Deception. Betrayal. Mistrust.
It seems the closer Rayne gets to the truth, the more she finds herself wanting to run away from it. It's complex and terrifying-more than she ever fathomed.
New family members, good and bad, pop out at her like a br...
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"𝗬ou should have killed me."
Rayne had been dozing off.
Her body had begged for an unconventional release from this room. An escape from the place her abuser crafted out of her fears and pleas. She could never quite figure out how to rest properly. Never could quite find that craved flight. The feeling of safety she'd taken for granted.
She lay on the floor in a creation of her own curled in the fetal position. The blanket from the bed softened the hard floor. The clothes she'd been dressed in only to be violated with later were balled up in a makeshift pillow—a deity she considered an ownership of her sorrow.
The words of the only other woman here passed through her eardrums delicately, as if they were meant to be spoken, but not heard. They sparked a fire in the pit of her numbness and had her turning her head sluggishly on her neck to view her.
Her vision rocked with the uncontrolled addition of gravity as she focused on the sound reverberating through her system. Her hands never left the flatness of her stomach. Her mind never forgot that she'd been rotting amongst the marinated blood of her child.
"What?"
Rayne's voice came out uneven—rough, and raggedy—worn with a lack of use.
Lilliana perked from her corner of the room. Her brown hair moved like a curtain around the roundness of her cheeks as she acknowledged that Rayne had heard her after all. She bent one leg at the knee and sighed, resting her chin on her patella. The other laid flat across her den of pillows.
Neither of them had been particularly inclined to use the bed.
"That day," she spoke quietly, almost as if that noose was still invisibly tied around her throat, "You should have ripped open the door and taken the chance to run away from this place. To never know what it's like to be caught in my mother's claws. You should have just killed me."
"Don't be silly," she shook her head, "I would never put my life above yours."
"You should," Lilly argued.
Rayne could sense the frustration in her voice.
Could feel the agony between each syllable.
She palmed the floor and rose, careful to avoid the creaky areas they'd both spent the week memorizing. Even though Lilliana had been in their capture for four years, this was new to her, too. This new arrangement—the punishments doled out by everyone other than Evelyn.
Rayne sat in front of her only ally in this place and crossed her legs underneath her body. She reached a hand out to grab ahold of Lilly's but hesitated upon seeing her flinch.
She put her hands back to her stomach.
"What makes you say this? And why are you saying this now?"
