Each Time She Wounds Me, My Family Feels The Agony

Introduction When I came back to the Weir family, I carried a secret nobody could explain. Whenever I got hurt, my parents and my two older brothers felt it at the same time. Everyone in the Weir family who knew about it made sure no outsiders found out. The only one who didn't know was Vivian Weir, the girl who'd been raised in my place. She was sure that as long as she got rid of the evidence and nobody saw a thing, no one could ever expose what she'd done. What she didn't know was that every time she hurt me, the pain ran through our blood and set off an alarm everyone could feel. She still thought I was just some broke nobody who'd crawled out of foster care. On my third day back with the Weir family, my father, Richard Weir, called my two brothers and our family doctor, Dr. Peter Graham, into his study. "Say that again." My father looked at me, speaking slowly. "When you get hurt, we feel it too?" I nodded. I'd only found out myself a year earlier. A kid in my foster home pushed me down the stairs, and the moment I skinned my knee, a stranger across the street dropped his cup. Later I found out that man was my brother, Alex Weir. Back then, I didn't know who my real family was. Now the DNA results were sitting on the table, and all those strange coincidences finally made sense. My other brother, Nathan Weir, obviously didn't believe it. "Sounds like a kids' fantasy movie." I picked up the lancet the doctor had set out and pricked my fingertip. The moment a bead of blood welled up, Nathan hissed and looked down at his own hand. Alex frowned. My mother, Caroline Weir, suddenly clutched her finger too. My father was silent for two seconds, then looked up at Dr. Graham. Dr. Graham looked even more lost than they did. We ran two more simple tests, and the results were exactly the same. My pain carried over to anyone directly related to me by blood. My father made his decision on the spot. "This doesn't leave this room." My mother held my hand, her eyes red. "No one outside the family can know. If someone wanted to hurt you, they could hurt all of us at once." Vivian wasn't home that day. Ever since she'd found out I was the Weir family's real daughter, she'd been living in the school dorms. My parents hadn't made a point of calling her home. Nobody in the family imagined how absurd things would get a few days later, all because she didn't know our secret. The day of the charity equestrian event, I made my first official appearance in the Weir family's social circle. In the changing room, Vivian and two other girls, Brooke Ellis and Tessa Cole, blocked the door. She gave my dress a once-over, her lip curling. "Nice dress. "Too bad you still look like you stole it from a foster home." The girls with her laughed. I didn't want a fight, so I tried to walk around her. She held out an arm to stop me. "What's the rush? I just want to teach you some manners." She picked up a box of long sewing pins from the table and handed it to Brooke. "Don't touch her face. And don't go too deep." She smiled at me. "The pinpricks will disappear in a few hours. When she goes home crying, she won't even have anything to point to." I looked at the pin and warned her, "You'd better not touch me." Vivian acted like she'd just heard a joke. "What, you'll die if somebody touches you?" "No," I said. "If I hurt, they hurt too." She froze for a second, then laughed even louder. "Elena Weir, growing up in foster care doesn't mean you can treat everyone like an idiot." She lifted her chin. "Do it." The pin stabbed into my inner arm. In another building, Nathan was sitting in on a school board meeting with our father when he suddenly dropped his coffee. "What the hell?" He clutched his arm. A moment later, the second pin went in. Alex stopped flipping through his files too. My brothers looked up at the same time. My father already had his phone out. And in the changing room, Vivian was still admiring the tiny red dots on my arm. My phone suddenly buzzed. Once. Twice. Then it kept buzzing, almost nonstop. Vivian snatched my phone. Then her own rang. Her eyes lit up at the name on its screen. "Nathan." She made a point of turning the screen toward me, grinning smugly. "See that? So what if you came back? He still calls me first." She answered, and her voice instantly went sweet. "Nathan?" There was no small talk on the other end. "Where's Elena?" The smile froze on Vivian's face. "What?" "I asked you where Elena is." Nathan's voice had gone cold. "I can't get through to her. I'm coming over." Vivian gripped the phone, her knuckles slowly turning white. After she hung up, she stared at me for a few seconds. I thought she'd at least stop. Instead, she tossed the phone onto the table. "You've only been back a few days. "And now when he calls me, it's to find you?" She turned to Brooke and Tessa. "Again." As the third pin went in, hurried footsteps were already pounding down the hallway outside. Vivian leaned close to my ear and lowered her voice. "As long as you don't say anything, nobody will ever know." The next second, Nathan's voice came from outside the door. "Elena!"For a moment, the changing room went silent. Vivian reacted fast. She shoved the box of pins into a drawer and hustled Brooke and Tessa out the back door. Then she fixed her hair and went to stand by the door. The moment the door opened, Nathan practically burst in. "Where's Elena?" Vivian put on a smile. "How would I know? It's her first event like this. Maybe she got nervous and went off to hide." Nathan walked right past her without a glance. Vivian reached for him. "Nathan, I'm talking to you." He shook her off. "Not now." When I came out the side door, Nathan spotted me right away. He strode over, checked my face first, then my arm. "Who touched you?" I looked down. The pinpricks really were tiny. Vivian had already followed him and jumped in before I could speak. "She's not going to blame me for getting pricked by a sewing pin, is she?" "Shut up." That was all Nathan said. Vivian looked like she'd been slapped in front of everyone. Her expression instantly soured. "Nathan!" He took off his jacket, draped it over my shoulders, and asked quietly, "Can you walk?" I nodded. Vivian wouldn't give up. She hurried after him and hooked her arm through his. "I told you she's too sensitive. There are so many people here today. It's only natural she'd feel out of place." Nathan looked down at her hand. "Let go." "You—" "I said let go." She slowly dropped her hand. In that moment, I could actually see the disbelief in her eyes. The Weir family had spoiled her for 19 years. She'd probably never imagined that one day Nathan would treat her like this over another girl. In the car on the way home, I didn't say who'd stuck me with the pins. Not because I wanted to protect Vivian. I just knew there were no cameras, and nobody would admit to anything. Besides, my parents were already on edge after finding out I'd been hurt. I didn't want to turn the whole house upside down over a few pinpricks. But Vivian obviously took my silence as a win. That night, Vivian sat with Brooke and Tessa in her dorm room, going over what had gone "wrong." "Last time was just bad luck." She said it carelessly as she painted her nails. "Elena's phone kept ringing, and Nathan just happened to be nearby." One of the girls asked quietly, "So what about next time?" Vivian smiled. "Take her phone. "Pick a place nobody walks by. "Most important of all, don't leave any marks." She put the brush back in the bottle. "As long as there aren't any wounds, she won't even have anything to show them." Meanwhile, back at the Weir house, my father had the butler bring me a new phone. "It has emergency location tracking." My father handed it to me. "Don't complain that it's a hassle." I'd just taken it when Vivian came home from school. She stood in the living room doorway, her eyes on the phone. "You're getting her a new phone?" Nobody answered. She took a couple of steps closer, her smile a little sour. "She's only been back a few days, and now she gets a special phone too?" My father finally looked up. "Because she's my daughter." Vivian's smile froze again. She probably hated that feeling. Every time she opened her mouth, it was to embarrass me, but somehow she was always the one left embarrassed. She stared at the phone in my hand for a few seconds, then turned and went upstairs. As she passed me, she lowered her voice. "Don't get cocky. "You just got lucky today." I didn't answer. If she really believed that, I knew she'd come after me again.Vivian's next move came even sooner than I expected. The winter charity gala was held at the Weir family's country estate. I was upstairs changing into my gown when Vivian suddenly knocked and came in. For once she wasn't being snide. She even smiled and told me there was a wrap in the basement storage room that would go better with my dress. "Mom asked me to get it for you." I looked at her. "Since when are you this nice?" "Believe me or don't." She rolled her eyes. "I'm sick of watching everyone fight over you every day too." I only half believed her, but I followed her downstairs. The basement hallway was long, and the farther in we went, the colder it got. Vivian pushed open the door at the very end. "It's in there." The second I stepped inside, the door slammed shut behind me. The lock clicked. I spun around. On the other side of the door, Vivian laughed. "Relax. No pins this time. "And no phone." I reached into my pocket and only then realized she'd slipped my phone out at some point. She waved it outside the door. "And definitely no witnesses. "When you get out tomorrow morning, everyone will just think you wandered into the wrong room." I looked around. The air was freezing. "Vivian, open the door." "Beg me." "If I get cold, they get cold too." It was quiet outside the door for half a second. Then she laughed even harder. "You actually believe that crap from last time? "Then go ahead. Let them freeze with you." Her heels clicked away into the distance. About 15 minutes later, in the ballroom, my mother was the first to shiver. She was talking with guests from the foundation when the hand holding her wineglass suddenly began to shake violently. My father froze in place too. Nathan went pale. "Where is she?" Alex had already taken off his suit jacket and was heading upstairs. "Find her first." Dr. Graham felt my mother's ice-cold hands, then looked at my father and my two brothers, who were all shivering too. Alarm flashed across his face. "Elena is losing body heat. Right now." The gala was called off on the spot. My mother was wrapped in two coats, still asking the staff if anyone had seen me. Vivian sat on the couch watching her and couldn't help rolling her eyes. "She's only been gone 15 minutes or so. "Is this really necessary?" Nobody paid any attention to her. That made her even more upset. "I competed with a 104-degree fever, and you never acted like this." My mother finally turned around. "Vivian." Her voice was cold. "Nobody has time to listen to this right now." Vivian's face went white. She sat there and watched everyone scatter to look for me. What she didn't know was that by then, my fingers had already gone numb from the cold. I didn't throw myself at the door. If I really hurt myself, the people outside would only hurt more. All I could do was curl up in a corner to conserve my body heat. I kept telling myself they already knew something was wrong. They'd find me. The first person to reach the basement was Julian Reeves. He'd come to the estate to drop off an identification document. He happened to hear a staff member say I'd last been seen heading down to the basement. A few of them started opening doors one by one. By the time the door to the cold storage room opened, I could barely stand. Julian took off his coat and wrapped it around me. Then he bent down, picked me up, and carried me out. Upstairs, at that same moment, my mother's violent shaking suddenly stopped. My father's stiff fingers slowly came back to life too. All Vivian saw was me being carried upstairs with a crowd around me. She stood outside the circle, her expression souring by the second. As I passed her, she said under her breath, "You're such a faker." I turned my head to look at her. She gritted her teeth. "Locked up for 15 minutes or so, and they all come running. "So what if I made you disappear for a little longer?" With that, she turned and walked away. Watching her go, I realized for the first time that this girl didn't just want to embarrass me. She really wanted me gone from this family.After the incident in the cold storage room, my parents clearly did more to protect me. That only made Vivian more sullen. In the locker room before a school sports event, she spotted the rescue inhaler in my bag and stopped in her tracks. I'd been malnourished as a kid and sometimes had trouble breathing after intense exercise, so my doctor had told me to always carry one. When no one else was around, Vivian took out something that looked like my inhaler and swapped them. The girl with her went pale. "Vivian, what if something happens?" Vivian snapped my bag shut, irritated. "She's the one breathing it in. How is that my fault? "If she really gets sick, everybody will just say she's weak. "Are they going to blame me for that too?" She was actually smiling when she said it. That afternoon, halfway through the race, my chest started to tighten. I stopped to use my inhaler. A few seconds later, my heart started racing so fast it scared me. My vision went dark for a moment, and I grabbed the railing. At the same moment, my father was in a meeting at his office. He suddenly pressed a hand to his chest, and everyone around the conference table froze. At home, my mother started struggling to breathe too. By the time Nathan ran off the practice field, Alex was already calling me. Nobody answered. Ten minutes later, an ambulance rushed me to the hospital. Vivian got there even before the test results did. She walked into my room carrying a huge bouquet of white roses, looking worried. "Elena, are you okay?" I looked at the flowers and didn't say anything. She set the flowers by the bed and turned to my mother with a sigh. "Has she been under too much stress lately? "Suddenly coming back to a family like this can't be easy." Then she looked at me, her voice so gentle she sounded like a big sister who really cared. "If you're really having trouble adjusting, you don't have to push yourself to prove anything. "Just take it slow." My mother's expression slowly hardened. Before I could say anything, the doctor pushed the door open. "There was something wrong with the medication in Ms. Weir's inhaler." The room went dead quiet. The doctor set the clear bag containing the inhaler on the table. "We've already sent it out for testing." Vivian went still. I looked at her. "Didn't you say I was just stressed?" Nathan was leaning against the wall. He scoffed, "Let's wait for the results." Vivian froze for just two seconds before straightening up. "Good. "Find out the truth, so people can stop suspecting me every time something goes wrong." She turned and left. The second the door shut, I heard Nathan swear. "Where does she get the nerve?" I didn't know either. Maybe it was because, for 19 years, nobody had ever really made her pay for doing whatever she wanted. Just then, Julian appeared in the hallway. He handed my identification documents to my mother without asking what was going on in the room. When I stepped out for some air, he just sat with me for a while. I asked him, "Do you think there's been a lot of trouble since I came back, too?" He looked at me. "You're not the one causing the trouble." It was such an ordinary thing to say. But for the first time, I felt like someone really saw me. Not the Weir family's long-lost daughter, not the walking problem who made the whole family hurt. Just me. The next day, the test results came back. The inhaler really had been swapped. In front of the whole family, my father looked at Vivian. "Starting today, you stay away from Elena." Vivian shot to her feet. "You think it was me?" "I didn't say who did it." My father stared at her. "Why are you so defensive?" Her face went white, then red. In the end, she shot me a vicious glare and slammed the door on her way out. Ten minutes later, she cornered me. "What exactly did you tell them?" "I didn't say anything." She laughed coldly. "Right. Of course you don't have to say anything. "All you have to do is play the victim, and they all come running." I looked at her. "Vivian, I'm warning you one last time. If you hurt me, they feel it too." She looked at me like I was crazy. "Enough. "How long are you going to keep spouting that garbage?" She leaned in close, her voice low. "Since I can't drive you away, I'll make you disappear for good."