Page 1 of The Casualty of Us
Act One
THE YOUNGER YEAR
Prologue
OPHELIA - MAY 2012
“Oliver! Ollie!”I gasp, jerking my head to the side to escape the fingers trying to close over my mouth. “Ollie! Ollie!”
“Shut her up!”
“I’m trying!”
The arm around my middle tightens and lifts me into the air even as I kick out at nothing. Trying with everything in me to break free and thrashing just as wildly as my heart is in my chest. Eyes glued to where the single most important person in my world is lying on the ground and screaming for him.
“Olli—“
Those stranger’s fingers finally close over my mouth, tightening painfully around my jaw and cutting off my plea until it’s only in my head.
Get up, Ollie. Wake up. Please, wake up.
Please, please, please, you can’t leave me, please—
“Leave him! We only need one!”
The rough shout reverberates through the alley, echoing over the pounding of my pulse, and I redouble my efforts. Lifting my hands to scratch blindly at the masked face behind me as the attacker beside my twin abandons him.
No, no, no—
I bite down viciously on the hand covering my mouth, grinding down on the flesh until I taste blood and needing to—
“Fuck!”
“Ollie!”
My scream is something feral and foreign, shocking my body with a sudden burst of adrenaline. Something I’ve never needed or experienced before. A keening of desperation and last resort as the blood leaking from my brother’s head grows around him.
“She fucking bit me!”
“Dammit.” That rough voice curses. “Get her in the van!”
“No!” I shout, kicking at the attacker who abandoned my brother and trying to keep him from grabbing my legs. Knowing that I can’t let them take me from here. That it’s better to end up on the ground beside my twin, spilling blood we’ve shared from the womb together, rather than abandon him here. “Ollie! Ollie! Please get up! Ollie!”
That I don’t know what will happen if they take me from here.
“Fuck this.”
I see more than hear the words spoken through the mask of the man in front of me as he stops trying to secure my legs.
“Oliver!”
His lips curl into a smile through the slit in the mask as he takes that first step to the side and closes the distance between us purposefully.
“Ollie! Wake up!”
He lifts a white rag to my mouth, and I jerk my head back onto the shoulder of the body holding mine against my will.
Gasping for one last breath.
