Chapter 5: Three sisters, one man

I gripped tightly to the wedding dress, and everything went dark before me.

I woke up with no idea how long I had been asleep. Sunbeams cut through the curtains and fell across the white sheets covering me from the waist down.

The bed was too comfortable. That was what set off the alarm in my head.

I sat up and looked around the room.

The wedding dress was on a mannequin that had been made to look like Elizabeth. 

From the rich scent of lavender in the air, to the luxurious balcony connected directly to the bedroom, to the intricate gold designs on the white curtains, I knew where I was. This had to be Marshall's house.

He wasn't just old money, Marshall fought his way up the ladder in tech and the military.

"So the wedding is over," I thought and ran a hand over my hair.

My sister's hair. 

It was smooth as silk, longer than what I was used to, and it smelled like her shampoo. Thanks to me, it was disheveled. I am not a good sleeper.

I inhaled, and a fragment from the short dream where Elizabeth planted a kiss on my forehead returned. 

I looked down at the ring. It was cutting into my finger. My eyes caught the scribbled words on a note by a glass of water and a container of medicine on the small cupboard by the vanity.

“Don't forget to take your medicine. I'll be downstairs.” The note read. From Marshall, I guess.

I sighed and shuffled to the vanity mirror.

One glance, and my sister's face stared back at me.

"Lizzie?" I called softly, scared she would answer back from the dead. My stomach dropped when I heard her voice instead of mine come out of my mouth.

We were like two people trapped in one body.

I sighed and looked away from the mirror. “For once, Lizzie, I begged for your help and this is all you could think of?” 

“In your past? In a body that's going to be dead in a month? For the love of God, get me back to my body… oh, I know you can hear…ahhh!”

It felt like my head had shattered into multiple pieces. Her face reappeared before me. The thud of her heart drummed in my ears. I saw her moving backwards on the floor, her pleated skirt scrubbing the tiles in her office. 

My eyes quickly scanned the room. The shelf behind her, and the desk that blocked her from moving any further showed it was the room were she was killed.

“Oh my God! You wanted me to see him.” I gasped and the scene disappeared.

I held my hand over my mouth, the image of that horror on her face lingering in my head.

A distant ring of voices and laughter filtered in from downstairs. I ignored it at first, my thoughts going over the scene I had just seen.

There was something odd about it all. If I was seeing the things Elizabeth saw, I should have seen her killer's face. But the line of sight I had could have only been the killer's.

“How's that possible? I'm in your body. Not his,” I murmured. 

I looked around, but there was no sign of Marshall. There was only one closet in the room. There should be two if he slept here too. Especially last night.

Last night was the wedding night. "What if he touched me?" 

The thought made me panic. I checked my body and when I pulled my hand back. It was bloody.

My hands flew to my belly in a blink. The thoughts of miscarrying had my heart hammering in my chest. Then I realized I was in Lizzie's body and exhaled.

It’s obviously my period. I meant, Lizzie's period.

Shaking off the overwhelming fear that I might have lost my baby, I went into the bathroom and somehow, I knew my way around all thanks to muscle memory that wasn't mine. 

I had gotten into the water when I noticed bruises on my thighs — on Lizzie's thighs. 

There were too many to be from an accident. It looked like forced entry. But not from last night. The bruises were older, already yellowing at the edges. A week or more.

I stared at them. If she had these before the wedding, who could have hurt her?

Just then, a splintering ache hit behind my eyes, like the ache I had at the altar when I heard the name Bronzebank. Flashes came too fast to hold onto. Names, faces, routines, a man stalking her from the shadows. Too many voices at once.

And once again, I was seeing it all through another's eyes. Not Lizzie's.

I rubbed the side of my head, the ache deepening like a knife plunging deeper into my skull. "This can't be real. How do I get back to my body?" I whispered, and got out of the water, and steadied myself by the sink until the pain was gone. 

I managed to get dressed and packed my hair in a ponytail the way Elizabeth normally does and that was when the laughter from downstairs became too loud to ignore.

I had to go down. If I stayed up here, they'd come looking, and I didn't know this house well enough to lie about it.

I opened the door and went down the stairs, my stomach tightening with each step I took. Halfway down, I stopped and my feet went numb. A bitter taste coated my tongue and all I could see was his boyish grin and her flustered cheeks. 

Diana was sitting on Marshall's thigh, hands thrown across his shoulders.

They were together in his house? In Elizabeth's house? One morning after her wedding.