Cinderella

Blood in the Gardens

Shock was written across both their faces. Lady Tremaine had her hand wrapped around the knife in her chest. They both took steps back.

"I'm sorry." Ella could not hold back the words.

Lady Tremaine unleashed a guttural scream of pure anguish and lept towards Ella. She took them both to the ground and wrapped her hands around Ella's throat.

Lady Tremaine was hell-bent on killing her. She thought if she could just kill Ella, the Princess would uphold the promises that she made over Anastasia and Drisela.

Ella pushed and shoved and struggled to breathe but without any success. Ella was awash with panic. She could taste the fear of death. Her hands moved for anything while the hands around her throat squeezed. Squeezing until there was nothing in her vision and she could feel her body giving up.

She could feel her brain begging for release and her lungs shrivling.

Her desperate hands found the knife in Lady Tremaine's chest and she pulled it out. Lady Tremaine gave a great shudder and Ella thrust the knife into her stepmother's side with her last bit of strength.

She thought she was going to die. Knew she was going to die all the way up until Lady Tremaine's grip lightened ever so subtly and Ella ripped herself out from underneath her stepmother and reeled back until she was stopped by a tree.

She could not escape the blood that seeped into her dress, into her hair, and that covered every spare inch of her skin. Her chest heaved pulling in great lungs of air. She was shaking from the deprivation.

She had killed her stepmother.

Her breathing was erratic. There was no more control for her to reign in. There was no control. It was like a foreign neighbor. Her mind tried to replay the last ten minutes over in her mind, but she stopped it. She could not handle it.

She had to go to the ball. Her mind was erratic, fixating on the wrong things in the wrong moments. She had told Charles she would be at the ball. He was waiting for her. She looked down at herself trying to figure out how to hide her shame. The dead body of her stepmother was a flag. There was no hiding this shame. This shame would stain her very center and soon everyone would know. Everyone would know and would have something to say. Something to think.

"Ella!"

There was Charles shouting her name. She looked up, but he was not there. There was no one in her little clearing of death except her and her stepmother.

Ella stood and her whole body screamed in complaint, but she wanted to find Charles. She wanted him to wrap his arms around her and maybe then she would stop trembling. She wanted to wash the blood from her face. She looked down at her hands and they were shaking.

She walked past her stepmother's body without a glance in it's direction.

"Ella!" Charles called again, closer. His voice was frantic.

She tried to call out to him. She was crying from the effort, but her voice was not working right. They saw each other at exactly the same time.

He was beautiful, washed with moonlight, dressed in a deep midnight-colored suit that fit him perfectly. His hair was a little unkempt on the side where his hand often ran through it.

He was the catalyst to the way she felt. She was awash with numbness until he looked horrified and then she could finally feel horror. He rushed towards her, terrified, and then she could finally feel her fear. He pulled him against her while he looked for the offender. She tucked himself into his chest. She did not want to feel whatever he felt when he saw what she had done to her stepmother. He smelled nice. This is where she wanted to be. Indefinitely.