Leon's POV
She hit me!
What the fuck?
She's never hit me.
I shook my head and stared down at the blood on my sleeve as I pressed the button for the top floor.
"Welcome home, Master Leon," the security system chimed as the silver doors shut and the lift moved up.
I leaned against the back with a heavy sigh, running my hand through my hair and pulling out my phone to call Molly.
"This number is unavailable. Please try again later," I furrowed my eyebrows at the screen on my phone and shook my head as the text began to blur.
I stumbled out the door when the lift jolted to my floor, and I turned into the side I shared with Daria. It was bright, splashed with multi-coloured paintings and dark oak furniture. No one else would come in here, and I wouldn't let my mom convert it into a complete place for me; she would come back to us and need it.
She didn't take much with her when she moved to the university, and we found it so stupid for her to leave, but it's true. I don't know where she lives or what she does with her life. I don't even know if she works or sells drugs for that degenerate boyfriend. I tried to set her up with the friends my mom always approved of, but she wouldn't have any of it.
When she left, she deleted all her social, changed her number and took the bare minimum. I sat on her sofa and stared at the painting on the wall above the fireplace she created in high school. I never noticed how much it showed her feelings of being trapped here. To be with Rain, though, what a stupid decision. The way that fucking pervert was dry-humping her up the van, and he was inside the whole time?
I need to find out what she's been doing for six years. Molly has never been too forthcoming about what she does. Unless it's to complain, I can't get much out of her. I know she owns two dogs that scare her, and Molly often catches her meeting strange men. I can't stop thinking about Rain in the back with that creepy smirk.
Is he pimping her out now?
She looked so… happy, and her aura was as domineering as the guy latched onto her.
I shivered in disgust and threw one of her fluffy emoji pillows at her painting. Our little sister doesn't do anything like this. I don't understand where I went wrong in raising her. In high school, Daria was a genius and had a lot of friends. She went out to the shopping centre and spent money, went to parties, and did everyday teenage things. She never even drank alcohol, but when Carley started school, it was as if Daria was jealous of her rise to almost instantaneous popularity for being our little sister.
Rumours flew around the school for months, and I didn't believe any of it at first. I had been out of the school for two years, and I thought that one of her friends was upset with her and spreading horrible rumours until her prom night, and her friends had to save her from being nearly assaulted. She was drinking too hard at sixteen and lost the prom queen title to another girl because of the things she was doing with the wrong crowd all year. Her date and long-term boyfriend, Frank Verne, was the prom king, and he left to have his dance and never came back to her.
Not that I blamed him.
She was cheating on him for months and throwing herself at younger students at parties. It might not have been too bad if pictures and videos weren't uploaded to the school's Facebook and Instagram accounts. I sighed and dropped my upper body onto her sofa to lie down.
How did she change faster than the seasons?
I'll have to go back to the club and watch for her. The thought of seeing her dressed like Mira is unnerving. I'll rip her off that stage so fast she'll wish she wasn't born. I stormed out of her side and went to slam the door. Then again, I often find myself hating that the only way I can see Mira is when she's dancing and even when I pay to see her all night, I can't even touch her.
I changed my mind at the last minute, bursting in and running to her bedroom on the other side of the flat. When she left, we didn't check her room; we assumed she would return, and the cleaners kept everything the same. She used to sell her artwork, and she did well. Her work would have been in galleries if she hadn't done what she did.
I stopped and blinked at the gothic black, red, and purple room, with posters of metal bands on the wall and strange chemical and biological drawings.
Paintings? Equations?
I can't read any of it.
What the fuck?
I hadn't realised until now that no one had been in here. The door was locked, and she had changed the handle and added an extra one, but she didn't lock it when she left.
An emo threw up in here.
I scanned the room and noted the corner with weird lace and leather materials. Above the desk were shelves with different types of dolls that she had modified into gothic masterpieces. There were also Lego and licensed Marvel and DC character models that must have taken hours to build.
When did she have time to do this?
Next to her four-poster bed was a black and red corner desk with a laptop, digital drawing pad, a modified gaming PC and several consoles connected to a TV on the wall. She's a gamer? My mind exploded as I remembered seeing her go into her side of the flat and never leave until we went to school the next day. She even had her food delivered up here on room service. She never ate at the dinner table with us, and my mom left her to her devices and never asked her to come up.
No one ever asked her to come to dinner in that last year.
We assumed she wasn't even in the house, but there was no way she would have done so many projects if she had been out drinking every night. She got perfect grades and could have gone to Oxford but decided to stay here and attend the university. Nothing makes much sense. Did she meet Rain in high school?
I turned on the laptop, surprised that it was asleep and unlocked. Having two locks on your bedroom door makes it easier to forget that a computer tends to leave the room. I sat in her incredibly comfortable customised Stereolab chair. Damn, that is better than mine. I think I'll have to take this with me. I clicked into her documents, and my eyes widened as I came across a folder called journals. I jerked back as I clicked into it, and hundreds of separate documents dated for the last year of school loaded into the folder.
I clicked on the first one and went to shut the laptop screen when I felt a shiver of revulsion course through my body at the idea of invading her privacy like this. It's not like she took it with her. I squinted my eyes and lifted the screen back up to read.
Final Year – Day One
It is such a great day today. The day is hot, and I've been able to work on my tan during break and lunch. I do not need it, but looking a little golden is nice. Frank likes it that way anyway, and I love him, so I want to make him happy without giving it up like he keeps suggesting when he cornered me whenever I went swimming or to the beach. These boys make me roll my eyes so much. They think with their dicks way too often, but I design covers for some of the most romantic authors. I know that Frank is going the wrong way about it, so until he gets it right, he's not getting shit.
'Huh? What changed then because she's so confident and sure.'
Day Three
We all saw Carley on her first day today! I pointed at Frank's chest and said I'd dump his ass if he didn't make sure my baby sister was safe and well taken care of. I was fortunate to have Leon in school with me, and I had three years with him making sure I was safe, so I need to make sure that Frank knows that I'm not a fucking idiot, and I know he runs this school with his green selling empire.
'His WHAT?!'
He wasn't too happy with me after I threatened him. I know he has several family members from both sides at every year level, and they work together to supply the entire school. I'm a biologist, and I have noticed his notes of growing it. I am so popular that people forget I am pretty smart and can read between the lines. You could say I'm too close to being a quadruple threat.
Too smart, too beautiful, too rich and knows it too well.
Anyway, enough of all of that.
My art teacher told me I could go to Oxford on early admission, but it's not what I want to do. I want to work for Dr. Orion Bradford, and I can get to through the internship at the university right here. He is so hot for an older man, but I think he has a wife. I can't help but sigh. When I spoke to him at the school last year, he came to present his work on saving people through early disease detection. I pretty much fell in love with him. Haha! I wonder if he has younger relatives.
Oh man, one older guy and I've forgotten about Frank for a minute.
'Bradford? Isn't that … Rain's name? Biologist? When did she get into science so hard to be fawning over this guy? This is unbelievable. It's like I didn't know her.'
I grabbed the laptop and dragged her chair to my study. After I read this, I'll take the rest of her electronics out and check everything.