Page 51 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

“That was the point.” She said it so matter of fact. “You needed to believe what I was telling you.”

“You still murdered him,” I cried, tears leaking from my eyes. “You took him from me and left me all alone. Everyone always leaves me. First my mother. Then Libby. You took the last good thing I had in my life and blew him to hell.”

Kenzi threw her head back and laughed.

“And look what you became,” she pointed out with a broad, blood-filled grin. “A warrior. A queen. You would never have become that in his shadow. You needed to grow. To learn what you were capable of. All your life, you’ve lived in the shadows. One person’s pawn after another. A tool. Now you are the master. You decide your fate. No one else. That is whatIgave you.”

“You. Gave. Me. Nothing.”

It was small. A glint of silver among the darkness. I barely recognized it for what it was. There wasn’t any time to analyze the psychobabble she was spewing to me.

A trick.

A ploy.

Thrusting my knee into her stomach, I rolled our bodies, snatching the small silver-hilted knife from the inside of her boot as I laid her out on her back. The knife was to her throat before her back hit the ground.

“You. Took. Everything.”

Kenzi’s nostrils flared, her lips parting slightly as the pupils dilated. Her body shook infinitesimally beneath me. For a moment, she was truly afraid.

“Then do it.” She bared her teeth and leaned in toward the blade. My hand trembled, nicking the soft, vulnerable skin of her outstretched neck.

“Enough!”

The command caught me off guard, and I hesitated.

Strong arms wrapped around me and tore me off my sister. Surprise shook me, and I dropped the knife to the ground as the scent of fresh pine and old leather assaulted my senses.

No.

It was a trick.

He was dead. I’d watched him die.

“Enough.” His lips brushed the shell of my ear, and his warm breath cascaded over the chilled skin of my cheek. “Krasnyy.”

“Stop.” I shook my head in denial, my hands covering my face as I let out a sob. “Stop. Please.”

“Red.” His voice was as soft as supple leather, his grip strong and tangible. But it couldn’t be him. He was dead.

“This isn’t real.” I wrenched against his hold, twisting and turning as I kept hollering. “This isn’t real!”

Chest heaving, I struggled to take in air. Black dots etched across my vision. Numbness and tingling spread like wildfire through my limbs.

The world shifted in and out of focus. He was talking to Kenzi, and she said something back, but it sounded like they were underwater, their speech distant and garbled.

Did they know one another?

How?

She killed him.

He was dead.

“This isn’t real.”

“I’m very real, my love.” Had he uttered those words, or was it my imagination? Was it all my imagination? Would I wake up and find myself back in Elias’s shed, starving and close to death? It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been subjected to hunger-based hallucinations.

---