The voice cut through the fog, sharp enough to draw blood.
"For God's sake, Eva, are you even listening? Or is the wall more interesting than your future?"
Eva blinked. The world snapped into a painful, high-definition focus. She was sitting at the sprawling mahogany dining table, her fingers tracing the cool, smooth grain of the wood. The remains of a breakfast she hadn't tasted, scrambled eggs, now cold and rubbery sat on a gold-rimmed plate in front of her.
Across the table, her mother, Celeste, stared daggers, her mouth a thin, disappointed line. To her right, Tyler didn't even look up from her tablet, her fingers tapping out a rapid-fire message. The sound was like gunfire.
"I'm listening," Eva murmured, her own voice sounding foreign, too soft for the room.
"Could've fooled me," Tyler said without glancing up, her tone dripping with that special brand of sisterly condescension. "We're discussing the gala at the Vandergriffs' tonight. The one you insisted on attending. Try to keep up."
Celeste sighed, a sound of profound exhaustion, as if Eva's mere existence was a burden she'd carried for centuries. "We need to present a united front. The Cruz family will be there. Alexander, specifically."
The name hit her like a physical blow to the sternum. Alexander. Tyler's secret boyfriend. Her future husband. Her killer.
A memory, vivid and brutal, flashed behind her eyes: The bitter tang of poisoned tea on her tongue. His hand, so gentle, guided the cup to her lips. "It's good for you, darling. For the baby." The searing, tearing pain that followed, curling her into a whimpering heap on the cold marble floor.
Her stomach roiled. She pressed her palm flat against the cool table, willing the world to stop spinning.
"Eva? Are you ill?" Celeste's question was laced with annoyance, not concern. "You've gone pale. Do not tell me you're coming down with something before tonight. That would be just your style, wouldn't it?"
"I'm fine," Eva choked out, the lie ash in her mouth.
"You're not fine," Tyler finally looked up, her eyes the color of chilled champagne sweeping over Eva with clinical disdain. "You're never fine. You're a beautiful, fragile mess. That's your entire brand. But tonight, you need to be a doll. Smile, nod, and for once, don't say anything to embarrass us. Let Alexander see the pretty prize he's getting. The deal is almost closed."
The deal.
The marriage alliance. The transaction. The beginning of the end.
The ghost pain in her womb, the one that had no business being in her eighteen-year-old body, twisted viciously. A cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck. They were selling her. Her own family. And they were talking about it over cold eggs and freshly squeezed orange juice like they were discussing the weather.
A hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat. She swallowed it down, tasting bile.
She looked at her mother's perfectly composed face, a mask of calculated elegance. She looked at Tyler, already back to her screen, her mind whirring with plots and percentages. They were her family. And they were her executioners.
The rage didn't come hot. It came cold. A glacier moving through her veins, slow, inexorable, and utterly destructive. It froze the fear, it numbed the pain. It left behind a clarity so sharp it was terrifying.
This wasn't a bad dream. This was her second chance. And they had no idea who they were really sitting with.
"A doll," Eva repeated, her voice quieter now, but different. The tremor was gone, replaced by a flat, dead calm that made Tyler's tapping fingers still for a fraction of a second.
"Yes," Celeste said, mistaking the tone for submission. "A pretty, silent doll. It's not a difficult role to play. Heaven knows you've had enough practice being vacant."
Eva slowly pushed her chair back. The legs screeched against the hardwood floor, a jarring, ugly sound in the pristine room. Both women looked at her, startled.
"Where do you think you're going?" Celeste demanded.
Eva stood. She looked at the gold-rimmed plate, at the cold, congealed eggs that represented the life they had force-fed her. A life of pretty poison.
She picked up the plate.
Her heart was a drumbeat of pure, unadulterated fury in her chest. Every cell in her body was screaming, a chorus of the dead woman she used to be.
"Eva," Tyler said, a warning in her voice. "Sit down."
Eva looked her sister dead in the eye. She saw the flicker of uncertainty there, the first crack in the flawless facade. Good.
"You want a doll?" Eva said, her voice barely a whisper, yet it carried, cold and clear. "Go buy one."
And with a calm she didn't know she possessed, she turned the plate over and let it fall.
It didn't shatter. It hit the expensive Persian rug with a thick, dull thud, the cold eggs and china scattering like a pathetic, greasy stain.
The silence that followed was louder than any scream.
Celeste's mouth hung open. Tyler was on her feet, her tablet forgotten, her face a mask of stunned fury.
Eva didn't wait for their reaction. She turned and walked out of the dining room, her steps steady, though her knees felt like water. She could feel their shocked, hateful stares burning into her back.
She didn't stop until she was upstairs, behind the locked door of her pink, frilly prison. She leaned against the door, her breath coming in ragged gasps now that she was alone. Her whole body was trembling.
Downstairs, she could hear the beginning of the outburst. Her mother's shrill disbelief. Tyler's low, furious response.
Eva slid down to the floor, wrapping her arms around her knees. She pressed her forehead to them, trying to steady the earthquake inside her.
She had done it. She had finally, truly, pushed back.
And it had felt like coming up for air after a lifetime of drowning.
A slow, dangerous smile touched her lips, there in the dark against her knees. It was a smile that didn't belong to an eighteen-year-old girl. It was a woman's smile. A weapon's smile.
The game was on. And they had just seen the first move of a player they didn't even know was in the game.
The doll was broken. And the weapon inside had just been sharpened.