Leave

"Yes," I breathed, the word caught between a sob and a laugh.

"Yes, Marcus. A thousand times, yes."

He surged upward, catching me by the waist and spinning me around. I felt weightless, as if the gravity of the real world no longer applied to me.

As my feet touched the stone tiles again, a thunderous wave of applause broke the silence of the rooftop. I hadn't even realized a small group of our closest friends and family had been hiding behind the topiaries, waiting for the moment.

"Congratulations!" voices cried out.

Marcus kept his arm anchored around my waist as people swarmed us, offering handshakes and perfumed hugs.

It was a dizzying, beautiful chaos. I felt like a queen who had finally secured her throne. My career was peaking, I was marrying the man I loved, and I had protected the one person who meant more to me than my own life. Nothing could go wrong in my life at this moment.

I looked around for her, needing to share this glow. I found Lurii standing just outside the circle of well-wishers. She wasn't clapping, but she had a strange, tight smile on her face.

She stepped forward, weaving through the crowd until she reached us.

"Can I steal the bride-to-be for just a second?" she asked, her voice sweet, though it sounded thinner than usual.

"I have something I need to tell you, Ash. Something private."

I beamed at her, my heart overflowing.

"Of course." I squeezed Marcus’s hand.

"Give me a minute?"

"Don't be long," Marcus whispered, kissing my temple.

"We have a lifetime to plan. Unlike you, she won’t have me forever."

I followed Lurii away from the center of the terrace, toward a secluded stone bench tucked behind a wall of flowering jasmine. The cheers of the party became a dull hum in the background. I turned to her, ready to wrap her in a hug, ready to tell her that her life was about to become a fairy tale alongside mine.

"Lurii, I’m so happy you’re here for this," I started, my voice thick with emotion.

"Everything I told you on that stage last night? I meant it. You're getting the boutique, the house, everything. We’re finally"

"Drink this," she interrupted, handing me a fluted glass of amber liquid I hadn't noticed she was carrying.

"A toast. Just the two of us. To the perfect Ashley Vance. And to the perfect life you’ve just launched us into."

Something about the way she said it put me on edge, I dismissed it, Luri had no reason to hurt me and even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to hurt me.

I took the glass without a second thought.

"To us," I said softly.

I took a deep, celebratory swallow. The liquid was cloyingly sweet, with a sharp, metallic aftertaste that clung to the back of my throat. I frowned, looking down at the glass.

"That tastes strange. Is it a vintage?"

I didn't get an answer.

A sudden, violent spark of heat ignited in the center of my chest. It spread with terrifying speed, a jagged line of fire racing through my veins. My hand began to tremble, the glass slipping from my numb fingers and shattering against the stone.

"Lurii?" I gasped.

The color was draining from the world. The vibrant green of the garden turned a sickly grey. My knees buckled, and I slumped against the stone bench, my lungs suddenly refusing to pull in air. It felt as if my blood was turning to lead.

I looked up at my sister, expecting to see terror on her face. Expecting her to scream for help.

Instead, Lurii stood perfectly still. Her expression had shifted. The sweet, supportive sister I had spent my life protecting was gone. In her place was a woman with eyes as cold and dead as a shark’s.

She leaned down, her face inches from mine, the scent of her perfume now smelling like rot.

"You always were so sentimental, Ashley," she hissed, her voice a jagged blade.

"So busy playing the martyr, building your fortress for poor, little Lurii."

"Help..." I wheezed, clawing at my throat. My heart was stuttering, missing beats like a dying engine.

"There is no help coming," she whispered, a cruel, triumphant smirk twisting her lips.

"Do you have any idea how much I hate you? Mom and Dad tried everything they could to break you and everyone of them failed. I had to watch the girl my mother did not bring into the world climb up the stairs.”

“You viewed me as your stepsister?” I ignored the excruciating pain signifying jammed lungs to ask.

“Isn’t that who you are to me? This has always been my problem with you. You carry yourself as though we belong to one family, even after that bitch you call a mother stole my dad! Even after you lived the life I deserved!”

Every time you saved us, you just reminded me that I was the charity case. Every time you succeeded, you sucked all the air out of the room. I’m tired of living in your shadow, playing the grateful little sister."

She straightened up, smoothing her yellow dress as if she were simply checking her reflection.

"I’m going to take that money you worked so hard for. I’m going to take your connections. I’m going to live the life you thought you were giving me, while you rot in hell."

Black spots danced across my vision. The fire in my chest was turning into an icy vacuum, pulling my soul toward the floor. I could hear Marcus laughing in the distance, oblivious to the fact that his world was ending twenty feet away.

I forced my eyes to stay open, forced my shattered nervous system to give me one last surge of defiance. I reached out, my fingers catching the hem of her dress, staining the bright yellow fabric with the dark smudge of my desperation.

"Lurii," I rasped, the words tasting like copper and bile. My voice was a ghostly shadow of itself, but the promise behind it was absolute.

"You think... you’ve won. You’re going to... you're going to regret this."

“Help..” I wheezed despite gathering strength in every fiber of my body. I tried, I tried to fight, to stay alive, my body responded to the toxins pulling it down.

I slumped onto the cold stone, the sky above Boston turning black as the world finally went silent.