Page 114 of By the Time You Read This

“I didn’t ... I don’t ...,” Gabriela muttered, seeming enthralled by the switch.

“Do you want to know how I punish little girls who lie?” Delaney asked. She caressed Gabriela’s face with the gun, running it over her cheekbone, along her chin.

“Are you going to put me in the hospital?” Gabriela said, her voice almost steady. “Like you did with Agent Kilkenny?”

Delaney pulled the gun back and smacked it across Gabriela’s face.

Gabriela cried out and crumpled to the floor, holding her cheek. Raisa took a step closer, but Delaney whirled on her. “No.”

Then she hauled Gabriela to her feet once more, taking control of the situation. Gabriela had given up trying to be brave, and was openly crying now.

“Gabriela put Kilkenny in the hospital,” Delaney said, sounding like herself once more. Maybe because she was talking to Raisa instead of the prey. “Not me.”

The anger that had been simmering in Raisa’s blood relit at that.

Broken bones, blood. A heart monitor that never varied because Kilkenny still hadn’t woken up.

“Delaney,” Raisa said, quietly this time. “Drop the gun.”

“I didn’t hit Kilkenny, you know I wouldn’t,” Delaney said, and then winced. Because they both knew Raisa would absolutely think Delaney could do that.

“We have a picture,” Raisa said, her anger morphing into rage. Maybe Delaney hadn’t been in control of herself, maybe she’d been channeling Isabel as she had a moment ago. But that didn’t absolve her of the guilt of doing it.

“Then it’s doctored,” Delaney said, her attention now fully locked on Raisa.

Raisa shook her head. There was literal blood on Delaney’s hands, from where Gabriela’s cheek had split open. And Delaney was proclaiming her innocence.

This, this was what their family was.

And Raisa wanted nothing more in that moment than to put a bullet into Delaney, thus becoming one of the rest of the Parkers.

No.It came in Kilkenny’s voice.

She shouldn’t want that.

That would make her just as much of a monster as her sisters.

She hated herself for the impulse, she hated it. She wanted to tear at her own skin and bones; she wanted to trade places with Kilkenny because she was ...

She was . . .

She was . . .

Broken.

Raisa nearly gasped, and she would have, had Delaney and Gabriela not been watching her so closely.

I wanted to make them the same as me.

Broken.

Lana and Larissa aren’t broken.

But wouldn’t it be more fun if they were?

“Oh my god,” Raisa said. “Did you write Isabel letters?”

“No,” Gabriela answered.

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