By Ruthlessness I Rule

By Ruthlessness, I Rule 1

Cressida

Has it ever occurred to you that a few words could seal your fate?

And I know it seems ridiculous but for me… they did.

Seven fucking words sealed my fate in my new High school and I don’t know how to break that curse that came upon me or if it even could be broken at all and I wished if I just listened to Talia that day and looked away but I didn’t.

And my own action turned three years of my life against me and there was no way I could reverse it as much as I wished I could because I regretted my action.

But the thing about regret… it’s a fucking wasted time.

*********************

“It’s going to be fine,Ida.” Dad said softly, a tone he doesn’t use with anyone and definitely not in front of people which was leverage I should always be grateful to have.

“I didn’t say anything.” Which was true. I technically didn’t say anything but I knew that my face said a lot but I couldn’t control it.

This must be very confusing so let me start from the beginning.

I’m Cressida Arne, Ida for short. Daughter of Isaac Arne, CEO of Arne Enterprises, a well known and wealthy man who gave me and my twin brother, Jack, anything we ever asked for and so did our mother… when she was still alive.

Anyway, back to the topic.

We (and by we I mean me, my twin, my father, my aunt and the rest of our family) until Dad suddenly decided that we should come back to where Jack and I were born and were raised inside, in our early years.

Atherton Town.

The mention of the city made a shiver run down my spine when I heard it.

I didn’t like this place as beautiful as it was because… because I don’t know why.

If we’re talking facts, I don’t remember anything about my younger self, meaning my eight years old self and before because everyone said I suffered some sort of memory loss when I was younger but why? No one knows.

So I’m not supposed to feel anything towards this place but my mind kept making me have some sort of fear or maybe discomfort but the feeling was there.

A building that was on its own and far away from the neighbourhood caught my attention…

No! Let me go. Dad! Dad, help me!

“Cressida!” My head snapped in Dad’s direction who was holding my water bottle in his hand, his eyes drifting to my left side when I just realised that I was clutching tightly. He thought that my kidney was hurting… again.

“I’m okay.” I declared then took the bottle from his hand but didn’t drink yet.

As if the memory loss wasn’t enough, I had kidney cancer when I was seven or eight which resulted in me having one kidney, which almost controlled everything in my life.

No drinking. No smoking. No to some kinds of foods because they might cause damage to my kidney. Small exercising but not too much.

All of that was told to me of course because I remember none of it.

We reached the School where I’m supposed to be studying for the next three years. MoonFlow School.

That one school where you find the children of the wealthiest families around here and outside plus every person around here had to have some specific level of intelligence to be accepted and lucky me I had both which didn’t mean that Jack doesn’t but Jack had his special case that made him stay in London with Aunt Valerie while Dad and I had Aunt Natalie around us because she lived all her life here in Atherton.

We reached the entrance of the school and it was one hell of a school. The building was more like a castle but a very huge castle. Four tours were around each end of it that If I’m going to take a lucky guess, were a signal to where each level was supposed to go.

Freshman. Sophomore. Junior. Senior.

And I had to go to each one of them for the next four years without Jack. How am I supposed to stay four years without my twin who has been with me forever?

“Ready?” Dad asked and I only nodded my head and exited the car as we waited for the gate to open as I observed the pretty and colourful flowers and gardens that surround the place.

“Alright, Ida. I have to go talk to the principal and you have to go in there, which I’m sure you’ll find your way in yourself because you don’t need my help, I suppose.” I only gave him a sarcastic smile while he let out a chuckle. It was moments like these where I wished if Dad was free every day so we could be happy like that, especially that he just repeated the words I said to him every time I needed to go explore a new place.

“But remember you have to--” I cut him off immediately to continue his sentence that he said every single day.

“Stay hydrated, don’t eat protein, don’t forget your blood pressure pills and don’t forget to eat your snacks. How did I do?” He only smiled at me and kissed my forehead as the gates opened as he started to go to the left side as I walked to the right.

“You got this, Cressida!” Dad half yelled at me and I only shook my head at him but not before smiling at him one last time.

Dad is right, I got this. I think.

I walked slowly towards the freshman building not caring if I missed the first class because I’m not supposed to run outside of exercising because of the solitary kidney case of mine.

“Cressida? Ida?” I heard someone call my name causing me to turn around where I was met with a girl who appeared to be a redhead to me. Her skin was so white as if she never walked under the sun, her eyes were a calm shade of Hazel which was very beautiful.

She was wearing what I suppose was a part of the uniform. It was a dark green jacket with a white shirt under it and a skirt that was black and I hoped that I wouldn’t have to wear a skirt. Not that I don’t like them but I feel that they suit more to parties, not school.

I took a few steps in her direction as I asked because I was surprised how she knew me and even called me by the name only people who are close to me called me by “Do we know each other?”

“Yes we-- the memory loss thing, I forgot. I’m Talia Bernard, I was your best friend when you used to live here.” She said the last part in excitement that I wished I could share but Dad always changed the subject whenever I asked him to tell me about my time at Atherton then boom, out of nowhere, let’s go back to Atherton, Ida.

No, not suspicious at all Dad.

“We… were?” I asked, stepping closer to her as if I felt an instant connection to her. And maybe I did, who knows how fucked my brain was.

“Yeah. Inseparable you could say, with Jack of course. God, I miss those dimples, he was so cute when we were kids.” She even knew Jack? Just how much did I forget?

But maybe I should ask for a photo from Talia, I mean if we were childhood friends maybe we had some photos together but for now, I guess I’ll stick with her because, for the first time in my life, I felt lost.

Or maybe it was the creeps that I had from this place that made me feel lost but either way, I needed someone with me.

“Do you have any photos of us?” But I quickly blurted after so I wouldn’t appear suspicious. “Because I couldn’t find anything in our house in London.”

Talia only smiled in excitement before she pulled her phone out and came to stand beside me while showing me a photo of three children and I saw Dad and… Mom was smiling in the background with who I assumed was Talia’s parents, while Talia, Jack and I were smiling at one another.

“That was taken by your Aunt Natalie when we went skiing for the first time and as usual you volunteered to be the first person to ski because Jack is… you know and I was mostly cowardice because I didn’t like snow that much.” Talia sounded so happy talking about it. We looked like we were happy at that time and I wasn’t surprised that she knew about Jack because, in the photo, Dad and Mom looked relaxed and believe me when I say that they were and maybe my Dad was still paranoid.

So Talia and her parents must’ve been trustworthy for Dad to let me and Jack befriend her and for my parents to befriend hers.

“Wow, it looks like I forgot a lot.” I said mostly to myself but Talia only smiled sadly at me before intertwining our elbows then started walking towards the building as if she knew the way.

“You seem to know your way around here, Talia.”

“I do, my cousin used to study here, like the rest of any family around here because all of the generations of any family studied here so it’s easy for me to know this place.” That made sense.

We walked through the hallways of the freshman side of the school where we kept on talking about how excited Talia was to be a freshman and I was but having to love this experience without Jack… felt so wrong.

We did everything together our whole lives but to become a freshman without him wasn’t something I was looking forward to but something I had to endure for the next four years so I’ll have to deal with it.

I stopped in the middle of drinking water when I noticed how silent and quiet it got so I gulped the water when I realised I forgot to do that then looked at Talia to find her staring at someone ahead of us so I followed her gaze to find her looking at four boys who I figured were the reason behind this silence.

Her gaze was directed at one of them who had brown hair and chilly grey eyes and he was definitely in the gym twenty four seven because of his muscled body.

So I nudged her and asked “The hell is happening?”

She broke eye contact then looked back at me and I saw how haunted her eyes were. All of that was because of Mister muscle tank over there. Why?

“They are the stars of the show around here. Sons of the wealthiest and strongest families in Atherton.”

She started counting them one by one as they appeared.

“Oliver Earhart.” The one she was looking at before.

“Jesper Varon.” Jesper wasn’t as muscled as Oliver but he was definitely something as well. His hair was black while his eyes were brown with a little bit of green in them.

“Ace Brando.” Ace had clean blonde hair and blue eyes and they were all wearing the uniform in a messy way except for one who didn’t bother that much to wear anything but the jacket.

“And the king of them and everyone around here. Savaş Ewald.” The moment Talia said his name, my brain and mind seemed to zone out.

Savaş, are you okay?

Don’t touch him.

“Ida, you okay?” Talia’s voice snapped me out of… what was I thinking about again?

I turned to her and said “Yeah, I’m fine. But isn’t his first name Turkish?”

She nodded her head. “Yep, his mother was Turkish and she was the one to name him.”

“Was?”

“She passed away around the same time your mother did.” Should I consider that coincidence or weird?

I didn’t have much time to think because when I turned to look back at him, I found his green eyes already on me, watching me like an eagle.

He seemed…. Familiar. Even too familiar as if I knew him before.

His green eyes seemed familiar. His dirty blonde hair looked familiar. He had a light beard, and a jawline that appeared like it was perfect.

“Look away, Ida. Believe me when I say you don’t want to have Savaş Ewald’s attention.” Talia said with a little tremble in her voice.

“Why is that?” I asked and I wanted to look away but It was as if my brain didn’t let me. I couldn’t look away from those green eyes.

“Because the last girl who had his attention ended up dead.” My eyes widened and this time it was easy for me to turn my attention away from him so I could look at Talia.

“What?” She didn’t have time to answer when Savaş shouted so that everyone around us could hear.

“Welcome!” He opened his arms widely as he looked at me but he wasn’t smiling normally, No. He was smirking a dark smirk that made me feel a chill of fear run down my spine.

“Welcome to your living hell, Cressida Arne!”