitting bolt upright on her lumpy mattress. Her hand was clenched so tight her knuckles were white. When she opened her fingers, the black obsidian ring sat there, dull and heavy.

She had kept it. Through the bankruptcy, through the move to this rat-infested apartment, through the weight gain that made her unrecognizable.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

"Cohen!" The landlord's voice boomed through the thin wood of the door. "Rent! I know you're in there! You have until tomorrow or I'm changing the locks!"

Emely curled in on herself, pulling her knees to her chest. The rolls of her stomach pressed against her thighs, a suffocating reminder of her body's betrayal. She looked at the ring. It was cold against her skin.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. She reached for it, her heart skipping a beat when she saw the name.

Kody.

Her fiancé. The only good thing left in her life.

She opened the message.

We need to talk. Come to my office. Now.

There was no heart emoji. No 'love you'. Just a command. Emely felt a prickle of unease crawl up her spine, colder than the rain, colder than Brooks Collins's shadow.