I fuck around all the time. It never means anything. But with her, it’s different. I don’t want to own her body or use it. I want to possess her soul.
I sit on Nico’s sofa, the football match playing on the TV. The crowd roars, the commentator shouts, but none of it reaches me. All I can think about is how soft her skin felt between my fingers. It makes me angry because I know she won’t let me come close to her again. She knows Dad would just blame her.
I laugh under my breath, staring at the floor, because if he only knew. Last month, I left her file out where he could see it.
I had gone into his office to get the keys to his Porsche, thinking about Ella and how impressed she would be. I was already halfway out when Carmen’s file slipped from the stack and slid across the floor. It opened when it landed. Photos. Dates. Notes. I crouched down to pick it up and saw all the similarities.
The way her parents died mirrored mine almost perfectly. They got murdered same way. Same unanswered questions left open. Two cold cases, left to rot in folders. The only difference was that she got blamed. Something tightened in my chest. I remember thinking I had finally found someone as broken as me.
I needed her closer. Not just for me. For all of us.
The day before I went there, I heard my parents fight late at night. Mom said she was lonely. Dad was always working. I was always gone. She said the house felt empty, like she had no purpose left. She said that if she had a girl at home, someone to take care of, she would feel useful again.
So I left the file where he would see it.
Carmen was sixteen, old enough. Perfect, really. Mom always said babies were too messy anyway. Too much work, too much noise.
Everything lined up. Too neatly to ignore.
Two forgotten tragedies walking into the same house.
Little sister, you have no idea that everything in your life is already planned. While they sat there mapping out my future, I was mapping out yours.
I will find a way to make you justmine.
The TV flickers and turns into static noise with no picture or sound.
I blink.
Nico walks in with a bowl of salsa for the nachos. It slips from his hands and crashes to the floor. Red sauce splasheseverywhere. Over my shoes. Up my legs. Soaking into my black jeans.
He says something, but I can’t hear him.
The sight of it drags me back. I just blink, and I am seven again.
2005.
I woke up inside a glass cage.
Red light burned above me. It stained everything. My skin, the floor, the image of me staring back at myself from every side. Glass surrounded me. No doors. No corners. Just my own face multiplied.
I could hear slow footsteps somewhere beyond the glass walls.
Something tight circled my neck. It was black hard plastic. A collar with a green light that blinked against my throat.
I pressed my palms to the glass. It was cold. I opened my mouth, and the words tore out of me.
“Let me out. Let me out.”
The collar responded.
A sharp snap of pain moved through my neck. Electricity ripped down my spine, stole the strength from my limbs, and dropped me to the floor. My body slammed against the glass, then slid. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move.
I could just see the red light and glass beneath my cheek.
The man laughed.
I stared up at the red glow as a tear slipped from the corner of my eye and traced down toward my ear. All I could think aboutwas my parents. I saw them falling again, with their mouths open, throats sliced. I couldn’t do anything to stop it. The news I watched earlier didn’t do anything for me. The warning came too late. People see things like that on the news and think it will never happen to them.
