My Characters Betrayed Me

My best friend and I got sucked into the romance novel I wrote.

We were living the absolute dream. We had the two male leadsone a broad-shouldered, tailored-suit god, the other with stamina that defied human biology. We were practically drowning in perfection.

Until another girl crossed over into the manuscript.

Because of her, my best friend was strapped to a human roulette wheel, enduring torture that caused her to miscarry. Five separate times.

I became this girl's personal blood bank, submerged in a giant vat of liquor as a "vintage beauty," served up for a crowd of degenerates to taste.

And our two perfect men? They slowly, inexplicably, changed their hearts.

The manipulative little bitch flaunted it in our faces.

"So what if your babies died? So what if you're drained of blood?" she purred, her smile razor-sharp. "One phone call. That's all it takes for your husbands to drop everything and come running to me. Tell me, which one should I let share my bed tonight?"

My best friend, Maddie, gripped my hand. She didn't have any tears left to cry.

"Heather," she whispered, her voice hollow. "I can't take this anymore. Let's just pull the plug. Let's die here so we can wake up in the real world."

I stayed completely silent.

The rule was simple: finish the plot, and the System would grant our deepest wishes. I didn't care about the eight hundred million dollars I had wished for anymore. But Maddie? In the real world, Maddie had terminal cancer. Going back early meant going back to die.

I ground my teeth together, grabbed her arm, and shoved her behind me.

"I'll pull the plug. I'll die," I told her fiercely. "You stay alive. You survive the plot."

"The second I wake up on the other side, I'm opening my laptop and rewriting this whole damn thing. Share her bed? I'm going to scatter her ashes to the wind!"

"I'm going to write a scene where she falls into a cesspool seven times. I'm going to make her run naked through the streets. I will torture her to death on the page for you, I swear to God."

A faint, desperate flicker of light finally returned to Maddies deadened eyes.

Just for that flicker, I needed to die. Right now.

I spun around and sprinted straight for the window.

I was just about to throw my leg over the sill when my peripheral vision caught movement down in the courtyard.

A tall, chillingly handsome man was kneeling on the pavement, tying a womans shoelace. Six-foot-two, sharp jawline, lean muscle. It was a silhouette I knew better than my own reflection.

My husband. Declan.

I ground my teeth, mentally calculating the distance to the ground. Part of me wondered if I should just aim my trajectory to crush them both on impact.

Declan must have sensed something.

He looked up. His eyes locked onto me, dangling halfway out the second-story window.

His pupils contracted violently. "Heather!" he roared. "Get back inside right now!"

I stretched my mouth into a cold, hollow smile and flipped him the bird.

I closed my eyes and leaned forward into the empty air.

Suddenly, something tight wrapped around my waist.

A brutal force yanked me backward, dragging me violently onto the carpet. Declans secretary was clutching me, chest heaving, his face pale with raw panic.

Seconds later, Declan burst into the room. He was ashen.

"Are you out of your mind, Heather?!" he shouted, his voice cracking with rage. "Throwing a tantrum with your life?! Do you have any idea how high that is?!"

He stood there panting. Then, his eyes flicked to the girl standing timidly behind himIsabelle. Instantly, a chilling calm washed over him.

"They were right. You're becoming an absolute embarrassment," he sneered, adjusting his cuffs. "Pulling a stunt like this in front of a guest. It's pathetic."

I leaned back against the wall. A breathless, broken little laugh escaped my throat.

"Oh. So I'm an embarrassment." I looked at him. "And here I thought you were actually worried about me."

He stiffened, his gaze darting away uncomfortably.

"Enough. It's rare for Isabelle to visit. Stop causing a scene." He turned his back to me. "She loves mangoes. Go cut a plate and be a decent hostess for once."

Maddie stared at him, absolutely paralyzed with shock, before turning her heartbroken eyes to me.

I froze, too.

Then, I smiled. A bright, compliant smile.

"Sure."

Down in the kitchen, the bright, heavy mangoes sat on the cutting board.

I picked up the knife.

A passing maid happened to glance over. The color instantly drained from her face. She screamed, dropping her towels, and practically tackled me away from the counter before running hysterically toward the living room to beg Declan for mercy.

"Mr. Declan, I am so, so sorry! The new grocery shopper didn't knowthey didn't know Mrs. Heather is deathly allergic to mangoes! Please don't be angry, I'll throw them all out right now!"

Declan froze.

It hit him. Just touching the skin of a mango would send my throat into anaphylaxis. In the past, if a single mango ever crossed the threshold of our house, he would fire the entire kitchen staff.

A complicated storm of emotions flickered in his eyes. He raised an eyebrow, his voice dropping to a freezing register.

"Does she not know her own allergies? She has a mouth, doesn't she?" He scoffed. "She just had to wait until an audience was watching to get close to them. Who is this performance for?"

The corners of Isabelle's mouth twitched upward before she quickly suppressed it.

She clung to Declan's arm, looking up at him with wide, tearful eyes. "Declan, please don't be mad at Heather. As a woman... I understand how she feels."

She let out a delicate little sniffle. "She's definitely doing this on purpose. She thinks if she puts herself in danger, you'll feel sorry for her, and then... and then you won't want to see me anymore. If she hates me being here this much, I should just go!"

She was incredibly good at crying. It was the kind of crying designed to break a man's heart.

Declans brow furrowed in deep distress. "Apologize to Isabelle," he demanded.

Here we go again.

Over the last few years, if Isabelle dropped a glass, it was because I startled her. If she rolled her ankle, it was because I pushed her. If she picked a fight with Declan, it was because I manipulated them.

Id apologized eight hundred times. If they werent sick of hearing it, I was certainly sick of saying it.

I raised my hand and pressed the cold steel of the kitchen knife flush against my own neck.

"I'll apologize with my life," I whispered. "Is that enough?"

Declan just rolled his eyes, utterly exhausted by me.

"Not this again! Heather, when are you going to get it through your head? These psychotic tantrums only make me despise you. They don't make me pity you!"

The blade rested against my pulse, but the freezing cold went straight down to my soul.

I suddenly remembered a time, years ago, when I nicked my finger slicing a strawberry. Declan had practically had a panic attack. He held my hand, blowing on the tiny cut, tearing apart the bathroom to find a band-aid, and then kissing the plastic once he wrapped it.

I had laughed at him. Is this really necessary? It's just a scratch.

It is, he had said, looking at me dead serious. When you hurt, I hurt.

But now, holding a butcher knife to my own throat was just a "psychotic tantrum."

He had the exact same face. The exact same voice.

But where did my Declan go?

I looked across the room at the man staring at me with nothing but cold disgust. I smiled, letting two hot tears spill down my cheeks.

"Declan," I breathed. "I really miss you."

His eyes violently trembled.

I closed my eyes and slammed my neck toward the blade.

A large, heavily-knuckled hand slammed over the sharp edge of the blade, stopping it dead.

The metallic tang of blood instantly filled the air.

"Heather, are you out of your goddamn mind?!"

My older brother, Colin, glared at me, his eyes blazing with furious disbelief. He raised his uninjured hand and swung it hard toward my face.

Maddie threw herself in front of me. The slap landed across her cheek with a sickening crack.

Colin froze, staring at his palm. But a second later, the anger morphed into something uglier.

"Maddie, look at what you've done to my sister!" he roared. "She throws her life around like it's a joke! If you don't even respect your own life, how do you expect anyone else to love you?!"

His chest heaved. He struggled to catch his breath before spitting out the final, venomous words:

"You're both pathetic idiots!"

I stared at him, and a hysterical urge to laugh bubbled up in my chest.

This was my second male lead.

The man I wrote to be gentle, refined, the ultimate protector. In my original outline, "idiot" was the absolute harshest word his character was even capable of saying.

I never thought he'd use it as a weapon against us.

"She doesn't respect her own life?" I asked, my voice dropping to a dead, icy calm. "Do you have any idea how desperately she tried to protect herself and her babies?"

The first baby. Isabelle "accidentally" dropped saffron into her soup. Hemorrhage. Gone.

The second baby. Colin was too busy fixing a leak at Isabelle's apartment, so he made Maddie walk home alone in a thunderstorm. She slipped. Miscarriage. Gone.

The third. The fourth. The fifth...

"Colin, use your goddamn brain," I snarled. "Who exactly is it that doesn't respect her life?!"

Beside me, Maddie was shaking violently, silent sobs wracking her frail body.

A flash of raw guilt crossed Colins eyes. He raised his hand, instinctively reaching out to wipe Maddies tears.

But Isabelle gasped, her hands flying to her mouth in innocent horror.

"Five babies? Lost?" she whispered. "That's... well, maybe it's just natural selection? If the genetics were that flawed, bringing them into the world would have just been cruel."

She tilted her head, her eyes wide. "Besides... isn't it a little strange? Five times? Do you think she... maybe she did it to herself, just to get your attention?"

Maddie flinched as if shed been shot. She turned, her eyes bloodshot, screaming from the depths of her lungs.

"What the hell are you saying?! I would never kill my own children for a man's love!"

"Wouldn't you?"

Colins hand dropped. It was obvious. He believed Isabelle.

He looked at Maddie, a cold, clinical disgust rising to the surface of his eyes. Then, he turned to Isabelle, his voice softening into something like velvet.

"Izzy, I'm so sorry. I never should have brought you to this house today. Let's go to that private kitchen you like. I'll cook for you myself to make up for this."

Isabelle hooked her left arm through my brothers. She grabbed Declans hand with her right.

She looked back at us, smiling. Sweet. Triumphant.

The heavy front door slammed shut. It sounded like a gunshot.

I pulled Maddie to my chest, running my hand down her back, over and over.

"It's okay. They're just characters on a page. It's okay. Don't be sad."

I was lying. It felt like my ribs were caving in.

Declan and Colin were the men Maddie and I had built from the ground up. We poured our ideal types into them, meticulously designing every trait, every flaw, every tender moment. They were born into this universe specifically to be our perfect matches.

But my love felt like he'd been hollowed out and replaced by a parasite.

I held Maddie tighter, rocking her, trying to soothe hertrying to soothe myself.

"It's going to be okay. As soon as I die and log out, I'm rewriting the manuscript. Everything will go back to normal."

I dug through Maddies purse and pulled out her sleeping pills.

I poured a handful into my palm. I was just about to swallow them dry.

Suddenly, the front door burst open. A group of furious executives stormed into our living room, pointing straight at Maddie.

"You absolute psycho! You run that account, don't you?!"

My brothers corporate social media had exploded.

Two weeks ago, a young woman had posted a picture of her new tattoo. The official corporate account had replied to the thread, publicly accusing her of being a sex worker. The ensuing cyberbullying had been so severe the girl had committed suicide.

Now, her family and their lawyers were standing in our living room.

Maddie shook her head, terrified and confused. "No, it wasn't me. The account manager is"

"Stop lying! Your own company just released a statement! You murdered my daughter, and I'm going to make you pay!"

A phone was shoved inches from our faces.

It was a statement. Posted by my brother.

Due to reckless statements made by my wife while managing the corporate accounts

At that exact second, Maddies phone buzzed. A text from Colin.

Maddie, Izzy is fragile and terrified. I need you to take the fall for this for now. Ill figure something out later.

Maddie stared at the screen, her eyes wide, unable to process the absolute magnitude of the betrayal.

Before she could even breathe, the mob lunged.

I threw myself over Maddie, wrapping my body around hers, screaming over the chaos.

"Isabelle was running the account! Go check the IP! It was Isabelle!"

"Isabelle is just a junior assistant. Why would she have top-tier clearance for corporate socials?"

Declans voice cut through the room like a glacier.

He was standing in the doorway, shielding Isabelle behind him, his eyes sharp and unforgiving.

"I can personally testify," Declan said smoothly. "That account has always been managed jointly by Maddie and Heather."

Behind his broad shoulders, Isabelle shot me a wicked, victorious smirk.

In that moment, whatever was left of my heart finally flatlined.

The blows started raining down. Fists, boots, briefcases.

Maddie and I were desperately trying to shield each other, scrambling to take the brunt of the hits. But her body was weak. I was stronger.

I made sure I took every single hit.

The dull, sickening thuds echoed through the room as shoes connected with my ribs.

Maddie was wailing, a sound of absolute despair.

"Heather, stop! Stop protecting me! I know this is breaking your heart more than mine!" she sobbed. "I don't want to suffer anymore! Let's just go home. I don't care how long I have left in the real world, it's fine, I just want to"

Gag.

My body finally gave out. I violently coughed up a massive mouthful of dark blood, staining Maddies white shirt red.

My vision tunneled into black. The world went completely silent.

The exit door back to reality slowly began to materialize in my mind.

But suddenly, I felt someone sprinting toward me like a madman. Arms wrapped around me, crushing me to a chest, shielding me from the mob.

Then came the rhythmic, sterile beep-beep of hospital monitors.

And Isabelles grating, falsely tearful voice.

"Declan, it's all my fault." A sniffle. "But Heather has always been so healthy. Do you think she's faking it again? Just to make you feel bad?"

Declan didn't answer her.

Instead, I felt hot drops of water landing on my neck.

They burned. They made my heart physically ache.

"Heather," Declan whispered over and over again.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't think this would happen. Please wake up. I'll give you anything you want."

His voice broke. "You always loved touching my abs, right? If you wake up, I'll let you do it every single day."

A faint, ghostly laugh echoed in my own mind.

Yeah. I did. Every night before bed, Id reach over and feel for his stomach. It was a ritual.

He used to pretend to be annoyed. He'd complain that my hands were freezing, that I was being clingy. But he would always lift his shirt and pull my hands against his bare skin anyway.

That was my Declan.

The man sitting next to this hospital bed wasn't him.

So, it was time to leave.

I let my consciousness sink deeper into the dark.

But just as I was slipping away, Isabelles cold, mocking whisper brushed against my ear.

"I know exactly what you're trying to do. And I'm not going to let you die that easily."

"If you keep sleeping... your best friend is going to be destroyed."

Maddie's agonizing scream suddenly ripped through the air.

I jolted awake, gasping for air.

Isabelle was leaning over the bed, holding her phone inches from my face. A video was playing.

It was my brother, Colin. He had Maddie pinned against a wall by her throat. His eyes were bloodshot with rage.

"You and Heather set her up, didn't you?! You told that mob Izzy was running the account so they'd go after her!" he roared in the video. "Do you have any idea what she's been through these past few days? Stalked outside the office, death threats blowing up her phone! Shes practically a kid! How could you be so vicious?!"

Maddies face cycled through shock, pain, and finally, a hollow, devastating resignation.

"I did it," she rasped. "Heather had nothing to do with it. If you want revenge, take it out on me."

The video snapped off.

I was trembling so violently the bed frame rattled. I lunged forward and grabbed Isabelle by the collar.

"What did you do to her?!"

Isabelle giggled. "Oops. You fell for it."

In a fraction of a second, her expression contorted into sheer terror, and she began sobbing hysterically. "Heather, please! Please don't hurt me!"

The door crashed open. Declan burst in, instantly pulling her behind him, his face etched with panic.

Isabelle buried her face in his shoulder. "Declan, look. I wasn't lying."

"She was faking the coma! Whenever you leave the room, she wakes up and beats me! Look at the bruises, she did this to me!"

Declan stared at me, his eyes wide with revulsion. He kicked a metal chair across the room; it slammed into the wall.

"Heather! What is your goddamn problem?! I sat by this bed for three nights without sleeping, isn't that enough for you?!"

"Can't we just have a normal life?! Why do you insist on torturing her?!"

I stared back at him.

This face. I had stared at the computer screen and mapped out every angle of it. The sharp brow, the straight nose, the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he was genuinely happy.

Now, those eyes held nothing but pure, unadulterated hatred.

And strangely, that realization brought a terrifying calm over me.

"Where is Maddie?" I asked evenly.

Isabelle wiped a fake tear. "You and Maddie just went too far this time."

"Declan and Colin are too soft-hearted. I couldn't bear to see you two manipulate them anymore. So I sent her to a correctional facility. To help her learn some manners."

A loud, deafening ringing filled my ears.

I vaulted out of the bed and slapped her across the face with everything I had.

Declan grabbed my wrist. He squeezed so hard I thought the bones would snap.

"Heather!" he roared.

I looked him dead in the eye and gave him a bloody, feral smile.

"I guess I've gone too far, too. Why don't you send me there to join her?"

The "correctional facility" was an underground nightclub.

The second they dragged me through the doors, I saw her.

Maddie was strapped spreadeagle to a massive wooden roulette wheel. She was the needle.

The outer rim of the wheel was painted with punishments.

Shots. Needles. Cigarette burns.

Wherever she stopped, that was what she got.

She was covered in blood and burns. When she saw me, her swollen eyes immediately filled with tears.

I screamed and tried to sprint toward the stage, but two massive bouncers slammed me into the ground, pinning my arms behind my back.

Isabelle didn't even bother acting anymore. She threw her head back and laughed.

"Your bestie has had a rough night! Good thing you're here. Want to help her carry the load?"

"She spins, you take the punishment. Deal?"

Before I could even open my mouth, she reached out and violently spun the wheel.

Maddie blurred into a circle of motion. The G-force was too much; her eyes rolled back, and she passed out completely.

I was thrashing against the guards, seeing red.

The wheel slowly ground to a halt.

The entire club erupted into cheers.

"Vintage Beauty! Vintage Beauty!" the crowd chanted.

Isabelle looked at where the needle had stopped. A slow, wicked smile spread across her face as she looked me up and down.

"Looks like your luck just ran out, Heather."

A crew of men wheeled out an enormous, reinforced glass tank.

It was filled to the brim with amber liquor that sloshed heavily under the strobe lights.

"This is the club's specialty," Isabelle announced to the room.

"We're going to use you to flavor the whiskey. Everyone here gets a glass. A little taste of high society."

The crowd roared as I was dragged up onto the platform.

Isabelle leaned in close, her eyes glittering with malice.

"You think you can just pull the plug and escape to rewrite the plot?" she hissed. "In your dreams. I am going to make sure you two beg for death, and I'll never let you have it."

I froze. How did she know about the plot?

Before my brain could process it, Isabelle shoved me hard toward the edge of the tank.

A split second before I fell, I grabbed fistfuls of her shirt and yanked her with me.

"I didn't come here to be tortured," I laughed right in her face. "I came here to drag you to hell with me!"

Splash!

The freezing alcohol rushed into my nose and throat.

The burning and the suffocation were instantaneous.

But I kept my arms locked around Isabelle like a vice, sinking us both. I smiled as the bubbles escaped her screaming mouth.

Then, I heard a muffled, familiar shout from above the surface.

Someone plunged into the tank. Strong hands grabbed my wrist.

The grip was desperate. Terrified. Like they were holding onto their entire world.

I forced my burning eyes open. Through the swirling amber liquid, I saw his face. Brows pulled together in panic, lips pressed tight.

Declan.

He came for me?

My heart gave a pathetic, hopeful flutter.

But in the next second...

He systematically pried my fingers apart, one by one.

He ripped Isabelle out of my grip, pulled her into his chest, and kicked off the bottom.

He swam toward the surface. He never looked back.

I sank back to the bottom of the glass. I watched their silhouettes break the surface and disappear into the glaring lights of the club.

Fine.

So this is how it ends.

Just as the edges of my vision started to turn black, the glass tank groaned under the pressure.

CRACK.

The reinforced glass shattered. Thousands of gallons of liquor exploded outward, washing me violently across the concrete floor.

I collapsed on my hands and knees, violently hacking up alcohol, my lungs screaming.

A heavy hand patted my back. Colin. He was drenched, chest heaving.

He looked at me, and for a fraction of a second, there was genuine, agonizing heartbreak in his eyes.

"Heather, you absolute idiot," he breathed.

I spat out a mouthful of whiskey and gave a weak, breathless laugh. I couldn't believe that didn't kill me.

Across the room, Isabelle was clinging to Declan, hyperventilating in a perfectly orchestrated panic attack.

"I just came to see them... I just wanted to make peace with her, but Heather tried to murder me!"

Instantly, two pairs of frigid eyes locked onto me.

Declan and Colin immediately started shouting for doctors. They flanked Isabelle on both sides. Wrapping her in thick towels, vigorously drying her hair, holding a cup of hot water to her lips.

Absolute, gentle devotion.

All for her.

Meanwhile, a bouncer grabbed me by the ankle, dragged me into a dark back room, and dumped me on the floor.

I pulled my knees to my chest. My heart was beating erratically. Too fast.

My face felt like it was on fire. My throat was tightening. Every breath was a struggle.

Through the haze, a memory hit me. The IV bag at the hospital. Ceftriaxone. Cephalosporin antibiotics.

I had just inhaled and swallowed a massive amount of alcohol.

I instinctively opened my mouth to call for help.

Through the cracked door, I saw Declan and Colins backs. They were leaning over Isabelle, whispering something soothing.

She was smiling, her eyes curving into sweet little crescents. Out of the corner of her eye, she shot me a smug, triumphant look.

I closed my mouth.

The corners of my lips slowly turned up.

I went through all that trouble to find a window to jump out of.

Turns out, dying was actually this easy.

In the dim yellow light of the back room, I curled myself into a tight ball. I kept my eyes fixed on the backs of the men I had created, and I quietly went to sleep.

I don't know how much time passed. Eventually, a doctor declared Isabelle was perfectly fine, and I heard the two men let out long sighs of relief.

Declan finally remembered I existed.

"Heather," he called out, his tone dripping with frost. "Thank God Izzy is okay. Get out here and apologize."

The figure curled in the corner didn't move.

Annoyance flashed across his face. He strode into the room, bent down, and grabbed my arm to haul me up.

The second his skin touched mine, his entire body went rigid.

When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting at my desk in the real world.

I immediately pulled up the manuscript file, my fingers hovering over the keyboard to rewrite the nightmare.

But then, my eyes snagged on the document history log in the sidebar.

My brain short-circuited.

I finally knew exactly who Isabelle was.

No wonder she could manipulate my plot!