Cheating Death

Twenty Eight

Twenty Eight

The floorboard creaked loudly, enough to wake me up, when there was no light in the bedroom Hollie and I were sleeping in. Thinking Hollie was getting up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, I groaned.

            “Holl, could you not have waited?” I mumbled sleepily, turning back onto my side.

            Hollie’s response was not what I had expected, not a sorry, Ana, I really needed to go, but a scream. A scream of Help. I opened my eyes and rolled back over, facing where Hollie’s bed was. Hollie was still in the bed, but not safe. There was a figure standing above her that I could just make out. At that moment, my eyes blurred and I rubbed them, getting up from my bed as fast as I could manage in my hazy state.

            “Holls, Holls?” I said.

            The response was another scream. Trying to stand up straight, I whacked the figure where I gathered their head would be. Instead of trying to hit me back, or defend themselves, they just laughed. A laugh I would recognise anywhere, even if they had never laughed with me.

            My mother.

            The lights flicked back on, just as I realised who the figure was. My mother smiled, as if she was pleased to see me. A good actress, she was. If it was anyone else, they probably would have believed this smile and thought the woman was genuine. Yet I knew this woman, knew the evil that lurked in her heart and knew that this smile was not because of me.

            “Oh, Anastasia, dearie, it’s so nice to see you.” The smile on her face still lingered, dark and twisted. “And isn’t it lovely that we meet with Hollie here too.”

            In the light, I could now see why Hollie had been crying. Our mother had her arm tightly wrapped around Hollie’s throat, a knife in her other hand. Hollie whimpered, her eyes pleading with me, pleading with me to do something, anything. Unarmed, there wasn’t much I could do to help my sister. I considered screaming for Jayden—he’d know what to do. Yet I’d been the damsel in distress far too often and I needed to prove myself, prove that I was worth fighting for, that they shouldn’t just let Death take me. I needed to prove it to myself too.

            “Let her go.”

            I stared at my mother, trying my hardest to look threatening. Not threatened by her daughter in the slightest, she laughed, moving the knife closer to my sister’s throat.

            “You don’t hate her,” I tried to reason. “You hate me. I’m the one that you always wanted dead.”

            “You’re right.” My mother cocked her head to the side and squinted, as if she was inspecting me. “I did want you dead. Unfortunately for little Hollie here, if I kill her, it will be much easier for me to kill you. Think of Hollie as a sacrifice for the greater good.”

            Hollie cried out, trying to wriggle from my mother’s grip, failing miserably.