Venetia smirks. “So who will it be? Your sister or your baby?”
I stand open-mouthed, staring at her, willing Bella away from her, unable to take any of this in.
Greta speaks, quietly and calmly. “She chooses me. She saves Bella.”
I turn to her. “No!”
“Cool, that’s agreed then, you choose to kill the baby.” Venetia brings the knife to the side of Bella’s neck, then pulls it away, as though ready to stab.
“Stop!” I yell.
“Which is it to be?”
“She chooses for me to die and Bella to live,” Greta repeats.
Venetia smiles and looks at me. “I need Susan to say it.”
Oh god. But there’s no option. No choice, not really. I say the only thing I can. My eyes fill with tears. I look at my sister.
“I…I choose for Greta to…to die and for Bella to live.”
Venetia nods. She tilts her head toward something on the counter. I can make out a syringe with a liquid inside, and what looks like a small leather belt.
“She’ll go out on a high, literally,” Venetia says with a grim smile.
“What…what is it?”
“Liquid heroin,” she says matter-of-factly. “Let’s be honest, even with your baby’s life at stake, someone likeyouwon’t be able to stab your sisteror beat her over the head. So tie the strap around her upper arm, get yourself a good vein, and off she goes. And don’t even think about coming near me with it because I’ll get to this one before you get to me. There are a hundred ways to kill a baby this small. I can literally strangle her with one hand.”
“I…I can’t do this.”
“Then we sacrifice the baby.”
“No!”
“So take the syringe.”
Greta calls my name softly. “Susan. You can do this. It’ll be painless. And it will save Bella.”
“I…I…”
Greta pulls her hoodie over her head. Underneath, she’s wearing a sleeveless running top. She holds out her hand. “Pass me the strap.”
“Greta.”
“You do have a choice, Susan,” Venetia says in a sing-song voice. She lets Bella slip, as though dropping her to the floor.
“No!”
But she’s still holding Bella, clutching her to her hip. Bella’s wails get louder, filling the room as, outside, fireworks pop.
“Your choice.”
Greta stands to walk over to the counter, to take the strap.
Venetia holds up a hand. “Susan has to do it. This is not a suicide. It’s a murder. She needs to live with this for the rest of her life. She needs to know she caused it.”
There’s something in the way Venetia says it, a crack in her voice. This is all a pretense, I realize. She knows she bears some responsibility for what happened. But it’s irrelevant; she’s not going to listen to reason. She’s way beyond reason.
