A scream.
Not just any scream…herscream. I whirled on my heels and sprinted back to where I came.
“Malia!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
MALIA
Ihad nothing to defend myself with, except to scream. “Help!Alaric!” He was probably long gone, a feeling that hurt more than the wound inflicted on me. He would forever be in my heart.
I’d never forget that kiss.
But now…
Crimson coated my right shoulder and collarbone, where the stinging sensation told me the wound was more than just a cut.
Poison.
Two tall teenagers stood before me, daggers in hand.
“How did you get away?” the girl asked, her face pale, her fingers tight around the hilt of her dagger. She was so much older than the last time we met, a testament of how much time had passed.
How long I’ve been hiding.
They were children when they came to my home, and now they were teenagers. I clung to my knees, at the mercy of these children…again.Last time they’dtrapped me in the furnace and this time they trapped me in the alleyway. I shook like a leaf, panic washing over me.
“I got out,” I managed to say, my hair falling all around me.
“Let’s just finish her,” said Niko. “In case she gets away again.”
Lilo hesitated though.
“Remember what she did,” he reminded her, but she shook her head.
“Niko, she was so kind to us…”
“She poisoned Sereth,” Niko said and I quickly shot back.
“She tricked me into making the apple. You have to believe me–I would never hurt you.”
Lilo still hesitated, and I could see the conflict in her eyes. Niko was set though, manipulated by Snow White. They served Sereth, and loved Sereth. She wooed them, just as she wooed everyone.
Just as she wooed Alaric too.I wasn’t ignorant to the fact that his reputation was built because he saved Sereth’s life…
Everything seemed to revolve around her, the “fairest of them all.” And now I was going to die because everyone believed her lies. Was this how I really wanted it to end? What if the world knew the truth about her?
But I can’t…Nobody had ever believed me.
They always believed her… ever since we were younger…
I swallowed hard. Now was not the time to think of this. Now I had reached the end. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping it wouldn’t hurt to die.
Instead, I tried to hold onto the romantic exchange just moments before. The first time inmy life I actually felt loved and valued. Yes, Alaric had left and walked away, but he left me with a gift I would treasure before death.
Before I closed my eyes, I noticed that Lilo’s dark eyes were tired, likeshewas tired of this. Niko, meanwhile, looked hungry for revenge. Revenge for what though? I’d done nothing but care for them.
Perhaps, after all this time, his heart had been hardened, rather than softened.
