No, no, no.
This is bad. This is so fucking bad.
“Who do we have here, Kasien?” Sylvia purrs, her cold smile stretching too wide, too practiced. “You didn’t tell me you’re having a visitor.”
I go still.
My lungs forget how to work.
I just stare at her, terror burning behind my eyes, my jaw locking so tight it hurts. She walks straight toward Kiara like she owns every square meter of this place. Like she owns me.
She does.
She reaches out and takes a strand of Kiara’s hair, tucking it behind her ear, fingers lingering too long on her cheek.
“Mrs. Varner, I’m—”
“You’re Soldan’s daughter,” Sylvia cuts in smoothly. “I know your mother.”
Her eyes flick to me as she says it. The smile doesn’t move, but the message slices straight through my chest.
Is she really threatening me with Kiara’s family in front of her?
Of course Kiara doesn’t see it. She just stands there, trying to be polite, confused and uneasy, her features tightening. Her hand is shaking in mine.
This was never supposed to happen. She was never supposed to be here.
Sylvia turns back to her. “Stay here for dinner, honey. I want to know more about you.”
I don’t think.
My body moves before my brain catches up.
One second Sylvia is talking, the next, my hands are around her throat. I don’t remember crossing the hallway. I don’t remember deciding. I just feel my fingers clamp down, feel the tendons under her skin jump in panic.
My vision goes red.
Something in me snaps like an overstretched wire and there’s no pulling it back. There is no way out of this that doesn’t end in blood.
I want to shout at Kiara to run, but my jaw is locked, teeth grinding so hard my skull feels like it’s going to crack. Every ounce of strength I have pours into my hands.
I feel Sylvia’s pulse slam against my palms, wild and erratic. Her neck muscles strain as she drags at my wrists, desperate for air.
There’s a high, thin noise to my left—Kiara, sobbing or screaming—I can’t tell, because all I can hear is Sylvia’s wet, ragged gasps, the horrible choking sounds forcing their way out of her mouth as she fights for her life. She’s so small in my grip. So light. So pathetic.
Suddenly I can’t stand looking at her face anymore. I loosen my right hand for a fraction of a second, just enough to shift my grip. My left hand slams against the wall beside her head forleverage and my right hand closes around her throat again. Then I start slamming her head into the edge of the doorframe.
The first impact makes a hollow, sickening crack. It’s not enough. Her eyes are still open, blown wide with terror and lack of oxygen. I hit her again. And again.
The frame bites into her skull with every swing, bone and wood colliding in dull, heavy thuds. I don’t count. I don’t think. I just keep going. Rage moves my arm. Years of disgust. Of training. Of obedience. Every order, every body, every time she treated me like a weapon instead of a person.
At some point her body stops fighting. The realization hits me like ice water, cutting straight through the heat.
Her weight shifts in my hands. Heavy. Limp. Dead.
Her eyes are still open, staring at me as the light leaks out of them. For a moment I’m frozen there, watching the pupils lose focus, the lids drooping. My grip loosens without my permission, and her body slides down the wall like someone cut the strings holding her up.
A smear of bright red paints the wall from head height to the floor, looping over the sharp edge of the frame. Her hair sticks to it in thick, wet strands as she crumples. Her skull hits the marble with a dull final sound.
