A different kind of trouble.

A loud beep sound echoed in the room. It bounced off the walls in ping pong and through Isabella's ears. She sat by a bed, staring down at the face of a man she had yearned for but hoped she would never see again.

The beeping sound came from the machine he was wired to. The squiggly lines on it were supposed to tell her he was still alive. Like an inverter.

Isabella had been so close to it just once. And that day, it slowly migrated from slow and steady beeps into one loud and long one. It was the day Irene died. Or Victoria as she preferred to call her sister.

She had laid on the bed in the same way Seth did. Her skin had turned white and sickly, but it had a bit of color there as well. Black and blue fresh bruises, fading purple ones, had littered her sister's skin like she was Joseph's coat of many colors. Her husband had made sure there was nothing to salvage anymore of her sister. Isabella had been asleep by her sister's bed when the loud long beep sound woke her up and she saw