in which a girl burdened with bad luck finally has some good luck and meets a man with a facade everyone has fallen for, including her
peter ballard x oc
athena casteel
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❦ in which ATHENA HAD LEARNED THAT NIGHT TO NOT TAKE GOOD THINGS FOR GRANTED.
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Athena was an optimist. She had thought when she heard a scream, maybe her little sister had been scared by Chris. Or maybe she screamed because she saw a spider. But of course, luck was never in her favor. Her father left her family when she was still a toddler, and her mom was always anywhere else but home. Her whole life had been anything but lucky. Even when she went to the arcade to play one of those whack-a-mole games where she'd try to guess which hole the mole would come out of, she always was wrong.
❦
AND AFTER THAT NIGHT FILLED WITH GRIEF, ANGER, AND LOSS, THE CASTEELS NEEDED A NEW SLATE. Portland, Oregon hadn't been good for them, as many horrible things happened in that one house. The abuse the children endured by their stepfather, the killings of Chris and Amara, and the breaking point of Michael Casteel, it was all too much. That's why when their mother came back from the bar much later that night, she'd find a note on the kitchen counter.
Dear Mom,
It's Laila. I left with Reagan and Athena, Amara and Chris were killed by Michael, he shouldn't bother us ever again.
You may think "Oh, what did I do to deserve this?" You weren't our mother. You were always gone, leaving ME and Chris to take care of the kids on our own, with no money, and no job. You were supposed to be my mother. You were supposed to tell me everything was going to be okay, or that you'd get better, but you never did. I was 13 when dad left. You went off to the bar, while I was stuck at home, stressed out of my mind trying to think of what to do to support my siblings. I WAS 13. I didn't get to have my childhood. I didn't get to go to daddy-daughter dances or worry about my homework. I had to worry about what I was going to make for dinner for my little sisters who were confused about where their mommy went.
You were never there. Now you can suffer like how we did. How Michael did. He needed help, but you weren't around to see it, now were you? Try and find us, you can't. I placed a spell on us to hide our locations. Have a nice life, alone.
Bye, Laila
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WHILE LAILA WROTE THE NOTE ANGRILY WITH ATHENA LEANING OVER HER SHOULDER TO READ IT, Reagan had sat on the floor, playing with her teddy. She was clueless to the tears in her older sister's eyes, or the sympathetic expression on Athena's face. Laila angrily scribbled the last part of the letter and picked it up, walking over to her brother. She ripped the blindfold off his eyes and shoved the note in his face.
