Crowned by Hate (Crowned #1) Read online

  “Oh thank fuck!” Bryan turns to face me, his hand coming to my face. “How you feeling?”

  “Good…I think.” I look around the room to find not just Bryant and my parents there, but Bryant’s parents and sister too.

  His mom comes to my bed, taking my hand in hers. “We don’t blame you, Isa.” Through my tears, I look around the room until I see Jessica, who is now coming toward me.

  “Sisters are better than brothers anyway.”

  “Hey!” Bryant scolds her.

  I laugh, swiping the tears off of my cheeks and casting a small look to my sister who was curled up in a ball on the other side of the room, tears pouring down her face. “Yeah, they totally are.”

  “Please take me home.”

  “Renewing your vows? Like, who even does that?” Brianna scolds, straightening my hair from the back.

  “Us, of course. And you already know how we don’t do anything by the book, Bri.” She pauses, putting the brush back onto the dresser.

  “You’re right.” She brushes off a piece of my hair from my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I think pregnancy is making me cranky.”

  “Hey!” I laugh. “I’ve been pregnant too, and you didn’t see me breathing fire.” She steps back and laughs. “You were a freak of nature. When I hit that third trimester, damn. You get fat, swollen, cranky, and don’t even get me started about the confusion of your sex drive. Do you want it? Or not? You need it but the thought of it grosses you out and then there’s the fat thing again, and the hungry thing so you jus—”

  I zone out of my sister’s stupid ramblings and look back at myself in the mirror. After the Brooke and Devon ordeal, it’s been a rough year, but through it all, Bryant and I have never been stronger. It was his idea to renew our vows since I gave birth to Harper last week. I know, everyone had asked me if I was crazy getting remarried in my post-pregnancy state, but none of that matters to Bryant and me.

  Collecting up the rest of my belongings, I head for the door with Briana behind me. “You look casual,” she says calmly, looking at my body up and down. “But you look mighty fine for just having a baby!” She’s right, I do look casual, but I don’t look fine. That’s her pregnancy eyes kicking in. I’m walking down this time in nothing but a loose nude dress that hangs around my knees. I never wanted the damn big dress anyway.

  “Yes, that’s the plan. I didn’t want extravagant, I just wanted. Me. I wanted Bryant. I wanted us.”

  Brianna looks me straight in the eye and smiles a sad smile. “Let’s do this.”

  Slowly walking down the dimly lit aisle, I clutch the bouquet of lilies in my hand. It’s around eight p.m., so the sun has long since set and all that we have as lighting are the candles beaming up the aisle and all the fairly lights that are dangling above the seating area in the large trees, before finally trailing up around the altar. I look up to see Bryant cradling baby Harper in his arms and eying me in such a way it has my skin prickle, my heartbeat race, and sweat to bead out of the pores in my skin. Bryant is an incredible father. He puts new meaning to “Daddy.” Seeing him play with Harper has my lady bits tingling where they definitely should not be tingling one week after giving birth. Even if I did need a C-section.

  Shit. I let out a long exhale of pent-up air just as my feet reach the altar.

  This is it. This is my life, my beautiful, insane, very fucked up life. But it’s mine and I’m the luckiest girl in the world.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Royal, we’re gathered here today….”

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Author note: If you’re satisfied with the image this story has given you, please stop here, as you’re about to get a rude awakening.

  23

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  What’s that sound? I look around, out to all our guests who are seated in their seats. What is that sound? My eyebrows tug in in confusion and I look back at Bryant.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, his face blurring like a fuzzy TV show that’s struggling to gather enough signal. A woman, standing in the shadows behind the tree comes into view, and I put my hand over my eyes to try to shade my view onto her. “Hey!” But she runs away.

  “I—I—” I look out to our guests again, only they begin melting away. “What?” I whisper, my hand coming up to my forehead.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  The trees all melted together in a puddle of wet goo, and when I looked back to ask Bryant what was going on, he was gone.

  But there was someone there. Brooke stared back at me with a smirk, dangling a machete in front of her.

  “Well, well, well…” She swung her arm back and launched the sharp side of the machete deep into my throat. Blood seeped down the side of my throat and I dropped to the floor, clutching my neck. Choking on the warm liquid that was filling my mouth, Brooke stepped over me as my vision came in and out.

  This was bad.

  I was going to die.

  Where was Bryant? Oh my god, Harper! And who was that woman? Tears poured down my cheeks.

  “Where—where—” I muttered, but failed because the blood was coming in so much faster now. So much faster.

  “Bry—”

  Brooke laughed, then launched her arm back. She grinned. “I win.”

  Everything went black.

  “She’s not coming back.”

  Beep.

  “Good riddance.”

  A blood-curdling scream tears out of my mouth as I launch off the hospital bed.

  “Nope, she’s back,” someone says beside me and exhales, taking a seat on one of the chairs.

  “Where am I?” I look around the sterile white room, my eyes narrowing.

  “Isa…” the weird man dressed in a white gown growls beside me. It’s then that I realize I can’t move my hands because they’re wrapped around my waist by a straitjacket. “Isa, it’s ok… we’ve done this so many times—remember? I’m Mr. Barrack, and this is nurse Turner. You’re still in the institution here at Merry Hill.”

  “What?” I snap, shocked. Confused. Institution? What the fuck.

  “Isa.”

  “Stop calling me Isa!” I roar at them all, and that’s when I catch my reflection in the bleak window. “Oh my God! No….” I shake my head.

  The doctor pauses and reaches for a panic button. “Justine…” he whispers to the nurse discreetly, his face pale while reaching for the panic button. “Justine, get help.” Then he looks back to me. “Brooke? Is that you?”

  “Of course it’s me!” I yell. “Why the fuck am I in this fugly slut’s body!”

  The doctor turns pale and in one quick rush, he slams the palm of his hand on the panic button before whispering, “I never…she lost…” His shoulders dropping. “Isa lost.”

  “Yes,” I smirk, finally realizing what he means. “And I won.” With all the power I can muster, I rip off the straight jacket, reach for the vase beside my bed and smash it against his head. “I wooooonnnnnnnn!” I roar, just as a dozen officer’s rush into the room and launch me back into my bed, injecting me with serum.

  “Justine,” Mr. Barrack whispers, taking a seat beside the shaken nurse in the main lobby. “It’s going to be ok.”

  “Isa’s really gone?” Justine mutters, swiping her eyes. “No more telling her stories.”

  “She’s gone. But she’ll be at peace now. She’s resting with the wild stories that live in her head. Remember she suffered daily, Justine. What we’ve done, we’ve only done to help her get through those days. I mean reliving the same story inside your head every single day? That’s a lot to take on for a schizophrenic.”

  “We never were sure if she was a schizophrenic, though,” Justine adds. “It could be psychosis.”

  “But she lost, that’s what we know. The good person lost in this story. You know, in the four months that she was dropped here out of the blue, I felt a connection to her.”

  “She did lose, and I too, felt a co
nnection to Isa, but Brooke must have killed her. There’s no other explanation. I hated Brooke’s visits. She’s vile.”

  Justine smiles, swiping her eyes. “Isa was a great girl. Told a good story. I swear, her story will never get old. Bryant and Isa. We can only dream to have a relationship like that, and Isa did. Daily.” Justine fought back all of her emotions that were surrounding her.

  “She was special.” Mr. Barrack adds sadly. “But unfortunately, we can’t win them all. Sometimes,” he looks over his shoulder and toward the door which leads you into where Isa’s padded room was.

  “Sometimes the bad people win.”

  24

  Bryant

  “Shhh,” I coo into Harper’s soft brown curls as I toss my hoodie over my head. “You need to be quiet, baby.” For being just over four-months old, she sure spoke a lot. I pause as I reach the door and look into the little window. I see her, Isa, sitting on the bed with her legs crossed and her head tilted. The straight jacket is wrapped tightly around her and just as I go to turn the door handle to let myself in, the way I’ve always snuck myself in, which always included Jerry and some secret service agents, Isa’s lip curls up in a sadistic smile that sets chills out over my spine.

  That’s not Isa.

  That’s Brooke.

  My heart sinks and a ball of sadness rolls in the pit of my throat.

  I lost her. After all this time, after all the fight I put in, I lost her.

  I tuck Harper into my hood and run out the long corridor of the institution.

  It’s just us now.

  Just us.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket, and the name “The Reaper” displays across the screen. I slide it to unlock. “Devon. We need to fucking talk.”

  The End

  (for now)