Chapter 17 · My Sister Knows the Key

She's wearing the hoodie I bought her for her birthday. Gray with paint stains on the sleeve. I'd know it anywhere because I'm the one who scrubbed blood out of it after they found her body.

She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be anywhere.

Her finger stays pointed at my chest. Right where the key's burning under my ribs. Her mouth doesn't move but I can hear her breathing. Shallow. Fast. The way she used to breathe when she was lying to Mom.

Elias makes a sound behind me. Not words. Just pain.

I'm still holding his arm. The chains are back in his chest and they're cold enough I can feel it through his shirt. He's shaking. Or maybe I'm shaking. Hard to tell when the whole room feels like it's tilting.

"Mara." Elias's voice comes out wrecked. "Don't look at it."

Too late. I'm looking right at her. At the thing that looks like her.

She's got the same scar over her left eyebrow. Same stupid stick-and-poke tattoo on her wrist she did with a safety pin and pen ink when she was fifteen. Same everything. Except her eyes. Those are wrong.