Chapter 3

"Hello?! Charity! Charity Finch!"

I called again, and all I got was that flat, dead-machine voice telling me the line was unavailable.

I was so angry I wanted to smash the phone, but it wasn't worth it.

A sharp pain shot up my leg. I looked down and realized the older kid had just kicked me.

"Are you gonna kneel or not?"

Trash parents raise trash kids. Same rotten stock.

When I didn't answer, he shot his sister a look.

She was gearing up for a full-blown wailing fit, so I stopped her fast.

"Fine. Fine, don't cry."

And that was how I ended up half-kneeling under their threats, letting the two of them ride me around like a horse.

After that, they ordered me to go cook them dinner.

I waited on the both of them until I was ready to drop, and they still took over my bed and made me sleep on the floor.

Cross them in any way, and they'd throw a screaming tantrum at me.

The next morning, I took the day off work. Come hell or high water, I was hauling those two back home.

But the uncle and Charity had known I'd bring them back, so they'd cleared out ahead of time.

The front door was locked tight. It wasn't until I asked the neighbors that I found out they'd gone off on a vacation.

I cursed right there on the spot. "Shameless. Dump the trouble on someone else, then swan off on holiday without a care in the world."

I called my mother. "Mom, how could you let Uncle and Charity dump their kids on me?"

"Don't you know I still have a job to do?"

"Ugh, you know how your aunt is. If she doesn't get her way, she comes and makes trouble for me. And your sister-in-law can't stand it, so when your aunt gets in a mood, she takes it out on your brother."

Hearing that, a cold, sinking feeling came over me for no reason I could name.

So biased toward my older brother, and not one thought spared for me.

This was exactly why I hadn't gone home for the holidays in three years.

Other people go home to be with family. I only ever went home to be bled dry.

When coworkers asked why I didn't go home for the holidays, I never dared tell them the truth: that I came from a family of vampires.

But now the trouble had come looking for me even when I wasn't looking for it.

With no other choice, I dragged the two dead weights back to Los Angeles with me.

The moment I got home, my fiancée was there, dinner already made, waiting for me.

"Maxwell, hurry up and go wash—"

Her smile froze on her face.

She'd been stopped short by the two kids behind me.

"Who are they?"

I gave a bitter smile. "My uncle's kids."

"They didn't want to look after them, so they dumped them on me."

"What? So they're leaving the kids for you to raise?"

I nodded, worn to the bone, and Janet Harding let out a sigh.

"Let's just eat first."

She came over, took my hand, and led me off to wash up.

The hurt my family kept handing me, hers was the only presence that ever felt like warmth.

But when we came back out to eat, the dishes on the table had been wrecked by those two kids, the whole spread a ruined mess.

"What do you think you're doing?"

I wasn't just dead on my feet, I was so hungry I had nothing left. Weren't they even going to let me have a bite of food?

"Why are you yelling at us like that?"

"You're the worst, cousin. Our mom's never once scolded us our whole lives."

So the big-cry routine was about to come out again, and Janet, worried for me, softened her voice and started coaxing them.

The veins stood out on my temples, I was so furious, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I'd thought about it. Whoever gave the okay to dump these kids on me, I'd just dump the trouble right back on them.

But then my mother would come demanding money from me to support my brother's family.

And the price of refusing would be her smashing my father's ashes.

A home this suffocating. All I wanted was to escape it.

For now, there was nothing left but to grit my teeth and swallow all of it.

Seeing I had no more objections, they stuck out their tongues and made faces at me in triumph.

"That's more like it."