Chapter 2: The Eyes of a Monster

SIENNA

The premonition clung to my chest like a hook sunk into raw flesh. It wasn’t simple unease, nor paranoia. It was certainty. Something in the way Father looked at Astrid had changed.

It wasn’t rage. It wasn’t contempt. It was something else. Something that twisted my stomach and made my muscles tense as if bracing for an attack.

Astrid didn’t see it. Or she refused to. She still clung to the absurd idea that, in some rotten corner of his soul, there was still a shred of humanity left. But I had stopped looking for that a long time ago.

He didn’t look at us like a father. He never had.

We had always known what we were in his eyes. Astrid was the mirror image of our mother. She had hair as black as the night and crystal-blue eyes—so mesmerizing that anyone could get lost in them without realizing that behind that sweetness lay a blade just as sharp as mine. I, on the other hand… I was the reminder of the blood running through our veins. My red hair burned like an open wound, my green eyes belonged to a predator, and my skin was speckled with freckles, as if my own body was trying to mark me as different, as if it wanted to remind me that I was not Astrid. That I never would be.

I didn’t know what was worse: the way he looked at me with disgust, seeing me as a shadow of himself, or the way he looked at Astrid with that restrained hunger.

That night, as I sharpened my knife by the fire, a shiver ran down my spine—an instinct born from danger, one I had learned to obey. I lifted my gaze and saw him.

Standing in the doorway, the firelight cast long shadows over his weathered face. He was motionless, his eyes locked on the bed where Astrid slept.

He didn’t blink.

The blade in my hand stilled.

I stood up slowly, sliding the knife into the sleeve of my shirt. I moved carefully, keeping my eyes locked on his, placing myself between him and the bed.

His head tilted slightly, as if assessing my reaction, as if amused by it. Then he smiled.

A crooked. Filthy. Smile.

—What do you want?— My voice was low. Sharp.

He twisted his lips into something closer to a sneer than an answer. His breath, thick with alcohol and stale tobacco, seeped into the air.

—Nothing, girl. Just looking at her.

Liar.

Predator.

The fire crackled in the silence. My pulse remained steady, but my fingers clenched around the knife’s handle. I could drive it into his throat before he could even raise a fist. I knew it.

But he knew something, too.

He knew that no matter how fast I was, how lethal I had made myself, he was still stronger. More cunning. A seasoned killer.

I couldn’t kill him. Not yet. Not without losing the advantage.

So I took a step back, never breaking eye contact, making it clear that I saw him, that I understood him, that if he crossed that line, he would find something worse than death waiting for him.

He let out a low chuckle before turning on his heels and vanishing into the darkness of the cabin.

I stood there, muscles coiled tight, my heart pounding against my ribs like a war drum.

My father was going to hurt Astrid. I saw it in his eyes, in the way he lingered, in that smile that chilled me to the bone.

I couldn’t let that happen.

No matter what. No matter where.

We were leaving.

I turned to Astrid, who slept, unaware of the storm looming over her, her face relaxed, breathing softly.

I slipped a hand beneath her dark hair, feeling the warmth of her skin, the fragility she hid behind the sweetness that defined her.

I wasn’t going to let him touch her.

I wasn’t going to let him destroy what little remained of us.

My hand tightened around the knife hidden in my sleeve.

If necessary, I would kill our father.