Page 93 of Wrath of the Fae

In me.

Me with my wings. Me laughing. Me fighting. Me, with my tongue sticking out, a glass of wine in my hand. Me with a crown atop my head. Me sleeping.

They go on and on. So many pictures all over the entire wall!

The sound of someone coming inside the bedroom has me hiding behind the slightly ajar door in the bathroom.

Whoever has entered tries to hide their arrival, quietly closing the door behind them.

Then silence. I can’t hear them moving. I can’t hear a thing.

Moments pass, and slowly, I risk a look around the door.

Before I can get close, the door is shoved hard from the other side and slams into me, knocking me flat on my face. As I try to gather my seriously knocked senses and sit myself up, someone has launched onto my back. They grab my hair and slam my face into the bathroom floor three times, grunting with fury as they do.

‘If you think-’Whack.‘You’re going to hurt me without a fight-’Whack.‘THINK AGAIN!’Whack.

‘Rhea! It’s me!’

My head stops an inch from the floor, blood dripping like a tap onto the tiles.

‘W-what did you say?’

I turn over, wriggling beneath her until we’re face to face.

Her face falls into a lost desperation as our eyes meet. Her trembling hands gently sweep my hair from my bloody face, and tears fill her wide eyes.

‘R-Raven?’ she squeaks.

I nod and reach up to rest my hand on her tear-soaked cheek.

‘It’s me, Rhea,’ I tell her. ‘It’s me.’

It’s like she’s in shock and just stares at me. When she blinks, tears slide down her face. She repeats my name, and I nod, promising again that it’s me.

It’s me!

Time stops as we look at one another until we finally smile. She pulls me up and engulfs me in her arms, clinging so tight I can hardly breathe.

But I don’t care. I hold her back just as tightly. Just as desperately.

Rhea… My sweet sister.

I smell her. I feel her. And I sigh in such relief that I have her back in my arms again. The other half of me. The rest of my soul.

‘You make a habit of smacking people's faces into the bathroom floor?’ I ask, trying not to let the desire to sob win over.

‘More and more with every day.’ She laughs and sobs, lifting her head and holding my face in her hands. ‘I knew it,’ she says, sniffing and wailing with a grin. ‘I told them you weren’t dead. I told them over and over.’ She kisses my face, uncaring of the blood still dribbling from my nose and split lip. ‘I felt you were still alive. I felt you every day.’

We laugh and cry, looking into each other’s eyes with joyous disbelief.

She tucks my hair behind my ear, and that wonderful smile falters.

‘Where were you?’ she asks. ‘Two years. What happened-’

‘I don’t remember,’ I lie, relieved I’m wearing enough clothes to cover my body's reaction to that lie. Now my smile fades. ‘What’s been happening to you?’

A shadow claims her.

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