As soon as she cut the corner after leaving the stage, Paige pulled out her phone.
Her thumbs moved fast. Practiced. The betting dashboard was already open—she’d had it ready before the cheerleading competition even started—and now she was placing numbers that would make their allowance look like pocket change.
All of it on Phei.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
Brielle’s voice ca sharp from behind her. Not scandalized—confused. The tone of soone watching a person they thought they knew do sothing completely incomprehensible—like watching your twin sister burn a family heirloom while humming a tune.
Paige didn’t look up.
"Betting."
"I can see that, Captain Obvious." Brielle moved closer, eyes on the screen. When she saw the na next to the wager, she went still. "You’re betting against Marcus. Against our team. Against our family. We just won a competition supporting them and you’re—"
"Brielle." Paige finally looked at her. The expression on her face wasn’t condescending or pitying—it was tired. The exhaustion of soone who’d been carrying a weight her twin didn’t even know existed—the exhaustion of seeing the chains while your sister still thought they were jewelry.
"When are you going to start thinking for yourself instead of being the obedient slave of Heavenchild?"
Brielle’s jaw tightened.
"News flash, wild princess—that’s our family. Like, duh?"
"Is it?"
The question hung in the air—heavy, sharp, the kind of question that cuts deeper because it sounds innocent.
Brielle stared at her. "What’s that supposed to an?"
Paige pocketed her phone. The bet was placed. Now she had ti to explain—if Brielle was capable of hearing it without imdiately running to tattle.
"We’re Imdiates, Brie. Do you understand what that ans? Really understand it?"
"It ans we’re part of the Heavenchild dynasty. We carry the na. We have the blood."
"It ans we’re close enough to be useful and far enough to be disposable." Paige’s voice was flat. Matter-of-fact. The tone of soone who’d had this conversation with herself in the mirror too many nights. "We’re not heirs. We’re not even backups to the heirs.
"We’re... decorations... cheerleaders for Marcus. Pretty girls with the right last na who get trotted out for photo ops and cheerleading competitions and family functions where we smile and wave and pretend we matter."
Brielle opened her mouth to argue.
Paige kept going—relentless, like she’d been waiting years to say this out loud.
"When was the last ti anyone from the main branch asked your opinion on anything before ordering you to do it like how we were ordered to dance and look pretty for Marcus’s entrance today? When was the last ti your thoughts mattered in a family eting? When was the last ti Marcus even looked at you like you were a person instead of part of the furniture he’s using to run his fans and cheerleaders?"
Silence.
"That’s what I thought."
Brielle’s hands curled into fists at her sides. "So what? You’re betting against Marcus out of spite? Because you feel overlooked? That’s petty, Paige. That’s beneath you."
"It’s not spite." Paige shook her head. "It’s strategy."
"Strategy for what?"
"For surviving whatever cos next."
Brielle crossed her arms. Her expression had shifted from confusion to sothing harder. Colder. The look of a Heavenchild preparing to defend her house—even if that house had never really let her inside.
"Explain."
Paige leaned against the corridor wall. The muffled roar of the stadium leaked through—two hundred thousand people waiting for a ga that would change more than any of them realized—two hundred thousand people who thought they were watching sports when they were actually watching a coronation.
"The Heavenchilds have ruled for a long ti," she said slowly. "Longer than most families can even trace their histories. And they’ve done it by being smart. By reading the winds. By knowing when to consolidate power and when to let go of things that were already lost."
"Marcus isn’t lost. Marcus is undefeated."
"On the court, sure. But this isn’t about basketball anymore, Brie. This is about sothing bigger." Paige t her twin’s eyes.
"Phei, who they call a nobody walked into this academy three weeks ago after years of being nothing. No na. No money. No connections. And in less than a month, he’s got two princesses wrapped around his finger, the people silently pulling strings for him, a fan club that organized an event like this—" she gestured vaguely toward the stadium
"—and enough montum that the Main Family felt threatened enough to pull Marcus out of retirent."
She let that sink in.
"The Main Family felt threatened. By Phei. Don’t you think that’s strange?"
Brielle’s expression flickered. Just for a mont.
"They’re not threatened. They’re making an example."
"Are they? Or are they scared?" Paige pushed off the wall. "I’ve been watching, Brie. While you’ve been cheering and following orders and being the perfect Imdiate, I’ve been paying attention. And what I see is a family that’s scrambling. A family that didn’t see this coming and is now trying to control a narrative that’s already slipping away from them. They’re using their influence as the world’s leaders so that the entire world watches as Phei’s used as an example and PR to boast Marcus’s na even more to every teen out there. Next Generation preparation"
"You’re reading too much into it."
"Am I?" Paige tilted her head. "Then why did they need Marcus? If Phei is just a nobody, if this is just a joke, why couldn’t Danton handle it? Or Brett? Or any of the other players? Why did they need to bring out the prince himself? Why did they make sure it beca a whole world sensation in just a few hours?"
Brielle had no answer.
"Here’s what I know," Paige continued, voice dropping to a register that belonged in boardrooms and bedrooms alike—low, deliberate, the tone of soone who’d already weighed the corpses and decided which ones were worth burying.
"If Marcus wins—and maybe he might, I am not sure—then nothing changes. The Heavenchilds stay on top, his image engraved more in everyone out there, the charity case gets humiliated, and life goes on. My bet loses, I eat the cost, no one ever knows."
"And if Phei wins?"
"If Phei wins..." Paige smiled. Thin. Sharp. The smile of a woman who’d just calculated the odds and found them deliciously tilted. "Then the world shifts. Then people start questioning things they never questioned before. Then whoever was smart enough to see it coming gets to position themselves on the right side of history."
"The right side of—" Brielle laughed, but there was no humor in it—only the brittle sound of soone realizing their twin might be willing to burn the family tree for warmth. "You’re talking about betraying our family over a basketball ga."
"I’m talking about hedging. About keeping options open. About not being so blindly loyal to people who would throw us away the mont we stopped being useful."
"You don’t know that."
"Don’t I?" Paige’s eyes hardened—cold, clear, the gaze of soone who’d already seen the guillotine drop on soone else’s neck. "Rember Aunt Cecilia? Rember how quickly she disappeared from family photos after she married soone the main family didn’t approve of? Rember how we’re not even allowed to say her na at gatherings anymore? Or have you forgotten what happened to our parents, Brie?"
Brielle flinched—a small, involuntary movent, the kind that betrays a wound still raw under the scar.
"That’s what happens to us Imdiates who stop being convenient, Brie. We don’t get exiled dramatically. We don’t get public fallings-out. We just... vanish. Quietly. Completely. Like we never existed."
"That won’t happen to us."
"It won’t happen to us if we’re smart." Paige stepped closer—close enough that Brielle could sll her perfu, the sa one their mother wore, the sa one that cost more than most people’s rent. "And being smart ans not putting all our eggs in one basket. It ans watching for opportunities. It ans being ready to pivot when the winds change."
Brielle was quiet for a long mont.
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