Taming the Villain

"I'm going to destroy your whole family!" I met his eyes and didn't blink. "Is that a tumor on your neck, or a head? I'm an orphan. I don't have a family." He froze.

Then his face went red, and he came apart. This was my fourth time waiting to be adopted. The first three families sent me back. Talks back, they wrote. Mouth like a razor.

They'd brought their son. He needed company. And across my vision, glowing comments were scrolling past. [WARNING! That brat is the villain of this story!

Everyone who talks back to him dies badly!] Nobody else could see them. [When he grows up, he locks the heroine in a room because she won't love him.] [Breaks the male lead's legs in front of her.

Keeps him on a leash. Like a dog.] [And this little girl just talked back to him.

Twice.] [Nobody is ever going to find out how she died.] "We've decided." The rich father didn't look down at the boy rolling and howling on the floor. "We'll take her." He stepped over him and pulled me to him.

The comments went berserk. [ARE YOU INSANE? Live with the villain? You think she lives long enough to touch that billiondollar trust?] A billion dollars? I grabbed his hand back.

Hard. "Okay, Dad. I want to." For a billion dollars, I would have that little villain trained and heeling. As long as I lived to eighteen. Chapter 1 The villain stared at me.

Ten full seconds of dead silence. Then he opened his mouth and wailed. The color came up out of his collar, and even midsob he found the breath to give orders. "Mom!

She talked back to me! I'm going to destroy her whole family!" I had to admit, he was a beautiful kid. Crying that hard and his face still worked. Nose where a nose goes.

Eyes where eyes go. Nobody else at St. Agnes was admiring him. The other kids had gone stiff. Heads down. Not moving.

In front of my eyes, the comments came scrolling back. [She looks so sweet. Where is she keeping all that firepower?] Nobody would play with me, so I'd read instead.

I could make out almost all of it now. [She doesn't know what he turns into. Right now he's just spoiled.

Later he's untouchable.] [Good thing she doesn't fit their adoption checklist. She wouldn't even see it coming.] That settled my nerves. Sweet and obedient, I was not.

If they didn't adopt me, the villain could be as awful as he liked. Not my problem. The pretty lady was apologizing to Ms. Hollis. "His grandparents spoiled him rotten.

There's nothing I can do." Ms. Hollis apologized right back. "Please, don't. Sloane came out of the box like this. There's nothing I can do either." And then there was me.

One small person, standing there. Back straight. Shaking my head at him, very seriously. "You can't destroy my family. Because I don't have one." The crying stopped midhiccup.

He stared at me and hiccuped, wet and startled. His face flushed. Then he came at me, chin out, roaring. "That's not possible! Don't you have a mom and a dad?" I tilted my head.

Honestly puzzled. "Is that a tumor on your neck, or a head? Do you not know where you're standing right now?" He blinked. Remembered he was standing in an orphanage.

His breath came in furious little puffs. He had nothing. His mouth opened, closed, opened. All of him turned red. His best threat had died in front of me. He was starting to panic.

He spun around. He threw himself at the pretty lady, both fists pounding her thigh. Snot and tears all over his face. But the man beside her wasn't looking at his son.

He and the pretty lady traded a glance. And in the next second, they were both looking at me. Chapter 2 "Mom! Make her go away! I don't like her!

I don't want to look at her!" Something tired crossed the pretty lady's face. Ms. Hollis was already there, taking my hand, apologizing. "Mrs. Winslow, I'm so sorry.

I'll take her back inside." The woman started to object, but Ms. Hollis turned to me, and her voice went hard. "Sloane. Apologize to the boy, and we'll go." Ms.

Hollis had always been good to me. She never once blamed me for coming back. I didn't want to make things harder for her. So I walked over to him.

He watched me come, wary, clinging to his mother's leg.

I stopped in front of him and straightened the little dress I'd washed until the color came out of it. "I'm sorry," I said quietly.

He lifted his chin and sniffed, and the arrogance slid right back onto his face. That was when the thing in my blood woke up. I held it. I held it.

I didn't hold it. "Which part of what I said hurt you? Please tell me." A beat. "I'd like to say it again." His eyes widened. He looked at me like I'd broken a law.

The longer he looked, the more his face crumpled. His brows pinched. The tip of his nose went pink.

He buried his head in his mother's leg and started howling all over again. "Mom, she's bullying me!

Your baby is getting bullied!" I answered before my brain caught up. "I'm not bullying you. I'm just not being nice to you." He got louder. It gave me a headache.

I covered my ears and turned around. Ms. Hollis pulled me aside and gave me a look that could strip paint. "Could you not, for once, just keep your mouth shut?

Go to your room." I shrugged and started walking. Then her husband, who hadn't said a word this whole time, stepped in front of me. "Sloane, right?

Hang on a second." He and his wife traded another look. Then he smiled at Ms. Hollis. "We've decided. It's her." The howling stopped.

He lifted his head and stared at his parents like they'd betrayed him. Even Ms. Hollis tried to talk them out of it. "Maybe think it over?

Your son doesn't seem to like her—" Her husband cut her off. "That ship has sailed.

We'd like to try fighting fire with fire." He crouched down in front of me and lowered his voice to my ear. "Sloane.

Would you like to come live with us?" I absolutely did not want to live with the villain. I opened my mouth to say so. The comments came scrolling back. [Wait.

Isn't the villain's family supposed to adopt the sweet, obedient heroine?] [This kid is cute, but she's not the heroine.

He'll be done with her fast.] [The heroine is right there in that group of kids, scared out of her mind.] I glanced at the children standing off to the side.

A few girls, heads down, afraid to breathe. I had no idea which one they meant. There was one kid in that group I knew, though. The girl with the blunt bangs and the big eyes.

At St. Agnes, she was a princess. Every child did what she said, or they belonged to her. Anyone who pushed back got taken apart, and she led it. She took my bread.

She tore my clothes. She held my head down against the floor and hit me. I never cried once. Otherwise I'd have shoved her out front myself.

The comments kept sliding past. [The villain's family has nothing but money, but hey. Money you can't spend when you're dead.] [Right?

They give the kid a trust fund the day she turns eighteen. A billion dollars.] [Only catch is you have to live to eighteen.] [And she just talked back to him. To his face.

Twice.] [Everyone who talks back to him dies badly.] Chapter 3 Hold on. That was the kind of information you led with.

I grabbed his hand with both of mine and nodded so hard my teeth clicked. "Yes, Dad. I want to." The boy's finger shot out at me. "Shut up!

He's my dad, not your dad!" I didn't care. Whoever hands me a billion dollars is my dad. The comeback was already sitting on my tongue. I swallowed it whole.

He watched me choke it down. He didn't like it. "Sloane. We're adopting you because we want you to be exactly who you are.

No editing." His eyes were warm and steady, and all at once I understood. He wanted to fight fire with fire. He wanted me to hold his son down. Easy.

Whoever pays the billion makes the rules. I turned to the boy and said, very seriously, "No, big brother. Your dad adopted me. So he's my dad." The red came back.

He dropped onto the floor and rolled, screaming. "What I say goes! I don't care! I don't want you in my house!" I frowned at him, honestly lost. "Big brother.

Do you know how to spell 'dumb'?" He stopped midroll. "DUMB." I waited. "The B is silent. Like your brain." He went quiet.

He looked up at me, and what came into his eyes was a clean, uncomplicated stupidity. I shook my head, sorry for him. "God rained wisdom down on the whole world.

He handed you an umbrella." He still wasn't getting it. He goggled at me, stammering. "You. You.

What does that even mean?" I tugged his sleeve. "Dad, could somebody teach him to read? We can't have an illiterate in this family." That one, he understood.

Color flooded up his neck. His mouth crumpled. He started howling again. The man looked down at his son and let out a long, disappointed breath.

The comments came flying. [The villain is FINALLY choking on something.] [Little sister licked her own lip and poisoned herself.] [But if his family doesn't adopt the heroine, how does he ever fall for her?] [Even better!

No villain in the way. Our Cece walks straight to a sweet ending with the male lead!] [Dream on.

The more they miss each other now, the more obsessive he gets when they finally meet.] Cece? A girl surfaced in my head. Blunt bangs. Big eyes.

The girl who used to hold my face against the floor. So that was what they called her. The sweet, gentle heroine. By the time they finished screaming about it, I was in the car.

To keep us from fighting in the back seat, my new mother put me in a different one. On the drive I learned his name. Damien Winslow. Six years old, a few months older than me.

What he lacked in size he made up for in damage. At home, he was emperor.

Any staff member who tried to manage him, or told him no, or made his day one degree less perfect, was crying in the driveway before midnight.

Everyone in that house moved carefully around him. The butler most of all. The car turned in through a gate. Old trees. Running water somewhere.

The place princesses live, in the stories. I pressed my face to the window and watched the black iron gate swing open for us. A billion dollars. Eighteen years old.

I had twelve years to take that future villain and train him into a dog that doesn't bite. Unless he bit me first.

Chapter 4 The car stopped in front of a building that looked like it had been carved out of gold. I followed my new mother in and stood in the entry with my mouth open. A palace.

People lived here. Damien had beaten us home. He saw me, scoffed, and turned his head away. Then he started shouting for the butler. He wanted to ride his horse.

I assumed there was a horse. I watched the doorway and waited for it.

Instead a tall young man came jogging in, back straight, and dropped to his hands and knees in front of Damien. "Your horse, sir." My mother's jaw set.

She kept her voice down with visible effort. "Damien. You are far too old for this. You do not ride the staff." He screamed. "I don't care! I want to! I want to!

I want him to take me up the stairs!" Her jaw twitched. She held on to her composure with both hands. I could feel how close she was to losing it.

The butler smiled up from the floor, smoothing it over. "Ma'am, he's little, he just wants to play. Ten minutes. It's nothing." She sighed. "Elias.

You spoil him and you'll ruin him." Elias opened his mouth to answer. Damien was already on his back. "Go! Faster!

Go!" Elias grinned like it was the best day of his life and crawled him in circles across the marble. They passed me. Damien looked down from his mount. "Charity case.

Bet you've never had a horse. Riding is the best." My mouth was moving before I decided anything. "It's all right, I guess.

Last time I saw somebody ride like that, it was on TV." "The kings who made people kneel down and carry them. Most of them got their heads cut off." Damien listed sideways.

He came off Elias's back like the floor was on fire. His face went red to the ears. His finger stabbed at me, and his voice climbed to a shriek. "Charity case!

Did you just wish me dead?!" Behind him, Elias was still on all fours