Page 39 of Phoenix Academy: Madness

This time, the scream that rips out of my throat is so loud and high-pitched that I lose my voice in the middle of it, so that all that's left in this new place is silence.

Except for a single sound:drip, drip, drip.

The drip of blood hitting the ground.

Chapter 19

My sister sitsat a low white table, wearing nothing but white clothes: a white shirt, a white skirt, white shoes, and two white knee-high socks. Her hair is long, sun-kissed, and pulled back by a white ribbon.

Everything is stained with her blood. The table, the floor, her pretty clothes, her skin tanned by months running and hunting and running again. Blood drips from her nose, her hands, her legs, her neck even.

Only her face is spared.

Those eyes of hers stare at me, narrowed and hard.

She's looking at me in a way she never did when she was alive. I haven't seen her this angry or bitter, not even when I spilled cocoa all over her favorite sweater or Mom told her she couldn't go out to that concert late.

The look in her eyes says that she despises me.

Because I'm alive, and she isn't.

"Lizzy." My voice skips as I reach for her hand, but at the last moment I cringe back. There's blood dripping down her fingers, filling her open palm like a macabre little lake. "Oh, Lizzy. I know this isn't real, but it feels real."

"You lied to me." She lifts her chin and bares her teeth at me. "You said everything was going to be okay. Youclaimedyou would get me out of there."

This is what it feels like to have your heart broken in two, a knife stabbed through it, and know that you deserve the pain."

"I tried. I really tried, Lizzy. I'm so sorry."

"Youdied," she says accusingly, "and I was left all alone.With him.And it was all your fault, because you're the one he wanted!"

Her words are the truth, but I can't think about them for too long without breaking apart. My mind shies away from thoughts of that day. The things that were done to me, and what I witnessed, are so traumatic that I tucked them away in a corner of my mind I can't access. It all feels unreal, especially since that moment I woke up on the pyre with a body made whole and anew again.

A body built for revenge.

Which I also failed to secure.

"I'm going to make him pay." Pushing past my squeamishness, I reach out to grab her blood-soaked hand, ignore the dripping and splattering. "I swear to you, Lizzy, hewillpay. And I'll make sure that your spirit, and mom's spirit, make it to the afterlife where you belong."

"You're too late." The anger is gone from her eyes, replaced with only despair. "He's corrupted my soul. I'll never get to be among the ancestors again. No one is coming to save me."

"I am," I insist.

"You shouldn't." She jerks her head to the side suddenly, as if hearing something behind her, a sound that makes her eyes widen in fear. "Go now, Ari. Leave me be!"

"But you're my sis—"

"GO!"

Lizzy pushes me away with blood-covered hands, leaving two red handprints on my shirt as she forces me back. I stumble, eyes fixed on her, trying to figure out why she looks so scared, why she's acting like someone is about to come for her.

It's only a dream, I remind myself.

It onlyfeelsreal.

This can't be her spirit. Not really. It's just my own tortured imagination finding ways to hurt me with that day, which I haven't even begun to process.

Falling back, I realize that I'm tearingthroughthe dream, past the white tiled floors and beyond, to another place. Another dream.

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