Page 71 of Mara
I stopped dead in my tracks.
My heart stopped, too. For a second, everything went silent. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe, my fear racing through my mind of that monster chasing me, and putting Cheese in that damn cage.
I could taste the blood in the air, and it took me a moment to realize that the heavy scent wasn’t just in my nose. It was in my throat, coating the inside of my mouth, thick and sickening.
I took a cautious step forward, opening the door to my bedroom. My mind was still not fully processing what I was seeing.
Cheese bolted out of the room, his white fur completely soaked in a dark liquid. A faint light from the window illuminated the space enough for me to make out a figure in the corner.
At first, I thought it was just her. Gianna. She had to be asleep, or maybe on the floor, in one of her weird moods where she just stared at the ceiling for hours, like she was lost in her own thoughts. She had gotten free and was waiting for me. She was safe.
But then, the ferrous tang of blood hit my nose again, stronger this time.
A dark, sticky pool of it was spread across the carpet, and it took me a moment to realize that the body slumped against the wall wasn’t in some strange position, wasn’t sleeping, waiting for her idiot sister to return. It was…it was lifeless.
Gianna’s body.
Her face was pale, too pale, and the blood was already drying around her neck.
It was then that I felt the world stop spinning. The floor beneath me started to tilt. My pulse thudded in my ears, and it took me a few seconds to swallow the bile that surged in mythroat. The air thickened, suffocating me, like I was suddenly drowning.
My legs felt like they were made of stone as I took a step closer, my body betraying me as I reached for her.
My sister.
She wasn’t safe.
She didn’t make it away from the monster.
“Gianna?” My voice barely came out—a whisper.
But I was almost afraid to say it louder, like saying her name out loud would make this nightmare real. It couldn’t be real. It shouldn’t be real.
But it was.
I knelt beside her, the stench of blood so overwhelming I thought I might choke. Her eyes were wide open, frozen in terror. The light shone on her face as the wind moved the curtains from the window, and I screamed.
Her mouth…it was sliced wide into a forever-smile.Her skin was cold. So cold. The blood was still fresh, too fresh, still seeping into the carpet beneath her.
I reached out, my fingers trembling as I gently touched her shoulder, trying to make sense of it, trying to feel something, anything, that would tell me this wasn’t happening. This wasn’t my sister on the floor, in a pool of her own blood, her life taken away.
But it was.
It was her.
It was real.
The world around me seemed to collapse into a blur. My hands were shaking, my vision was spinning, and I didn’t know what to do, where to go. I wanted to scream until I couldn’t breathe, but it wouldn’t come out. I wanted to cry, but nothing happened. It was like I was frozen, caught in a nightmare I couldn’t escape.
Then, the phone.
I glanced down. Her phone was lying next to her, cracked, the screen shattered. It was still on, though. I could see it glowing faintly.
I didn’t know why, but I reached for it. My hands were slick with sweat as I picked it up, my pulse quickening with every second I spent holding it. The phone was still unlocked, but when I opened it, I saw it—a video.
Gianna’s face filled the screen, alive, her eyes wide with fear, her lips trembling as she whispered something, something I couldn’t quite make out at first.
Then she lifted her hand, sending a shiver down my spine when her broken, bleeding fingers signed to me the words.
