Ilse tried to kick out, but the water softened the blow. And so she fought dirty. There was nothing left. Only one more shot. She was dying.

Both hands up, hard. A dirty move she’d been taught by one of the less reputable sparring partners at the gym. Both fingers gouging up and in. Into her sister’s eyes, hard.

It wasn’t so much of a scream as a burst of bubbles. But she knew she’d scored. Her sister’s hands retracted immediately. Ilse could feel the horrible gristle beneath her fingers. But she didn’t let go. Fear flooded her. In her mind’s eyes she glimpsed two mismatched eyes. One blue, one brown, staring at her.

She yelled incoherently beneath the water, but there was no more air to give. No sound followed. Again, she was voiceless, trapped in the dark, alone. Fighting for her life.

Two mismatched eyes. And so she squeezed, hard. Not letting go. Her thumbs jammed into her sister’s eyes, and she could feel something give. A horrible, terrible sensation.

She felt Heidi shudder and flail, desperately trying to shove Ilse off.

Only then, once she was sure she’d caused damage, did Ilse let go. She kicked twice, pushing off the silty floor and rising to the surface of the lake. Her head burst out to meet the moon, her lungs wheezed, and water splashed around her as she desperately inhaled.

She choked on strands of liquid at the same time as drawing breath. She bent over, gagging and hacking and coughing, but still managing to breathe in between.

Her sister was stumbling around, holding her face and groaning. Blood fled past her fingers, staining her knuckles and trickling to her hands before dripping back into the lake. Droplets of crimson marred the otherwise gray liquid beneath the moon.

Heidi gasped even further and stood up in the shallows, drenched and soaked and exhausted and broken. The wet seemed to quench some fire in Ilse, and she shivered, feeling so very cold all of a sudden… She should have run. This was all a mistake. What was she even doing? Her own sister, bloodied, blinded.

Because of Ilse.

She’d promised, her entire life, to help those tormented by people like her father. To help people like her sister… But now… now it was all too horrible. She felt a sudden urge to vomit.

“Stop!” Ilse said, pleading, her voice choked with a sob.

Her sister looked over. One eye horribly punctured, blind. The other one squinting so badly, there was almost no way she could see.

But Heidi was determined. She howled and came charging.

“Stop!” Ilse screamed. “Please. I don’t want to hurt—”

Too late. Her sister met her, hard. A knee caught her stomach. Fingers went toward Ilse’s eyes now. But she stumbled back.

Splashing, desperate, slipping on the mud and twigs and leaves, but reaching the shore, while reeling backwards, away. Heidi kept coming, charging, splashing as well, sending sprays of droplets every which way.