“Pregnant and helpless. Why didn’t they hide you better?” she asks me with a laugh. “They should have.”
“My mum and dad are alive,” I say, making her pause. Her hands shake with the gun in it, and I stare her down. If she is going to shoot me, she might as well know the truth. “They hid all this time from you. If you put the gun down, you can find mum out there. Don’t you miss your sister?”
“You’re lying!” she shouts at me.
“I’m not. She is alive,” I softly tell her. She lowers the gun for a second, just a tiny bit, and I feel hopeful. Then she shakes her head, like snapping out of a dream, and lifts the gun.
I close my eyes, knowing there is no way I can run from this, and when I open them, Ki-Ki is right in front of me above the stall, and Aunt Courtney’s gun is on the floor. I can hear her screams as Ki-Ki swallows her whole and doesn’t pause as she heads back to the fight like nothing just happened.
Eaten by a giant snake...not a nice way to die, I’d imagine. I can’t say I feel sorry for her when I know she would have shot me and not looked back once.
“Thank you!” I shout at Ki-Ki, even when that was so gross. I climb back onto Shadow and lean down.
“Can you smell Bethany yet?” I ask. Shadow moves us across the stalls, keeping low so we can’t be seen until we get to the last one. I look across, and I see her, well, I see Dawn. Dawn rips a man’s head off before jumping over his body, blood dripping from his mouth into the sand. No one moves near her as I see Bethany on her familiar’s back. Shadow runs out, jumping to a stop not too far away from Dawn and Bethany.
And just like the dream, I see my sister in the middle of a battlefield.
“Sister, sister, sister. How lovely it is to see you,” Bethany teases like this is all a game. Thousands will die today because of her...and I don’t think she cares. Her hair is nearly white now, falling around her in curly waves. Her purple outfit makes her look like a superhero, but she isn’t saving anyone.
Her power is destruction.
Her gift is pain.
But me? I’m her downfall because I won’t let her kill anyone else.
Bethany’s once bright eyes look so cold and empty now that it is hard to really look at her and see my sister anymore. I still pause, which is all Bethany needs before Dawn jumps on Shadow, and I’m knocked off his back. I roll to a stop, smacking my head against one of the rocks on the beach, and my hands instantly go to my stomach even as I feel hot blood pouring down the side of my head.
Please be okay.
Bethany pulls my shoulder, punching me hard in my cheek and wrapping her hands around my throat. I push her away, clawing at her arms. She doesn’t talk to me; she doesn’t even look like my sister in this moment.
“S-stop!” I scream, but the frantic, crazy look in her eyes never pauses as she tightens her grip. Shadow cries out, and I turn my head slightly, seeing Dawn right above him, his neck in Dawn’s grip. “Sh-shadow!”
Just when I think all hope is lost and gone, Bethany’s whole body jolts. The world pauses as a knife comes through her chest, nearly touching me before disappearing. Bethany screams in pain, falling to my side, and I look up to see my mum holding the dagger in her shaky hand.
“M-mum?” Bethany questions in a long gasp of pure pain and shock. “H-how?”
Mum never answers as we both stare at her, she just steps back and back. I turn my head, seeing my sister looking at me with her bright blue eyes. I remember always wanting to be her growing up, always admiring her for everything, and now I can’t help but hate her for making us like this.
I break down in sobs, knowing she is going to die. Even when I know I shouldn’t feel so much for her, a part of me still loves my sister. I love and hate her all at the same time.
“Rest now,” I softly whisper, my voice catching in a sob. “Rest.”
“I’m so-rr-y.” Her last words don’t do anything to break the pain as her eyes turn away from me. I follow her gaze to Dawn and Shadow. Shadow is licking Dawn’s side as she crawls over to Bethany, letting out a little whine.
Even our familiars show compassion in death. Dawn collapses to the sand, and I look back at my sister, seeing a smile on her lips as her eyes are empty and her chest doesn’t move anymore. I burst into tears as Shadow comes to me, and I look up at my mum.
“I-I killed her to protect y-you,” she whispers, stepping back again. Like the world slows, a gun goes off with a loud bang, and something rips through my mum’s top. She slowly falls as I scream, crawling across the sand as Shadow growls and jumps onto the unknown man, ripping him to pieces.
By the time I’ve gotten to my mum, she is no longer gasping for air, and her body is still as I pull her into my arms and weep.
Chapter 22
Anastasia
This is no fairy tale anymore.
Covering Bethany’s body with a white sheet, I step back and look around at the room full of bodies under white sheets. We don’t have the final body count yet, but Estelle roughly told us that it will be over a thousand, if not more. Once Bethany fell, many of her soldiers just gave up, and the war was soon won after that. The captives of
