It Should Have Been You

Prologue

I have to kill my sister.

I can’t. I can’t do this.

I glance across the kitchen.

I have to. I have no choice.

My face is wet, my throat is bone dry. There’s a buzzing inside my head, the sound of abject terror.

“Do it,” my sister says in a croaky whisper, as if it’s that simple, as if killing her is something I can do.

She’s my family, my blood, one of the three people I love most in the world.

Tears slide down her face. Greta never cries. She’s the strong one, the practical one. And now I have to do something unforgiveable.

From outside comes the sound of fireworks. The Oakpark summer party. Our neighbors eating and drinking on the green, oblivious to what’s happening in my kitchen.

“I love you so much.” My voice is hoarse, my limbs are loose. “I’m so sorry.”

The sky lights up with fireworks as she rolls up her sleeve.

My throat contracts with grief.

I lean toward her, Death come to take her. A sob lurches through me.

The syringe feels like nothing. It should feel cold or hot or heavy, something to signify the power it holds, but it doesn’t.

It’s light and nothingy. I glance around the kitchen one more time.

How is this happening? Everything looks just as it always does.

The scratched wooden table of our childhood, the blue-painted cupboards, the knotty hardwood floors.

My hand shakes as I inch the tip of the needle toward my sister’s vein. She closes her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, and push the syringe, flooding her blood with poison.

To my horror, it’s instantaneous. As the dusky sky lights pink and gold to the pop of fireworks, Greta slips sideways and slides off the chair. Her prone figure on my kitchen floor. In seconds, it’s over.

· · ·

Ten days is all it took for my world to implode. Ten days, four deaths, one teen in hospital, one in police custody, my family destroyed.

And all because of a text.