Killer Instinct

1 | Mary

Three Months Later

"We're leaving in ten."

"I'll drive separately, then." Mary Hadden shook her head without looking up, "I need a little bit more time."

Her twin brother sighed softly.

"Alright. Just don't take too long."

Mary didn't reply as she heard him close her bedroom door. She swiped the last bit of lipstick onto her bottom lip and puckered softly, checking to make sure she hadn't missed a spot or gotten any outside of her lip line. Over-accentuated lips were so 2016.

Falsies. Setting spray. She was ready for her first day of senior year.

Mary Hadden was the most well-known and incredibly envied girl at Barnum Preparatory School, helped along in part due to the fact that her two brothers were past and present football stars at the school and that her parents were two of the most respected members of their society. Jane Hadden was a successful plastic surgeon who did most of her work in New York City, and Henry Hadden was an affluent doctor with a reputation for getting his patients exactly what they wanted without bothering to know if it was what they needed.

Mary's twin brother Michael was the current football captain of Barnum Prep, and he had taken over the role from her older brother Eddie, who had been one year older than Mary before the accident took him away for good.

The first day of school was usually a wonderful day for Mary. She was the queen of her class and she knew how to get exactly what she wanted. Yet this first day would bring about things that she didn't want: questions and prying eyes and pity. The last thing that Mary Hadden needed was pity from people who wore Crocs unironically and didn't own a curling iron.

Eddie had been one of her heroes and losing him had been nothing short of traumatizing. Yet three months had come and gone, and those ninety days had helped dull the initial pain. She was ready to move on with her life and not be defined by her brother's death.

Mary took a deep breath and flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder, loving the familiar feeling of her curls bouncing on her back. The smell of hairspray lingered around her as she spritzed herself with her favorite perfume and stood up to grab her backpack.

On the first day of school, Mary was used to riding shotgun in the car of whatever brother was driving, putting the finishing touches on her makeup and singing at the top of her lungs to whatever song had been #1 that summer. She was used to slapping Eddie when he tried to roll down the windows and ruin her hair, and she was used to getting made fun of by Michael for freaking out over that in the first place.

On the first day of her senior year, Mary slid into the driver's seat of her own, hardly-used car, ensured that the windows were up, turned on the radio and rolled her eyes at the song that had been #1 all summer long. She was sick of it and sick of hearing the same thing over and over again. She wanted something new, something that hadn't been around at the same time as her older brother. Everything that was popular then should have gone with him.

She drove towards Barnum Prep, taking multiple deep breaths as she went. She was still herself: bold, bright, cruel, cunning...she was still Mary Hadden. She was simply Mary Hadden without an older brother.

Mary pulled into her regular parking space outside of the castle-looking school and sat in her car for one last second before turning it off and stepping out into the late summer haze. It was the beginning of September but still felt as though it could be the middle of July with the way the heat was shaping up.