My mother.
A groan slipped past my lips, and I was back in that haunted room.
My mom. My dad was going to kill her.
The room spun, but I pushed myself to lift my head a bit, the ache in my chest a background noise as I looked to check on her. To make sure she was okay. Yet, the first thing my vision focused on was the knife resting in my heart. My fingers flinched almost imperceptibly, and the metallic scent of blood filled my nostrils. My clothes were wet, clinging to me like a second skin, with no doubt a pool of blood hiding underneath me.
I forced myself to look away, only to find my mother in the corner of the room, covered in her own gore.
“Mom!” I screamed, but the sound came out more like a whisper.
He killed her. He killed her. It was over, she was gone.
A wave of nausea washed over me, a cold sweat prickling my skin. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the silence. The world seemed to tilt, the edges of my vision blurring as a raw, consuming grief threatened to drown me. My muscles were rigid, locked in place by the shock and theterrible weight of regret, and a metallic taste filled my mouth, the phantom tang of blood.
Because of a dumb mistake, she was gone. If I had taken the knife with my left hand, I could’ve ended this. Instead of her, it would be him lying on the floor dead.
It was all my fault. I stole her chance at living when she birthed me, and now I was the reason she died.
My mother, my best friend, wasdead.
I wished she knew how much I loved her. I wished she knew the passion she gave me, that I read every day and thanked her for it every moment of my existence. I wished she knew how sorry I felt for not being able to save her, for not being enough. I wished she knew this ending was better than seeing her dead and having to live with myself after. I wished . . . I wished she had never given birth to me, only to end up like this because of me.
I let my head fall on the floor, refusing to remember her this way in my last moments. So, instead, I focused on the window we’d often look out, where the birds were singing and the sun was streaming inside the room?—
Wait.
It was sunny outside.
My dad was never home during the day.
Chapter 10
Charisma
Igasped, a sound so loud it startled me, and when I blinked again, I was transported back to the woods, soaked to the bone from the rain that had fallen while I was out cold. Choking for air, my clammy hand gripped my chest as I frantically searched my body for the wound my father had inflicted. But there was nothing there.
Nothing.
I checked my arm, the phantom ache of his stab wound still lingering, but found no trace of the injury except the cuts from when I carried Georgie.
A whoosh of confusion exited my body as I dropped back onto the dirty ground.
What the hell happened? Was any of it even real?
The wheels in my mind turned. The wine. The hallucinations. It all made sense, like a puzzle coming together—why we had to drink it, and why Georgie was trapped inside her own thoughts.
The trial was never about passing through the forest. The aim was to break free from the swirling, distorted images brought on by the wine.
By drinking less, its impact was gentler on me compared to the other contestants. That’s the reason Georgie was captured in a continuous nightmare.
I shook my head. It didn’t matter. My only recourse was to hope I was right and that the incident at my house wasn’t real, to keep fighting and return home to ensure my mother’s safety. Even if it hurt. Even if I was going to fall asleep every night wondering if she was alive or not. Even if the memory of it was going to haunt me my entire life.
I had to keep going. I’d made a mistake with that knife, and I will be damned if I made the same mistake with Georgie.
Every muscle in my body protested as I rose, my movements shaky. After my third try, I was relieved to be able to stand, my legs finally holding. I stumbled, pushing off tree after tree, the rough bark scraping against my hands as I searched for her forever, it felt like.
Arianna. I found her.
