Because You Love To Hate Me

  To the unapologetically empathetic and the smiling devil emoji in us all

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION by AMERIIE

  THE BLOOD OF IMURIV by RENÉE AHDIEH

  THE EVIL VACCINE: KEEP THE DARKNESS AT BAY by CHRISTINE RICCIO (PolandbananasBOOKS)

  JACK by AMERIIE

  GIANTS AND TYRANTS by TINA BURKE (The Lushables)

  GWEN AND ART AND LANCE by SOMAN CHAINANI

  THE BAD GIRL HALL OF FAME by SAMANTHA LANE (Thoughts on Tomes)

  SHIRLEY & JIM by SUSAN DENNARD

  DEAR SASHA, THE 411 FOR VILLAINS by SASHA ALSBERG (abookutopia)

  THE BLESSING OF LITTLE WANTS by SARAH ENNI

  WILL THE REAL VILLAIN PLEASE STAND UP? by SOPHIA LEE (thebookbasement)

  THE SEA WITCH by MARISSA MEYER

  VILLAIN OR HERO? YOU DECIDE! by ZOË HERDT (readbyzoe)

  BEAUTIFUL VENOM by CINDY PON

  WITHOUT THE EVIL IN THE WORLD, HOW DO WE SEE THE GOOD? by BENJAMIN ALDERSON (Benjaminoftomes)

  DEATH KNELL by VICTORIA SCHWAB

  DEAR DEATH by JESSE GEORGE (JessetheReader)

  MARIGOLD by SAMANTHA SHANNON

  EVIL REVEALED by REGAN PERUSSE (PeruseProject)

  YOU, YOU, IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU by ADAM SILVERA

  BEHIND THE VILLAIN’S MASK by CATRIONA FEENEY (Little BookOwl)

  JULIAN BREAKS EVERY RULE by ANDREW SMITH

  JULIAN POWELL: TEEN PSYCHO EXTRAORDINAIRE by RAELEEN LEMAY (padfootandprongs07)

  INDIGO AND SHADE by APRIL GENEVIEVE TUCHOLKE

  GLAMORIZED RECOVERY: EXPECTATIONS VS. REALITY by WHITNEY ATKINSON (WhittyNovels)

  SERA by NICOLA YOON

  THE BAD GIRLS’ GUIDE TO VILLAINY by STEPH SINCLAIR and KAT KENNEDY (Cuddlebuggery)

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CONTRIBUTORS

  INTRODUCTION

  “You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your f@*$!n’ fingers and say ‘That’s the bad guy.’”

  —“TONY MONTANA” IN SCARFACE

  Villains. Stories are nothing without them. Heroes cannot rise to greatness without them. In the absence of an enemy, our beloved protagonists are left kicking rocks in the Shire or taking tea and biscuits in a mind-numbingly cheery Spare Oom. We love villains because they turn their aches into action, their bruises into battering rams. They push through niceties and against societal restraints to propel the story forward. Unlike our lovable protagonists, villains—for better or worse—stop at literally nothing to achieve their goals. It’s why we secretly root for them, why we find ourselves hoping they make their grand escape, and it’s why our shoulders sag with equal parts relief and disappointment when they are caught. After all, how can you not give it up to someone who works that damned hard for what they want?

  For as long as I can remember, I’ve empathized with the underdog, the misunderstood, the so-called wicked. Perhaps it has much to do with my worldview, which questions the very existence of “good” and “evil” in the first place. Maybe what is considered good today is foolish tomorrow; perhaps the terrible deeds done now will prove themselves necessary evils in a year’s time, a hundred years’ time. I’ve always found the concept of good and evil to be wholly complicated, ever since learning as a kid about that conversation God had with Satan regarding Job. It was like seeing your best friend commiserating with your sworn nemesis: Hold up, you guys are on speaking terms?

  Villains aren’t created in a vacuum; they’ve likely suffered devastations and made the best choices available, never mind that their decisions might differ from our own. They’ve also had their share of oft-forgotten moments of truth and honor (Jaime Lannister, anyone?). Villains take the risks our heroes can’t afford to take and make the choices our heroes are too afraid to make. They live in the Grey, and I, for one, love that sliver of space between light and dark, where things tend to be more interesting, people are more complex, and it’s harder to draw clean lines. Look into a villain’s eyes long enough and we might find our shadow selves, our uncut what-ifs and unchecked ambitions, a blurry line if ever there was one.

  Because You Love to Hate Me isn’t just about badass villains, it’s also about ourselves, in all our horror and glory. Within these pages, you will find thirteen stories of villainy written by some of today’s greatest writers and paired with commentary by thirteen of the most influential booktubers and bloggers on YouTube and in the blogosphere. (Unlucky #13, reppin’ baddies since 1307.) You’ll see nefarious old favorites and new faces, some reimagined, some twisted out of context, but not in the ways you might expect. The perspectives explored in these stories force us to reexamine our most fiercely held notions of good and evil, right and wrong, and what it is to be human. To be alive. Life, death, hate, love, vengeance, heartbreak—it’s all here.

  Villains, the deliciously wicked. We love to hate them and they hate to be loved, if only because being hated frees them from having to be good.

  And we’d have it no other way.

  THE BLOOD OF IMURIV

  BY RENÉE AHDIEH

  Everywhere Rhone walked, the nightmares followed.

  Colorless creatures slunk at his sides, unseen from all save him. They whispered. Near and around him, their cold breaths pressed against his ear. Sometimes he could understand their mutterings: Who are you? Nobody. What have you achieved? Nothing. Other times they were the lost language of a faraway galaxy. A language—a world—Rhone only knew of in history lessons. A world his parents spoke of, in hushed tones of their own.

  The nightmares often appeared in the shadows. In corners steeped in inky darkness. But he supposed that was to be expected.

  After all, nightmares were creatures of the dark.

  What Rhone did not expect was to feel them—to sense them—creeping silently after him even in broad daylight. Even in fleeting moments of happiness, they writhed through the holes around his heart, wriggling their way into anything and everything.

  Until they were all he could see anymore.

  His sister’s smile was not a smile, but a leer. His father’s look was not one of fondness, but of judgment.

  And his mother? To his mother, Rhone would never be anything but a reminder.

  Of all that had once been.

  Of the woman she had once called Mother. The woman Rhone so resembled, in carriage and in character.

  Of a monster who had all but destroyed everything she touched.

  Without a glance back, Rhone left the warmth and merriment of his family’s dinner gathering, as he tended to do of late. It was not meant to be a slight to anyone in particular. It was just his way. The parties hosted under the illustrious banner of the Imuriv family were different from many of the celebrations given by other highborn nobles of Oranith; his family’s parties were never the garish kind. Instead, they were ones filled with friends and food and laughter, often culminating in tales of his mother’s youthful exploits.

  As Rhone made his way down the curved corridor, he caught his reflection sneering back at him in the rounded surface of the white wall to his right.

  Despite his mother’s best efforts, her parties did not deceive him. Though she strove to make them seem inclusive, Rhone knew his presence was—and always would be—unnecessary. Extraneous. The celebrations were tasteful, clearly gatherings meant to reflect their family’s status. On the ice planet of Isqandia, in its shining capital of Oranith, there was not a single child who did not know of the Imuriv family.

  Most knew of the name fondly. After all, Rhone’s mother was quite beloved, despite the whispers of her past. As the sovereign of Oranith, she had brought an era of unprecedented peace to the planet ruled by women.

 
; Others remembered the Imuriv name . . . much less fondly.

  A name infamous for murder. Painted by the brush of darkest warcraft.

  Colored by ancient, unknowable thaumaturgy.

  As Rhone continued walking down the cool, darkened corridors of his family’s ice fortress, the familiar hum of droning machines took on a presence of its own. A lulling, hypnotic sort of presence. Lost in its gentle purr, Rhone stopped to wonder what kind of woman his grandmother had been to those she loved.

  What kind of woman. What kind of sovereign. What kind of mother she had been before her own daughter executed her for committing war crimes.

  Odd how his grandmother seemed to rule Rhone’s most recent dreams. Dreams of searing reckoning. Of blood and glory. Dreams of all that could never be.

  At least not for him. Or for any man of Isqandia.

  The sound of sliding glass whirring open caught Rhone’s attention. He turned his head back toward the dinner gathering. A servant in a jauntily patterned smock was bringing his family’s guests another round of drinks. Followed by another tray of food. Clinking glasses and cheerful laughter spilled into the hallway, calling Rhone back. Beckoning him to take his rightful place at his mother’s side. When he hesitated, the doors snapped quickly shut. The warmth and the cheer faded into memory. Into nothingness.

  Rhone turned and resumed his nighttime haunt through the halls of his family’s fortress, staying to the curtain of shadows along one side. His hand grazed across the smooth white paladrium wall. The curve of its rounded center, and the soft blue light of its databands, flashing in lines at his shoulders and at his feet. At any moment, Rhone could pause and ask the blue band of light a question. Almost any question. It would respond in less than the blink of an eye. But such a machine could not answer any of Rhone’s most pressing questions. No. For now, the blue glow only served to light the path before him.

  A small bot no bigger than Rhone’s boot careened around a corner, whisking its way to deliver a message contained in the outstretched grip of its metal tongs. A message clearly meant for Rhone’s mother. Or perhaps his all-important sister. When the bot spotted Rhone crouching beside the strip of blue light nearest the floor, it stopped with a high-pitched squeal.

  The bot lingered, uncertain.

  Then the tiny metal creature backed up warily, pausing once more before continuing to chirp its way toward the well-appointed banquet hall at Rhone’s back.

  Rhone suppressed a wry grin.

  Even the brainless bots knew better than to trod in Rhone Imuriv’s path. It appeared the tale of his most recent misdeed had already spread to even the lowliest of servants residing within the ice fortress of Oranith.

  Perhaps Rhone shouldn’t have kicked that cheeky bot out of the way last week. Though he could not recall doing it, his anger had clearly ruled his mind for an instant. A twisted part of him had relished the sight as the small bot had sailed through the air, only to land with a sickening thud against a paladrium wall in the east wing. He’d watched in morbid fascination as the bot slid to the floor with the saddest of chirrups. He might not control much of anything in his life, but at least he had power over these silly metal creatures.

  Still, a twinge of guilt knifed through him.

  Rhone knitted his brow. Pressed his lips tight.

  No. It was not his fault.

  The tiny creature without a soul should not have dared to challenge him. And it had been doubly the fool for interrupting him while he was reading, all for the silliest of reasons.

  Rhone had not wanted to play d’jaryek with his sister that day. Anymore than the day before that. Or the day after. Altais was a merciless opponent when it came to games of strategy like d’jaryek. And Rhone did not care to fight battles he could not win.

  Nor was he in the mood to smile generously through a loss. He was not his father.

  No. He would never be his father.

  He would never be the kind of fool who happily stood in the shadows of greater women.

  As he mused over these and so many other thoughts, Rhone felt his feet carry him toward the game room, unbidden. His steps were smooth and soundless in the elastine soles of his boots. He adjusted the platinum clasp of his navy cloak and straightened its complicated folds. They hung from his left shoulder, in a style nodding to yesteryear. A style hearkening to an imperium lost eons ago.

  When Rhone rounded the final corner, he stopped short. The sliding doors to the game room were slightly open, the space between them no bigger than the span of one hand. A white glow emanated from within, its light nothing but a weak ribbon from floor to ceiling.

  His curiosity growing, Rhone moved toward the room.

  As soon as he brushed his palm across the access panel, the doors slid open fully. The glow inside flashed bright, like lightning cutting across a dark firmament.

  Without thinking, Rhone lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the burning light. Once his sight had adjusted, he found himself in the spherical chamber he and his sister had often played in as children. The walls were normally the same shining white as the corridors.

  But today a different scene greeted Rhone.

  Waves lapped at a holographic shore in the distance. The sun shone high in a clear blue sky. The sand at his feet and along the chamber perimeter was crystalline, glittering all around him like infinitesimal gems. Rhone walked through the room. Birds that had been extinct for millennia—cawing, long-beaked beggars with creamy feathers—drifted above him, their images so clear and crisp Rhone resisted the urge to reach out and offer them a holographic morsel of food.

  Even the air smelled briny and sharp and otherworldly.

  “This was our favorite,” a soft voice emanated from behind him.

  Rhone shook his head without turning around. “Yours. Not mine.”

  “Did you not like it?” Careful footsteps padded closer.

  “I preferred the one with the volcano.”

  Cutting, feminine laughter echoed clear across to the other side of the shore. “Liar.”

  At that, Rhone glanced over one shoulder, his forehead creasing. “How did you know I was coming here, Altais?”

  His sister strolled fully into view, her steps light, her gait precise.

  Her smile had upturned all her features. She wore a playful expression. One that Rhone could not mirror, no matter how hard he tried, though so much of their appearances were so similar. Altais shared his dark hair and pale skin. His strong eyebrows and bladed cheekbones.

  But while these features appeared severe on Rhone, they managed to look striking on Altais.

  With nothing constructive to say, Rhone decided to tease. “You’re wearing a dress?” He peaked a brow. “How ridiculous.”

  “Why is that?” She crossed her arms, the jeweled gauntlet on her left hand sparkling in the light of the holographic sun.

  “You look like a fool.”

  Altais huffed, a gauntleted finger tapping against an elbow. “It doesn’t matter if I’m wearing a dress, a suit of armor, or nothing at all. I can still beat anyone who dares to challenge me.”

  “Dresses are for silly, foolish girls.” Rhone grinned mockingly. “I defy you to contradict me.”

  “Better a silly, foolish girl than a sullen boy like you, skulking in the darkness.” She sniffed. “Besides, I like the colors.” With a flourish of her skirts, she spun in place. Her dress flashed through a series of rainbows. Rhone recognized the material. It was among the most costly to procure, made of a special cynesilk woven from the strands of many tiny mirrors. Mirrors too small to see with the naked eye. Far too many mirrors for any one person to count.

  When Altais was done spinning, she glided nearer to the aquamarine waves. The colors of the ocean rippled across her flowing skirts, deepening until they became a beautiful complementing color, tinged by the rose of a setting sun.

  She looked like a girl, for once, instead of the next in line to rule Oranith.

  A sudden realization took hold of Rhone. “A
re you meant to catch a man at Mother’s dinner party with that ridiculous dress?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Because you should know it won’t work.” Despite his best efforts, Rhone could not conceal the petulance in his voice.

  Altais’s pale brown eyes softened. “Why are you being so hateful tonight, Rho?”

  A small pang of remorse flared near his heart. Rhone hated the note of pity in her words. “You’ve never wanted to marry before. And I can only imagine a dress that hideous to have an equally insidious purpose.”

  His sister’s shoulders sagged for an instant. Then Altais stood taller. “I’m only sixteen. No one is going to force me to marry. Mother wouldn’t allow it.”

  “You say that . . .” Rhone had found a footing. Something to cow his usually confident sister. And he refused to relinquish his hold a moment too soon. “But the matriarchy passes to you—the eldest of the Imuriv daughters. Eventually, you will have to marry to continue the lineage.”

  “I’m not the eldest Imuriv,” Altais grumbled back with a nod to him. “But I am the only Imuriv daughter.”

  “A fact for which I’ve been constantly reminded my entire life. And . . . a burden I do not want for myself.” He tried to sound sympathetic, but the chord he struck did not ring true, even to his own ears.

  “Be glad it isn’t you, Rhone Valtea Imuriv. Or else you might be the one forced to wear a silly dress.”

  A ghost of a smile drifted across his lips. “That would indeed be a fate worse than death.”

  “Or maybe you harbor a secret love of fashion.” She grinned back. “Then perhaps you can pray some tragedy befalls me in the near future.” Altais stepped closer. “Should that happen, I swear on the fourth star that I will leave you this dress.”

  Rhone snorted, almost amused. In moments like these, he recalled how close they’d once been. How easily they’d championed each other as children. How much they’d shared. So many memories. “That alone would be reason enough to wish your death.”

  “Careful, Rho,” she whispered, biting back a laugh. “Should anyone overhear you, they might be apt to accuse you of treason.” The last word echoed into the holographic blue sky. As the sound ricocheted from the rounded ceiling, a murder of beggar birds scattered in its wake.