Chapter 2

"Don't be upset, Mom. Amanda's just being willful. She'll come home once she's gotten over it."

Dad reached over and patted Katie's head. "Katie's always been the sensible one. Amanda, on the other hand, has been nothing but trouble since she was little."

In the middle of the table sat a mango mousse cake topped with yellow fruit.

The year I turned seven, Katie ordered a mango mousse cake for her birthday. That was my first allergic reaction. My whole body swelled up red, and I was rushed to the ER. On my medical chart, the words "mango allergy" were printed in bold and marked in red.

Ever since then, Katie's birthday cake had been a mango mousse every single year.

That way, on her birthday, she could have the cake and our parents all to herself.

Mom sighed. "If only she were the one with the heart condition. How could a sweet girl like Katie deserve to suffer like this?"

A lump rose in my throat. I reached out to touch her shoulder, but my hand passed right through her.

"Speaking of which, when she was seven, she insisted Katie pushed her down the stairs. Katie was only five! How could she have had the strength?"

Whenever I came up, even Dad's voice took on a note of disgust.

I said desperately, 'That's not true! Katie was grabbing at my necklace, and I lost my footing when I stepped back...'

Mom said, "And in the end, didn't Katie give Amanda the bracelet off her own wrist to make up for it? All that fuss over a cheap necklace. She turned the whole house upside down."

It was the silver necklace my grandmother, Rose Weber, had left me, with a tiny crescent moon pendant.

Katie said she wanted it. I didn't want to give it to her, so she just reached out and yanked it.

The chain snapped, and the moon pendant tumbled down the stairs. We never found it.

I looked at Mom, feeling deeply wronged. 'The bracelet was already chipped. Katie knocked it against the corner of a table. She said she was giving it to me to make up for the necklace, but it was a bracelet she no longer wanted.'

Katie chimed in at just the right moment, her voice soft and sweet. "She might still be mad at me... Maybe we should call her?"

Dad waved it off. "Call her for what? Remember what happened at that fire last time... if she hadn't gone running off, would it have gotten that bad? Katie, you still have a scar on your arm from pulling her out."

Mom looked at Katie, and her gaze softened. "That scar on your arm is from saving her. You sweet girl, always thinking of others."

I said at once, 'I didn't run off! Katie said her doll had fallen in the storage room and asked me to go get it...'

But no one could hear me explain.

Then it came back to me.

The fire had started in the storage room. The door had been locked from the outside.

When I pounded on the door and screamed, thick smoke poured down my throat. By the time the firefighters broke the door down and dragged me out, my vocal cords were already destroyed.

The scar on Katie's arm? She had burned it against the doorframe while blocking my way out.

Katie lowered her head and pressed her lips together.

The phone in her pocket buzzed. She pulled it out casually, and the instant the screen lit up, I saw the notification.

It was from a bodyguard's number.

[Miss Katie, we drowned Miss Amanda, just as you asked.]

[Video message]

After watching the video, Katie smiled.

The clock on the wall reached eleven thirty.

Katie suggested they all watch home videos together.

Mom's voice lifted. "Look at this one. Katie's fifth birthday, and she could already cut the cake all by herself."

On the screen, Katie gripped a cake knife bigger than her hand, frosting smeared all over her face.

Dad laughed off camera. "Our darling Katie's so capable!"

As the camera swept past the corner of the table, I saw my seven-year-old self.

I was wearing pajamas washed so many times they'd faded, sitting quietly in a wheelchair in the corner with a small plate of fruit in front of me.

It was yellow. Mango.

My right leg was in a cast, propped up in the air.

Dad said, "She was so lively. Not like Amanda, sulking in the corner all day. Ask her if she wants cake, and she shakes her head. Ask her if she wants juice, and she shakes her head too. Then the second you turn around, she's saying we play favorites."