Chapter 9 #4
“You don’t have to do this, Hanna. You don’t have to listen to her…
” “Yes! I do!” she suddenly shouted, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“She… she took my little sister. If I don’t listen to her, she’s going to present her to the Master,” she cried, shaking her head.
“She’s only thirteen.” My breath caught, thirteen.
Like Valentina had been. “I can help you,” I tried to convince her, yes, with Ganesh’s help, I could help her.
“Let me help you. Put the knife down and let’s talk,” I said, taking another step toward her but she shook her head.
“The only way to help her is for you to die,” she said and then she lunged at me with the knife.
My body reacted on its own, shifting aside as the words and training of Ashwin, Kamal, and Kenji echoed through every cell of me.
Hanna crashed against the fridge door as I rushed toward the exit, trying to open it.
I had to get out, I had to avoid her. I was afraid, afraid of what I might do to survive.
Hanna was innocent, I didn’t want the Master and Mother to win again.
I didn’t want to become more of a monster than I already was.
I didn’t want to. I grabbed the handle, but before I could unlock it, Hanna’s scream warned me that she was charging at me again.
I dodged her once more. “Please, Hanna,” I said, breathless, my heart pounding so loudly it echoed in my ears.
“Stop” but she hadn’t been listening for a long time now.
She lunged at me again, without thinking, without planning, without technique, like a madwoman.
I stepped aside, raising my left arm, her knife grazed my side, and I closed my arm around hers, trapping it and twisting it with the force of my body.
She screamed as I tried to make her drop the knife.
But she was bigger and stronger than I was.
Her hand wrapped around my throat and shoved me back.
My back slammed violently against the hard surface of the dining table, a groan tearing from my lips as my toes barely touched the floor.
She managed to free her arm from my grip and raised the knife above my face but my foot was already striking her stomach, sending her staggering back.
Her nails tore into the skin of my neck as she lost her balance.
She grabbed onto the counter to steady herself while I straightened up, coughing but before I could catch my breath, she was already rushing at me again.
I dropped to the floor, landing on all fours as the knife plunged into the table, right where I had been a second earlier.
She was going to kill me. She wasn’t going to stop.
And I had to survive. I hadn’t gone through all of this to die like this.
I had to save my sister. I had to find Valentina.
I had to survive. I started to retreat on my backside, my bare legs burning against the icy tiles, my damp hair sticking to my cheeks.
“Stop resisting!” she screamed, stepping toward me and I struck her knee.
It buckled and she fell to her knees, the knife slipping from her grasp as I sprang up instantly.
I slid behind her, my arm locking around her neck, and I began to choke her.
She struggled, her fingers clawing at my arm, my cheeks.
The back of her head slammed into my mouth, pain exploding through me, but I didn’t let go, even as the taste of blood flooded my mouth.
Hanna coughed, gagged, choked. I heard voices behind the door, people trying to open it, failing.
“Please, Sienna,” Hanna suddenly sobbed as her face turned redder and redder. “Please.”
My heart clenched, she was innocent. She wanted to save her sister like I did.
She was a victim, just like me, like all of us.
“I’m going to let you go, but you have to stop.
I’m going to save your sister, Hanna, so stop,” I said and she nodded.
I released her and got back on my feet quickly while she dropped to all fours, sucking in huge gulps of air, coughing, saliva spilling from her lips as she struggled to breathe.
I wiped the blood running down my chin with the back of my hand as she pushed herself up onto her knees.
“I’m going to open the door and we’re going to act like nothing happened,” I said, panting as she started sobbing again.
“I’ll say I tripped and that you helped me” I stepped back toward the door while she nodded.
I sighed softly, already thinking of how to find her sister.
Maybe Mother had sent her to the institute?
I grabbed the door handle as it rattled violently, I heard several voices outside, Ava’s, Esme’s.
I reached for the lock…but everything happened too fast. Hanna got up again with a speed I never would have expected from her, she grabbed the knife a few steps away and threw herself at me.
I dodged but not fast enough. The blade pierced my skin as I screamed in pain, her hands forcing it in deeper as I stepped back to keep it from sinking further into my flesh, but my back hit the wall.
I grabbed the blade with my hand, “Die! Stop fighting, die!” she screamed, her voice echoing off the walls and probably much farther, because the girls behind the door started shouting in panic.
“Please,” she sobbed, gripping the handle with both hands to drive it in, while my hand wrapped around her wrist to stop her.
I slowly lifted my face to hers, breath ragged, surrounded by the taste and smell of blood.
“I can’t,” I said through clenched teeth as I slowly pulled the knife from my flesh, “I can’t.
” I repeated it, remembering the last time I had spoken to my sister three years earlier, “I can’t!
” I screamed, remembering Wendy’s death, and her Shadow.
“Survival, Sienna,” Ganesh told me, pointing with his cane at one of his hunting dogs playing with the carcass of a wolf.
The dog was in bad shape. It had fought the wolf the night before, managed to kill it, then dragged the body all the way into Ganesh’s garden.
“It’s a she-wolf,” he continued, striking the ground with his cane.
“Big enough to have cubs. An innocent mother looking for food.”He paused.
“But survival, Sienna. There is nothing more important. Nothing more intoxicating. Nothing more dangerous. When you fight to survive, nothing else matters.” he turned toward me, and I lifted my face to his.
“Survive, Sienna. No matter the consequences. No matter the price. Survive. Deal with the aftermath later, when you’re still alive.” His dark gaze locked onto mine, and I nodded.
I was going to survive.
I was going to save my sister.
I was going to find Valentina.
I was going to kill the Master and make sure no other girl ever shared my fate.
The blade slid completely out of my flesh, and blood began to pour freely, but I didn’t look away from Hanna. My gaze stayed locked onto hers, her eyes were wide. Terrified.
“I’m going to survive,” I panted, “I’m going to survive no matter the cost,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
My head slammed into her nose and she screamed as blood began to gush.
Releasing the knife, which clattered to the floor again she staggered back, both hands flying to her face.
I didn’t hesitate for a single second. I didn’t look at my wound soaking through the satin fabric of my nightgown.
I threw myself at her, like that dog and that she-wolf.
We crashed to the floor together. She swung her elbow, hitting my jaw, and I fell sideways.
She used the opening to push up onto her knees and lunged again for the knife, but I didn’t let her.
I grabbed the back of her sweater, yanked her backward, wrapped my arm around her neck again and this time I locked her arms to the floor with my legs.
She struggled, violently. I didn’t let go.
I squeezed. Again. And again. “Please,” she whimpered but I ignored it, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice…
“Save her… save my sister,” she whispered as her movements slowed.
“Save her,” she sobbed, tears spilled from my eyes, but I didn’t loosen my grip.
Because she wouldn’t stop. Because I wouldn’t have stopped either to save my sister.
“I promise,” I whispered “I’ll find her and save her.
I promise you, Hanna” as her body went limp.
“Thank you,” were the last words to leave her blood-stained lips as her eyes rolled back and she stopped moving.
She stopped breathing. She stopped living.
Kenji’s voice shouted from behind the door as he slammed into it, again and again, then harder, shoulder blows.
I pulled myself off Hanna’s lifeless body and pressed my back against the fridge door, grabbing the dish towel hanging from the oven handle and pressing it against my wound, which was bleeding heavily.
But my eyes never left Hanna. I had killed another innocent.
I started laughing, I was a serial killer now, I killed innocents.
The door finally gave way and Kenji burst into the room like lightning, his eyes widening at the scene.
His gaze went first to the pool of blood near the door, then to Hanna, then to me, still laughing, louder and louder, completely unhinged.
“Enna!” he exclaimed, dropping to his knees beside me, his hands pulled mine away from my wound to examine it as I struggled to breathe, unable to stop laughing.
“The wound isn’t deep. Go get Joana,” Kenji ordered Esme, who rushed out, shoving aside the girls crowding the doorway. “Enna, Enna, look at me,” Kenji called, but everything was blurry. There was only Hanna’s body. Only the taste of blood. Only pain and death.