I.

TO GAIN DOMINANCE OVER THE ADVANTAGED who triumph, it is essential to steadily and shrewdly expose and monopolize on the disadvantages they indulge in yet fear in secret, while analyzing one’s own flaws so as to not leave an opening to be targeted oneself. This is one of the first things Emma Frost ever learns of the world.

She is born into a family of riches, the third out of four children, and the one with nothing to her. Her eldest sibling is Adrienne, whose long brunette locks are as beautiful as her pearly whites and emerald green eyes, and blessed with a gifted mind. Her report cards are of straight A’s since she was able to write her own name and answer what is 1+1, and the boys who indulge her in roses and chocolate are as plentiful as the universities who a couple of years ago were beckoning to her with full scholarships to attend them. Adrienne knows very well that besides being a Frost, her looks and brain give her a huge advantage in life. She likes to show this off to Emma, with a tone of “kindness” that upon further inspection is, in reality, a tone of mockery.

Her brother Christian is the second-oldest, and he is the sole male of the four, as well as the only one of her siblings that Emma feels a true, genuine connection with. While their father Winston is a traditionalist through-on-through and Adrienne follows in his footsteps to proclaim the title of a “golden child” while Emma tries (and stumbles) to do so just to receive praise for once and Cordelia goes the exact opposite direction out of spite, Christian does what is asked of him yet with his own gentler, introspective taste.

It is not surprising that Christian is thus praised and congratulated by their father for graduating magna cum laude and getting partnerships with even some of their father’s rival companies at the same time he is then reprimanded for not reaching summa cum laude like Adrienne or attempting to achieve his masters like Adrienne currently is and having sparkly eyes whenever he sees a beautiful fabric belonging to a dress or a purse in Adrienne’s closet or shopping mall windows; weak traces of masculinity are prohibited in the Frost lineage.

Cordelia is the youngest of all of them, and she is the black sheep—quite literally, considering she dyed her golden blonde (oh, what Emma would do to have been born with such blonde hair instead of being a brunette) into a dark obsidian black. She bears black and from a young age has her eyes set on the niche and the obscure, and if their father says to go north, Cordelia of course will go south, from the aggravation teachers express about her during parent-teacher meetings to the below-average marks she receives every trimester. 

Whenever their mother Hazel tried to get a pretty-in-pink outfit for Cordelia, the fabrics always ended up dyed as black as can be. Lectures and glares and scoffs have never affected Cordelia, and their father realized quickly that there was no point in attempting to shape Cordelia to be an ideal Frost heiress—there’s a reason why no children were born after Cordelia, after all.

(Emma doesn’t talk to Cordelia much. Cordelia may only be two years younger than her, and is actually not rude to her, albeit just very anti-authority and pro-anarchy, but the things she’s seen her sister do when Christian tried to encourage her to take her sophomore year of high school a bit more seriously and their mom’s attempts to make Cordelia more of a proper heiress is enough for Emma to keep it cordial but distant, and never advise Cordelia to be something she’s not—a perfect little heiress for a perfect rich family.)

Emma, of course, is the one with nothing to her. She is neither beautiful and with a sharp mind like her eldest sister or a rebellious take-for-all like her younger sister. Her tawny brown locks are straight and thin, nothing compared to the uppity thick curls of Adrienne’s medium auburn brown curls which attract people due to their velocity and Cordelia’s short and spiky black tresses that attract people due to their delinquency. Emma’s blue eyes pale in comparison to the jewel green of Adrienne’s and the much more diamond-like blue belonging to Christian and Cordelia. 

Emma cannot achieve as highly in academics as Christian and Adrienne nor barely have anything positive in her reports like Cordelia; if it wasn’t for her last name, Emma is sure that if it wasn’t for her last name, most of her teachers wouldn’t even know she was in their classes. When she isn’t getting B’s and C’s and maybe an A-, she can only accomplish getting different ranges of B’s, and that is nothing more than mediocrity for someone of the Frost bloodline.

What else can Emma do, however? She has the average hobbies and interests someone her age would have—from teen magazines to wanting to go to prom to hoping she can get into college—but what talents can she say she has? What to her is something that either her elder siblings haven't use in a unique and well-put fashion or her younger sister hasn't purposely fails to accomplish out of spite?

Matilda (blonde hair, blue eyes, tall and curvy, straight A’s, violinist. pianist, social butterfly, blonde blonde blonde blonde blonde blonde blonde blonde—) Sonnen was right—from her grades to her presence at the Snow Valley School for Girls to her namesake, Emma Frost cannot scream mediocrity any louder and is only where she is at because her last name is Frost and her father has the abilities to put an unskilled girl into a school for the gifted via under-the-table bills that add up to the hundreds of thousands.

Emma Frost is a nobody. She has nothing of interest to her—and as a member of the Frost family, where everyone is akin to a crab in a bucket, her lack of individualism is the worst thing she could be.

II.

Lately, Emma Frost has been shedding cruor.

If she’s too exhausted, her mouth bleeds. If she’s overwhelmed and overthinking, blood will burst out of her nose and mouth. If she is in a confrontation, she’ll fall to the floor and cough up splatters of crimson onto the ground. Even her eyes and ears have had droplets of red coming out of them.

It escalated deeply the night of the prom, where her father had promised her she could go if could bring in a report card without any C’s just to take back his words when he saw all range of B’s without a single A, but Christian, her sweet brother Christian, with all his talents and specialties in the makeup and fashion department, managed to doll her up and dress her up like a Madonna—for once, Emma happy to see how straight and thin her tawny brown hair can be even if they’re not large and flared like Adrienne’s and the way her sky blue eyes look despite them not being the arctic-shade that Frosts are known for like those of Christian’s and Cordelia’s.

It was like a dream come true when Emma arrived at the prom and everyone was in awe, and a cute boy named Josh with an even cuter eyebrow-ring had taken an interest of her—until Matilda had ruined it, and tore at Emma’s Gaultier snow-white dress, which left Emma sitting alone on the middle of the prom floor, laughter all around her as her undergarments were exposed and her makeup was ruined.

(At the very least, Emma was able to expose the money issue and future bankruptcy that Matilda would be in—how Emma could know about that, however, she still does not know.)

The next day at school, after the previous night had consisted of her father shouting and berating her for going against his orders for her to stay put as Emma as usual just stood there in shame and embarrassment, she had a talk with her teacher, her handsome young teacher Mr. Kendall, who told her father in the first place of what had happened at the prom—she forgave him for snitching, of course, because Mr. Kendall had no clue Emma snuck out, and because Mr. Kendall is a beautiful, beautiful man.

When their conversation ended, and she stepped outside, she expected to just go back home via the limo that always takes her to and from Snow Valley School.

Instead, she stepped outside to stumble and hear different voices all around her, and yet not a single lip-glossed lip was opening as Frost heard them.

...haven’t studied for that math test...cheat off Nicole…

...ugly shoes...Ginger can’t dress for her life…

...and chicken for lunch...mediocre menu choices...

...go back to the dorms…get my watch too…

...what is she doing...Hannah is so dumbfounded...

So many thoughts...and yet none of them were hers…

…what’s wrong with Emma...as always, what a freak…

...gym class today...wanna go home already…

..incorrect answer...Mrs. Yeranmen is such a bit…

...after I’m done with physics...the mall downtown today…

...Terrie’s birthday party...shoes as a present...

“Make...them...stooooOOOOOOOOOPPPPPP!!!”

“EMMA!”

She had passed out, and Mr. Kendall had to be the one to save her.

When she wakes up, she is okay, and in the presence of the school nurse and her fencing teacher, and then she is not okay.

✦

✦  †  ✦

✦

C.

B.

B.

A.

True.

True.

False.

True.

Expressionism in art is when realistic images are distorted on purpose for the purpose to show the emotional state or message of the artist, while aestheticism is when art is solely designed for its attractive features and basic to no actual other intentions.

Emma drops her pencil and opens her eyes. All 50 questions have been answered, from the multiple-choice section to the fill-in-the-blank portion to the questions for the three short essays, and even the bonus question.

The answers are as correct as can be, but it is not because Emma has mucked up her courage to study all night until she is sure she can get no lower than an A—no, not at all. It is not from her own mind that Emma knows which question is true and which question is E: none of the above. Instead, it is because of Matilda’s mind, one with such knowledge and understanding of the different eras and distinctions of the subject of art.

On one hand, Frost hates the fact that Sonnen was so smart. Weren’t popular girls like Matilda supposed to be idiots with nothing to them other than blonde hair, pretty blue eyes, and social status? Weren’t they supposed to end up having poor grades and future has-been whose husbands left them for the more attractive and intelligent secretary or maid? Or shunned by their family for getting pregnant at 19 and dropping out of the college they’re only in because their fathers are well-known alumni?

Why is it instead that Emma is the one with the mediocre grades and the status of only being a student at such a prestigious academy because her father is the second-richest man in Massachusetts? Why is it instead that Emma is the one seen to have barely anything to her and is just there because? Why is it instead that Emma the one that people think will be nothing other than a child of a rich family once Emma’s older? Why is it instead that Emma is the one said to be without any real distinguishing feature once you look into her? Why?

Why?

…

On the other hand, perhaps it is because of Matilda’s abilities to be a deconstruction of the popular girl trope that Emma’s new...whatever-this-is ability to somehow hear the thoughts of other people may not be as annoying and a bother as she thought. While she was ashamed at the fact that she used her ability on Christian to ensure he wouldn’t tell anyone that she was having blood-inducing migraines and cough-fits (thankfully he had forgiven her, as sweet as he is), to be able to pry into Matilda’s mind and prove that she isn’t fodder or inferior to the blonde insights in Emma a feeling she hasn’t ever felt before.

When Emma receives an A+ and manages to score a few points higher than Matilda despite cheating off of her without her knowledge, Emma can’t hide the big grin on her face as Mr. Kendall compliments her and Matilda looks back with a nasty grimace on her pretty little stuck-up face.

When Matilda right before fencing class tells Emma she has a feeling that Emma cheated and that she’ll do her best to expose her, Emma quickly responds, “Maybe you were the one who needed a few days to study,” and the scoff Matilda gives is so damn satisfying…

Not as satisfying, however, as hearing Matilda’s thoughts as they fenced. Thoughts that proved Emma was right in the fact that Matilda’s family is bankrupt and she’ll be leaving the school soon, never to have the audacity to mock Emma's grades or tell Emma how insipid and lackluster she looks in their uniform again. Those thoughts were so, so glorious to witness, after years of Matilda clowning on and disrespecting Emma in front of huge audiences with no consequences faced...

You scare the hell out of me, Frost. Not that you’ll ever find out…

The thought that revealed Matilda felt intimidated by her, however, is Emma’s favorite one.

The looks of defeat on Matilda’s face behind her fencing mask after Emma wins their duel is such music to Emma’s ears, it is worth the fact that she gets fatigued right after and later on is forced to take the exam again, right in front of Mr. Kendall, due to suspicion from the headmaster that she was cheating. 

(Of course, Emma leaves the answers blank, and of course, the headmistress says it’s a perfect score despite seeing there was not a single piece of pencil markings on the papers, because Winston Frost is the biggest donor to Snow Valley Schools for Girls they’ve ever had.)

III.

As Matilda outside looks back at the window classroom right before getting into the taxi to take her home, all her books and supplies in her hands and snow hitting her and messing up her long blonde curls, the brunette heiress Emma is right at the window looking back, her lips together and upwards, her eyebrows downwards, and her eyes squinted. Matilda looks down solemnly and Emma’s smile widens. Matilda below and Emma on top, a girl in a bankrupt family and a girl who’s an heiress to one of the richest men in the United States of America—

I’ll miss Matilda as much as I miss those recent nosebleeds and migraines, Emma thinks to herself—finally able to cancel out other people’s thoughts for her own and only have to listen to those of her classmates and family and whatnot when she chooses to—as Matilda steps in the taxi and it speeds away.

What a wonderful way to end their relationship. 

IV.

“You know, Emma, you seem to have an actual presence here for once”—Adrienne brings her compact mirror closer to her left eye and she pats her vanilla-shaded powder onto the upper parts of her left cheek—“and you seem to be smiling and more engaged in the family matters more. You should show this side of you more often! It’s very distinguished and vibrant.”

“...”

Dinner. The most dreadful thing about coming home for Emma. She is sure that no other family can be as judgmental during feasts as the Frosts. It always consists of Adrienne showing off how she’s the child most successful of their father’s ideal images for what his heir and heiresses should be, Christian apologizing for a single mistake he almost made in a business deal that their father blew out of proportion, Emma talking about the typical boring and mundane experience she had at school that no one either cared much to hear or didn’t care at all because her days at school, much like Emma herself, were nowhere near especial enough to invoke any strong levels of emotion in anyone, and Cordelia would talk about Satanism or reveal that she once again skipped school because her mission in life was to stick it to their parents in every way possible.

When Emma was a child and her older siblings teenagers, Adrienne would often boast at the dinner about her latest excellent score on a test and latest rejection of one of the many boys that would crush on her and made sure to throw jabs at the other siblings who either were almost but not as good as her (Christian), a complete opposite of her (Cordelia), or wasn’t notable in school life at all (Emma).

Adrienne may be an adult now, but she is no different in her taunting, and Adrienne’s sugary tone in what she just said to Emma is nothing kind. Everyone knows that tone is maliciousness hidden behind a fake mask of “sisterly affection”, from mother to father to the butlers and maids. 

Adrienne doesn’t fight people physically to gain control like Cordelia—she finds it trashy and unbecoming of a Frost—or use money to make people bow down to her like their father, nor does she (as far as Emma knows, at least) have any powers to go find out someone’s secret.

Instead, Adrienne uses her words.

When Adrienne calls someone distinguished and noticeable, it’s just an alternative way she’s calling someone a plain Jane who managed to have a little bit of individualism, and Adrienne knows that Emma specifically has huge insecurities on the fact that unlike Adrienne, Christian, and Cordelia, she still doesn’t know much how to stick out and gain a flair to her, even if she’s turned into a dean’s list student because of her new powers.

The amount of hidden and not-so-hidden disrespect Adrienne has managed to show to other women at her workplace and college that are her rivals are so bizarre, if they had a good relationship with each other, Emma would probably be Adrienne’s #1 hype man. 

Of course, Adrienne’s way of speech holds no setback to Emma just because she’s her younger sister, and thus Emma always is troubled and uncomfortable under the scrutiny of her eldest sibling; considering the fact that Emma is the one that gets the most hurt by words, as. Christian never let Adrienne or anyone really get to him too much (and the few times Adrienne does hit a nerve, he is able to hit one of hers right back at her, for he is amicable but not a doormat), and Cordelia always saw insults to just be compliments that ensured she was doing excellent in her plan to be the biggest black sheep there ever was, Emma in conclusion dreaded the day that her eldest sibling found out that words can be more of a brutal weapon than a punch or a stab.

“I think Emma dying her hair blonde would be a nice touch, don’t you think, daddy and mother?” Adrienne asks sweetly as she continues to look into the mirror of her makeup equipment, eyeing her dyed honey-blonde curls and glancing at her slicked-back bangs. 

Whether Adrienne is with her natural medium auburn brown hair or varying shades of blonde hair, she is a sight to behold, something that Emma always envied—the one time Emma tried to dye her hair strawberry blonde, it was such a disaster that it is the major reason why Emma leaves her hair brunette, thin, and straight.

Plain, but better than an embarrassment, which was once Emma’s motive throughout life.

(If only she had the ability to go back in time.)

Their father places his glass of water down and takes a look at Emma. “Your hair always did seem somewhat meager compared to that of your siblings. Perhaps a shade of blonde would have you be more pronounced, Emma. After all, if this sudden change of personality can make you be more remarkable, surely a cosmetic change as well? What do you say, Emma?”

“I am glad you agree, daddy,” Adrienne quickly responds as she puts away her compact mirror, not even allowing Emma the chance to quickly agree and gain respect from their father for accepting constructive criticism, “Emma just needs a bit more tweaking and she’ll be oh so wonderful!”

Adrienne gives a nasty smirk that Emma wants nothing more than to claw off her.

“Yes, quite indeed, Adrienne,” their mother responds before taking another bite at the curry rice the family chef made. Emma sighs and simply decides that once again she would be like their mother, saying yes when prompted and no when prompted. Her powers may have gotten her confidence at school, but the same can’t be said for her home life.

Perhaps if her powers grow into something more, and she’s able to find out what it is that Adrienne thinks about on a daily basis, Emma will have Adrienne shut up and never throw shade at her again.

For now, however, Emma is as meek as a mouse once she comes back to the Frost mansion, and Adrienne is but a cat that waits for her prey to scuttle by.

“...Yes, daddy, it is a great suggestion from Adrienne and would definitely make me more remarkable,” Emma responds as she continues cutting her lamb. 

She may not be able to read Adrienne’s thoughts, but there’s no need to at this moment—her elder sister’s facial expression is undeniably euphoric. Cordelia takes off her headphones to tell the whole table that she likes this more rebellious, cocky version of her middle sister, the fifteen-year-old truly sincere in this statement unlike Adrienne, and Christian gives Emma a worrying look.

One day, you’ll be the one that daddy is criticizing for their past demeanor and I’ll be the one being complimented and praised upon the heavens, Emma thinks to herself as she presses her fork into the piece of meat she just slashed at, raises it to her mouth, and eats and chews at it quietly.

One day. 

V.

Sexy.

That was what Mr. Kendall—Mr. Ian Kendall—thought about her. They had been talking about her future, had been talking about what she has in plan for the future, had suggested that maybe being a teacher would be a good choice of a career for her, and when he and he had held the school front doors for her to walk out, that was the thought she had heard from him. Sexy.

He finds her sexy. Her handsome art teacher finds her sexy.

(Do her powers come with the ability to affect other people’s feelings about her too?)

✦

✦  †  ✦

✦

She isn’t going to hide who she is anymore, and she isn’t going to continue to do what is asked of her 100% only for the purpose of a father who sees her accomplishments as nothing more than “doing what you’re supposed to do”. Emma Grace Frost is going to live life the way Emma Grace Frost always wanted to, and there is nothing that Winston Frost can do about it.

Her father threw around his stuff like a child just because she told him she’d be majoring in education instead of business like Adrienne and marketing like Christian? Too bad. Emma is no longer a low-piece pawn in his game of being head of the nationally-acclaimed Frost family.

Instead, Emma is going to be a queen.

✦

✦  †  ✦

✦

It’s a rainy day, one afternoon. She’s picked up in the limo as usual by the family limo driver Bryce, and at some point, the engine dies as well as the telephone installed in it. Bryce is forced to walk back to Snow Valley to acquire assistance, and it is while waiting for him to come back that Mr. Kendall happens to drive by, gingerly and watchful as always, and offers her a ride home.

She almost falls asleep instantly—while she doesn’t bleed out anymore and she mostly gets answers on tests via cheating off the smarter girls in her classes, she now has a side-effect of getting sleepy when she overuses her powers, and she was currently preparing for final exams, it seems every two hours she was over-exceeding whatever limit of her powers—but is stopped by his thoughts.

Where were girls like you when I was in high school?

So pretty….stunning...

So smart...so beautiful…

No one has ever shown Emma this level of affection before, and for it to be the young teacher that she’s eyed since he first started working at her school a couple of months ago is something else.

It was such a nice feeling to be appreciated and seen for more than the plain sister of the Frosts, she kissed him—

When he quickly dropped her off and said students and teachers could never be more than that, she was confused, especially when he debunked her responses that let him know that she knows how he feels about her.

She vows to apologize the next day, but discovers an African-American woman by the name of Mrs. Hancock in his place, and that he has been fired due to having an inappropriate relationship with a student, and she immediately knows where to go.

✦

✦  †  ✦

✦

“Daddy, how COULD you?!?!” Emma screams out the second she bursts open the door to her father’s office. He’s sitting there expectantly, his laptop open right in front of him and his facial expression nonchalant. 

“I’m listed among Forbes’ twenty-five most successful business leaders—I can do anything, sweetheart.”

Emma immediately stumbles forward and slams her left hand onto her father’s desk, trying her best not to quiver. “Please, I-I-I’ll do anything you want! Anything! Just give Mr. Kendall his job back!”

Her father gives her his trademark unimpressed look.

“It’s too late for bargaining, Emma. He’s out permanently.”

Permanently? Over a kiss that she initiated? Did her father truly think this would have her go back to being plain little miss boring Frost that tries to do everything her father asks her to even though he won’t give her any praise or attention for doing so?

“You know, this just adds fuels my desire to be a teacher even more,” Emma spits out as she crushes her arms, her eyebrows furrowed and her mouth in a grimace, “and ensures more to me that I won’t let you control my life anymore! No matter what you do!”

“...Won’t you?”

Her father turns his laptop and she’s presented with an HD image of her kissing Mr. Kendall.

“You see, nothing was wrong with the limousine. It was all a setup to get you two alone in Kendall’s car. I figured that would be insufficient incrimination, never factoring in your raging hormones as gravy. You see, Emma, the fact of the matter is that at the end of the day, you answer to me…”

Getting up from his chair, her father walks slowly around the right side of his table, eyeing her the whole time stoically but powerfully.

“...and I don’t intend to destroy another expensive piece of hardware to prove my point. So, all of this chit-chat about becoming a teacher ends here right here, or I’ll use this recording to make sure Kendall never teaches anywhere ever again.”

Heading out the door and not looking back at her, Emma’s father walks out without single care that she’ll be left in his office, ending his conversation with her quickly but threateningly:

“Sorry, sweetheart, but you never stood a chance against me...A’s or no A’s.”

(Emma spends the rest of the day in her room, bawling her eyes out and wishing she was born in any other type of family but the Frost family.)

VI.

Once again, the annual Frost annual summer vacation has arrived. This time they’re going to Nice, France, and once again, Emma is tired and exhausted at having to spend even more time with her siblings and parents. 

Emma graduated high school three weeks ago with honors, and as usual, her father could care less that she is now a college student or finished with a 3.6 G.P.A. Typical.

A few hours ago, Emma packed all the summer clothes and swimsuit pieces she had, and brought some of her favorite novels as well as her Snow Valley yearbook.

A few hours ago, Emma had to listen to Adrienne on the phone with a distant friend about the many stores she would have a shopping spree on and the many stores she would keep in mind to order from come winter.

A few hours ago, Emma heard her sister saying out loud the many (surprisingly legal) ways she was going to embarrass her father as well as what French rock bands she’d steal some money from their mother’s purse to go buy tickets to.

A few hours ago, when she visited Christian at his apartment with the limo and Bryce (she found out that Bryce also had no knowledge of her father’s plan to trap her and thus she bore no ill intent on the kind old man) to pick him up from his apartment to meet up with the rest of the family at the airport since no one else had time to, Emma learned via a very attractive Cuban man running past her that her brother was gay and that he had a very attractive Cuban boyfriend.

(She still is confused on how her powers have somehow evolved to her being able to see memories of other people as well.)

Although she knows it’s due to the traditionalist, old-fashioned mindset of her father and the Frost family values as a whole that he didn’t reveal it to her, the fact that she has told her brother about every single feeling she had for Mr. Kendall and all of her insecurities but he didn’t have enough confidence in his relationship to her to reveal he was not heterosexual somewhat hurt.

She thought their brother-sister relationship was strong enough for him to tell her something like that.

That was not the focus right now, though.

Adrienne, Emma, and Cordelia were at the French Riviera on a patio, swimsuit-clad (Adrienne and Emma at least, as Cordelia wore her typical gothic black clothes just to once again do the opposite of what their father tells them to), and like Adrienne always does, Adrienne pointed out the flaws of everyone but herself.

The second Adrienne mocked Emma for the situation between Mr. Kendall and her, even saying the kiss was akin to the infamous Lolita novel, Emma had enough and bounced out of there, swapping her one-piece white swimsuit (unlike Adrienne, Emma did not have the perfect figure for a two-piece bikini) for a pink blouse and khaki pants, and escaped to a park to clear her mind out of her controlling father and despicable older sister, and also to stop herself from finally snapping and shoving her foot up her sister’s rear.

Emma had accidentally collided with a gothic-looking man—a type of guy that Cordelia would probably hang out with just to get their father to scream his head off at her—and immediately fell to the ground and threw up.

An image of a blond with blue eyes came up, head on a platter and the upper half of his skull cut off to expose his bleeding and stabbed everywhere brain, a big red apple was shoved in its mouth, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Christian definitely wouldn’t hang out with a man like that (but with the secrets Christian has been hiding from her, who knows?), she’d almost dare to say that it was Christian in that dine and dish nightmare of a thought that the man had.

Either way, she had to be helped by an elderly woman in the area, and she sparked a conversation with the older female as she helped Emma onto a bench, much more pleasant than the one she had with Adrienne earlier. It was funny, really—before gaining her abilities, Emma’s French was tellement ainsi. Now, however? She understood and spoke every single word so fluently, you’d think she was born in Nice.

Somewhere in their conversation, the woman offered a magazine to Emma, and what she saw on the cover had her gasping—

Adrienne. Against their father’s wishes, as he always told her that he wouldn’t have his oldest daughter use solely her looks to achieve gain and profit, Adrienne did in fact take a modeling gig that she earlier told him she would decline—and she made sure it was European so their father wouldn’t have instant access to it.

A couple of years ago, if Emma had been in a situation like this, she’d probably be happy for Adrienne despite her cruelty and would just hope to be as pretty and talented as her older sister when she got to her age.

If she was still a senior in high school, she’d probably be stuck hating the fact that her sister is able to be the golden child yet successfully rebel against their father’s wishes, and would never tell their father out of fear that Adrienne would ruin Emma’s life far more than Emma could even wish to attempt to ruin Adrienne’s life.

Now, however, Emma can read minds, obtain memories, and isn’t afraid to speak her mind—after all, before leaving to go to the park, Emma for once told her sister to go to hell—and that brings us to the present.

She just got done with talking to Christian about what she found and also accidentally causing him to run off in anger and hurt when she also told him that she knew he was gay but that she would support him all the way.

“When you asked me to back off about your migraines and the voices you were imagining, I did,” Christian had told her with a glare he rarely sent her or anyone for that matter before running off, “so why the hell can’t you do the same?!?!”

A few minutes later, she had sat on the piano chair he was on, ashamed at ruining his trust in her and causing a rift between them. She didn't mean to get him overheated—she just wanted him to know that she would always have his back if he ever chose to come out to the rest of the family.

Out of frustration for messing up the only strong level of familial bond she had in her entire depraved family, Emma went downtown in Nice to go on a shopping spree and ended up with a new camera and Coco Chanel dresses.

(It was different from the former coping habits she used to have, where she’d write poetry and cry herself to sleep as the music from Cordelia’s speakers would blast the entire hallway.)

When she was heading back to the rental home they were staying at, thinking about how she’d patch things up with her brother even if it meant exposing to him the weird powers that she somehow managed to gain, she had happened to see her father walking out of a fancy hotel with a woman in tow, his hands on her back and lecherously traveling lower—

A woman that was not at all her mother, far too tan and young—probably only a couple of years older than Adrienne, Emma is sure—and, with confidence Emma did not know she had, she took a picture of it while she had hidden in a nearby alleyway.

This brings us to now.

Looking at the image on her camera, Emma can’t help but laugh. Not only did she have dirt on Adrienne, but she now had information about her father that was on the same level, if not more scandalous and taboo than the photo he managed to get of her and Mr. Kendall.

If she was still the old, mediocre, non-interesting Emma Grace Frost she used to be, she would never say anything except to Christian, and they’d both decide to just let it go and continue living in a rigid way to get their father as much off their backs as would be possible.

Emma Grace Frost now, however, does not have this way of life.

Emma is no longer the overlooked wallflower that allows people to walk all over her as she puts her head down and takes in every single insult they throw at her. She isn’t going to spend the rest of her life absorbing insults left and right and being the doormat she’s been forced to be her whole childhood. 

Adrienne wants to continue making Emma feel worthless? Their father wants to keep treating Emma like a marionette doll who is to do nothing but jump and twirl when he tells her to and stay immobile and obedient any other time?

Fine. They can continue to.

She’ll just play their game and play it even better. The Frost family are like crabs in a bucket, after all—and Emma Grace Frost is no different.

With a strut to her walk, Emma walks towards the club that her father and that woman are walking towards, a plan in her head and her fingers gripping tightly on her camera.

(The look of shock on her sister and father’s face—although his expression is mixed with a look of being impressed and somewhat proud, surprisingly—the next day the second that, in front of the whole family, Christian presents the magazine cover Adrienne was on and Emma showcases for everyone the picture of her father and his mistress is priceless and one that Emma cherishes for the rest of her life, even despite its consequences.)

[FIN]

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