Page 122 of The Bleak Beginning

“Well, since your father divorced me so suddenly, I’ve learned to be quite persuasive when necessary,” she replies with a sly smile.

It wasn’t an abrupt decision on his part, and it happened after everything had already gone down between her and I. It was one of the rare moments where I saw my dad stand up for himself. He usually stayed out of it when it came to how she treated us, either locked away in his office or traveling for work.

I feel a mixture of anger and pity wash over me. “Dad didn’t ‘suddenly’ divorce you. He finally saw you for who you really are.”

Vera’s eyes ignite with fury, her gaze burning holes through me. “Your father is a pathetic weakling. He crumbled under the weight of expectations, but you, Alexandra…you have potential beyond measure. You could’ve propelled our name to stardom in the music world.”

It was always about her and how she could benefit from manipulating me.

“I don’t want to be anything you could or couldn’t be,” I say firmly. “I’m my own person, with my own dreams and goals. And none of them involve living up to your warped expectations.”

She laughs, a harsh, brittle sound that echoes off the tiled walls. “Did you know Magnus never even wanted you? I was the one who fought for you,Iwanted to keep you. And this is how you repay me?”

My breath catches in my throat at her words. I feel as if I’ve been slapped. The words hang in the air, heavy and poisonous. A part of me wants to believe it’s just another one of her manipulations, but the cruel glint in her eyes tells me it’s the truth. Or at least, her version of it.

No. I can’t let her manipulate me like this. I’ve fallen for her lies too many times before.

“You’re twisting things again,” I say, my voice shaking slightly despite my best efforts.

Vera’s smile is cruel. “He learned to love you, yes. But initially? You were just another complication in his life. Another problem.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” I manage to say. “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t excuse howyoutreated me.”

Vera’s smile turns predatory again. “But that changes everything, doesn’t it? You’ve always clung to the idea that yourfather was your protector, your defender. But he was just as flawed, just as weak as you are.”

My jaw tightens, and my hands tremble with the urge to strike something. “Stop it. Just stop.”

“Why?” she asks, her tone mockingly innocent. “Can’t handle the truth? You always were so sensitive.”

I stand back at the top of the empty pool, my pulse pounding. There’s nowhere left to retreat. Vera’s words echo in my head, each one a dagger aimed at my deepest insecurities. But I won’t let her see how much they’ve affected me. I won’t give her that satisfaction.

“You’re wrong,” I say, forcing steel into my voice. “About Dad, about me, about everything. You don’t know us anymore. You lost that right when you chose your delusions over your family.”

Vera’s eyes narrow, a rare flicker of something—anger? hurt?—passing across her face before it’s replaced by that infuriatingly smug smile. “Alexandra. Still so naive. You think you know everything, don’t you? But you’re just scratching the surface.”

My heart skips and stumbles in panic as I frantically scramble around the edge of the pool, desperate to escape this place. The door is still locked, trapping me here with no way out. Panic sets in as I realize there are no signs of the Legacies anymore, leaving me completely alone and vulnerable.

As I frantically search for an escape, my eyes land on the cement mixer in the corner. A desperate, risky idea forms—it’s all I have. I could hit her with it… maybe knock her out with a bag of cement?

I glance up at the walls around me—all glass. It would be tempting to break one and escape, but the glass is so thick. I'm not sure it would even shatter.

“You’re right, Vera,” I say, forcing a calm I don’t feel into my voice. “There’s a lot I don’t know. About Altair, about Dad, about you.”

Her eyebrows raise, surprise momentarily replacing the smugness on her face. I take a tentative step toward her, away from the pool’s deep edge.

“You can’t run from this, Alexandra,” she says, her voice eerily calm as she continues to stalk me around the room. “You can’t run from who you are. Your father tried, but you ended up back here. This place is its own form of prison.”

The air feels thick, oppressive, as if the very room is closing in around me. There’s something in her words, a hint of truth that terrifies me more than her presence. But I push the thought away, focusing on the immediate threat.

“You don’t know anything about why I’m here,” I spit. “And you certainly don’t know me anymore.”

Vera laughs, the sound echoing off the empty walls. “Ah, but I do. I know because I lived it, just like you.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say firmly, trying to keep my voice strong. She has no clue about the constant humiliation I’ve endured since arriving here. From the embarrassing assembly my first week to nearly drowning and being forced to sleep in a storage closet for a few nights, being accused of stealing, it seems like every turn holds some new form of ridicule for me. But she doesn’t know any of that.

“Don’t I?” Vera’s eyes glint with a dangerous knowledge. “The humiliation, the isolation, the constant feeling that you’re one step behind everyone else as a pit… I’ve been there. I’ve lived it. And I survived.”

I swallow hard, my breath uneven. She understood. She was a non-Legacy too. Her words catch me off guard. For a moment, I see a flicker of vulnerability in her eyes, a hint of the painshe must have endured. But it’s gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by that familiar cold mask.

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