✰Glory✰

When I come back home in a taxi, someone is waiting for me in the kitchen. 

Greatness.

She keeps staring at Secretkeeper, as if she can't help it. Moon seems to have noticed this, and kind of shields her mother protectively, a confused look on her face. Secretkeeper is frozen in place, her fingers barely touching the tea she probably intended to give Greatness. 

"Greatness," I say, surprised. I look back and forth between Greatness and Moon, wondering if they have some kind of history. But that's almost impossible. 

"Glory, I have something important to tell you. I— I must." She immediately stands up, her eyes fixed pointedly on me. She turns and looks at Moon one last time, as if unconsciously drawn to her, and finally focuses on me instead, deciding that what she must say to me is a little bit more important. It makes me curious. 

Grandmother is waiting for me, and she immediately comes to me, worried. She seems paler than ever, and I realize that I have been putting too much weight on her shoulders all this time. "Where have you been, Glory? You know you shouldn't be roaming around, child. You should be in bed getting some rest."

Resting doesn't stop me from dying, I want to tell her, but I know she deserves better from me. Grandmother deserves a better granddaughter than I would ever be. "I will, I promise. I slept a little at Deathbringer's house. I'm feeling fine." The truth is, my legs are shaking from tiredness. I can tell that Grandmother doesn't believe me. But she doesn't say anything, because she's afraid of stressing me. Or maybe she too knows, deep inside, that rest won't do much for me now. 

"I'll run away as soon as I had a minute of talk with her," assures Greatness' smooth voice, although Grandmother isn't convinced. "I just had to come and see her. Maybe it was too selfish of me."

Now I feel for sure: Greatness has something to say to me. Something very important. 

"Should we go to my room? I think I have to lie down a little," I offer, and Greatness nods. "Grandmother, this is Greatness, one of my friends from school."

"Glory should be getting rest, not visits," Grandmother starts to protest. 

"I'll kick her out of my room if I start to get tired," 

"It'll be a short meeting, ma'am," Greatness tells her. "I promise to not tire Glory." She isn't looking at me but staring at the floor. 

"Greatness-!" Secretkeeper gasps out. I turn to her in surprise, and I can tell Grandmother does, too. She has never sounded like that, for the many years I have known her. "After you talk." She chokes on her words, and her hands are shaking more than ever. "After that, will you come down and— let me explain— the thing you— you said—"

"If you want," Greatness replies carelessly, coldly. I am shocked at the tone of her voice. She nods to me. "You look tired, Glory, let's hurry to your room." 

When we reach my room, I immediately grab her. "Why is Secretkeeper acting like that in front of you?" 

She gently leads me to my bed, ignoring my question. "I came here to tell you something very important, something I swore to never tell you. But— I don't know, you don't seem to be in a good state, maybe I should come later..."

"Don't change the subject." I'm angry, staring at her in disbelief. "What did you say to Secretkeeper, Greatness? She's like my family, if you insulted her—"

The thing I see on Greatness' face angers me even more. It's pity. I know it better than anything— it's the face of someone that is keeping a secret from me, for my own good. Her expression mirrors Deathbringer's during all those months. "Glory, that's related to the thing that I must tell you."

"Why—" Suddenly, the door bangs open. I can hear Grandmother's voice, ordering her to come down at once, but it's all drowned out when Peril shuts the door behind her, blocking it with her entire body, as if afraid that someone would drag her out.

I have always found Peril's blue eyes unsettling, but now they look a little crazed. 

Greatness seems the most surprised of all. "We were in middle of a conversation, Pe—"

Peril doesn't even look at her. She's staring at me, at my shallow cheeks, the dark circles under my eyes, my thin arms. She's trembling all over, her face red from running. 

Why? Why would Peril come to me? She didn't come when Clay visited me in the hospital. Is it because of pity? But we barely know each other. I decide that her love for Clay has awoken some sort of brain fever.

"I have to talk to her first. I have to." She clenches her fists at her sides. "If I have to wait for another minute, I'll just go home, I know it, I'll be too scared to do it again. Please. I have something important to say to Glory."

Greatness seems annoyed, distressed even. As she opens her mouth to say something, the door opens, revealing Secretkeeper. Peril almost shouts out in fright. She sets down a tray of cookies and turns, with hesitation, at Greatness. "Miss Glory seems to have another visitor. Maybe we can have a talk first?" I try to catch her eyes, but she won't look at me.

Greatness glares at her, her lips turning into a sneer. I almost jump out of my bed in my urge to punch her. "If you look at Secretkeeper that way again, Greatness, I will—" I cut off when I see Secretkeeper's expression. It's full of pain and guilt— she's barely meeting my eyes. 

Greatness sighs. "You two have a talk, then." She stands up and leads both herself and Secretkeeper out of the room. "Remember that there's something very important that I must tell you, Glory. Something about Secretkeeper, too." The last thing I see before the door closes is Secretkeeper flinching at those words.

I turn, almost irritably, to Peril. "What do you want to tell me?" I swear to myself that if it's anything close to get well soon, I would chuck her out of this house.

She stares at me but doesn't stare at me, her eyes bolting here and there, to the floor, to the ceiling, to the chair on her right and the desk on her left. Finally, they focus on me and me alone. "I promised myself that I would take this secret to my grave. But you— you are dying, and I—"

I stare at her in disbelief. I have no idea why she is  acting like this. "You came here to tell me that Scarlet actually doesn't want to kill me or something like that?"

"No!" Peril takes a deep breath. When she speaks again, it's more calm. "I'm not Scarlet's slave. I used to be, but not anymore. I can think for myself, and say what's right, and..." She shakes her head. "Glory, I came here to tell you about a conversation my dad and your stepfather had when I was younger." 

I frown. "My stepfather? How— how do you know him?" There's no way, but if Clay didn't, how could Peril know? "Clay told you?"

"Leave him out of this," Peril says sharply. "The day  he went to the hospital to visit you, I actually went, too. I didn't tell him, though, because I wanted to surprise him, and I was a little late buying you a small gift."

"But you never came to visit me," I tell her. I don't know why she's telling me this. Maybe she came all the way here just to make me say thank you. "Unless I was sleeping."

"Because I never went in. That day, I saw a woman, a brown haired woman, and although she didn't have blonde hair, I knew it was Anaconda." I jolt at the name. "She was fighting with a man, and I knew him too. Her husband. People were beginning to stare at them, and she suddenly burst into tears, hitting him in the chest, saying that you— you were her daughter."

Anaconda did that? When she visited me, she never seemed to show  much of an emotion.  slowly match the pieces together— if Peril was able to recognize Anaconda and her husband despite the wigs and heavy makeup, it means she must be a fan. The reason why she came here— "You wanted to talk to Anaconda through me?" 

Peril looks at me like I'm the stupidest person in the world. "What are you talking about?" She shakes her head furiously. "The thing is, are you really her daughter? Her only daughter?"

So what if Peril spreads it on the Internet? What if, in doing so, she manages to bring a backlash on Anaconda? But, no matter what I tell myself, it seems that they are all lies. I do care. "How are you sure that it was them?"

Peril doesn't answer; she just covers her face with her hands. When she speaks, her voice is muffled. "Oh my God. You are her daughter."

"You are insane—" 

"Listen to me, listen to me, Glory, without interrupting. Okay? Listen. If you stop me, I won't be able to say what I wanted to say. I know Anaconda when I see her, not because I'm a fan, but because I have seen her before, at one of her houses. Close to this one. I don't remember the address, but it was very big. Two or three stories high. When everyone went out to play— including Scarlet, Scarlet was there, too— I went to the study to find my dad. He's a close friend of your stepfather's. At least, he used to be." A crazed laughter. "And the man told my dad— that Anaconda was cheating."

It doesn't make sense.

"That she had a daughter. He wanted to kill Anaconda, he said, but he was afraid for their reputation, and he— he still loved her. So he killed the thing that he could kill— 'that man,' he told my dad. I still remember it so clearly. He knew some people that did that sort of stuff for him. A-And he wanted to kill the daughter, too, but he was afraid of making it too obvious, that Anaconda might find out. So he—"

It is impossible.

"He what?" I whisper, faintly, clutching at the bedsheets until my knuckles turn white.

"He injected the daughter with cancer cells." At those words, Peril trembles uncontrollably. "There was someone, someone at your grandmother's house, that arranged it for him."

The nurse, taking out a box and getting ready to give me a shot. Me, a little girl, refusing to cry, wanting to see my mother, even shaking my head when she asks if I want some candy. Then I watching her take  another contrainer from her pocket and injecting that to me instead.

"It's good for your body. It's very expensive, but it's a present from your mother, because she wishes you well. But you have to keep it a secret, or I can't come anymore."

One day, perhaps during the sixth or seventh visit, I am telling Anaconda about the shots. She suddenly stares at me, her eyebrows together in shock and fury. "Really? Who told you? Since when? She took it from her pocket? Are you sure?" 

Leaving, to come back after one year. Then leaving forever.

Deathbringer killed my father. It's not like I haven't wondered before— who ordered him to? My stepfather popped into my head at once, but I assured myself that I didn't know my father's enemies. That if it had been him, he would have killed me too.

What if he had chosen a different way?

"If you aren't telling the truth, Peril, I will— I—" I am shaking, from fear, from disbelief, from hatred. I meet her eyes fiercely, and at the moment I want to hurt even her. Anyone. Anything. 

She nods and takes out her phone. "My father's name is Chameleon. And he lives according to his name. He somehow gets friendly with rich, famous people, become whatever they want him to become, suck out their secrets and use it against them. When he has their fatal secrets, he can control them in any way he likes." A recording comes out, and although the sound is muffled, I can hear the words clearly. It is the voice of my stepfather. Telling Peril's father— Chameleon— everything that Peril told me just now. 

I'm still running away, refusing to believe it. "If you edited it—"

"Why would I, Glory?" 

I grab my head, and finally I am scared, scared for my life and everyone else's. "I don't know. Why wouldn't you?" I am shaking frantically. "Why do you tell me this now, Peril?" Why now? Why not hold it yourself forever?

Peril pauses. "Scarlet would have killed me if I had told you before. Because the love and support she gets is all from Chameleon, and for him to fall would mean the same for her. But I convinced myself that it was the right thing to do. That you deserved to know. That Clay would have wanted it." 

She presses her lips together. "But I'm not brave, and I wouldn't have come if I hadn't had Scarlet's greatest secret in my hands. Glory, as much as I hate him, I'm like my dad." She gives me a bitter smile. "I sucked her secrets and now I'm using them against her." 

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