Chapter 20

Chapter 0020

“Rhea.” I call, trying to steady my breath. “You have no business with that picture, so give it back to me. “Please.” My voice breaks in two halves as I add that last word. “Please just give back to me.”

My heart is constricting in my chest like there’s a hand around it, squeezing all the blood from it. It’s hurting.

“Come and take it.” She holds it out to me, but the moment I take a step forward to grab it, she lifts the frame high up and lets it free fall to the floor. I watch my entire world shatter into pieces against the hard tiled floor together with the only beautiful thing I had left of my family.

The glasses of the frame fly all over the place and our broken smiles on the picture lay miserable on the floor. Tears blur my eyes as I look from the shattered frame to Rhea and her wicked laugh tips me over the edge. Wrath spreads through my limbs like larva.

“What have you done?” My voice is a harsh whisper as I approach her. She doesn’t bulge even as I get closer to her, fuming with rage. She thinks I can’t hit her, but I surprise her. I ball my right fist and drive a heavy blow into her left cheek.

The impact causes her head to sway to the side and she s t g r s backwards, screaming and trying to regain her balance, but I don’t let her. I eat up the distance between us and grab her hair with both hands, making sure to pull as hard as I can before catapulting her to the other end of the room.

She lets out a loud cry of pain and agony as her back hits against the wall before she drops to the floor.

“How dare you!” I sneer as I walk towards her.

“Leave me alone!” She screams in tears as she struggles to crawl away from me. There’s blood oozing from her mouth and nostrils and the place I hit is already very red and swollen. She is going to have a terrible black-eye tomorrow. “Help!

Somebody help me. She wants to kill me!” I grab her hair once more and pull it hard. She tries to fight back, but she’s so weak, it makes me laugh. I’m about to give her another heavy blow on the same eye when my room door bursts open and other elderly se s and m g irls come pouring in. The room is filled with shrieks and gasps from the girls while the e r v a n t s haul me away from Rhea’s almost limp body.

“She attacked me. She attacked me for absolutely no reason!” Rhea lies as always. She’s screaming and wheezing and splintering into tear drops and I’m fighting my urge to not laugh at her.

Her face is an interesting work of art. A trophy.

My trophy.

“She broke my mother’s frame!” I say, pointing to the shattered frame and glasses a few meters from where we are all standing. Lisa, the elderly s r a n t looks at the broken frame and casts me a scornful glare.

“And you think that was enough reason for you to beat her up in this manner? The rules state that no girl is allowed to raise her hand against another in this H a m and you have broken that rule.”

She screams in my face and I shriek. Rhea is still crying loudly as the other girls help her to her feet.

I feel no ounce of guilt or regret. She deserves what she got.

“The bathroom, now! And not a speck!” Shouts Lisa and I instantly bolt out of the bedroom, shaking my head at the open display of injustice.

I truly need to leave this pack.