Another shovelful of guilt piles on top of the mountain I’ve already created.

My fingers hover over the keyboard, ready to reply, but I hesitate. I have a haunting suspicion anything else I say will sound guilty, something that would be potentially damning evidence in a trial.

I don’t answer. Instead, I delete the message thread, knowing how meaningless the act is. Nothing disappears on the internet.

I throw the sheet and blanket off me, realizing how weak I am for the first time. Swing my legs over, stand, then brace against a wave of dizziness. I’m not even hungover. More like still drunk. I didn’t have more than half of that first drink…vodka something.

Steadying myself, I look down at my clothes. Same thing I was wearing last night, and there’s a small but not insignificant splatter of blood on my jeans.

I close my eyes against the sight of it, but I can’t close my memory. Of Cora’s head splitting open.

I’m frantic to divert my thoughts so I lumber to the window, pull back the curtain, and rest my forehead against the cold glass, grateful for the chill. White everywhere, easily another six inches of snow. The world outside is beautiful. The world inside is a chamber of horrors.

My urge is to rush to Max, but I need something else first. I need to understand what happened last night. After Cora.

I attempt a deep breath but end up coughing. Open the bedroom door, walk down the hallway, pause at the top of the stairs. The wooden steps appear sharp. Treacherous.

I descend. One flight, then two.

I look over to the wall at the bottom of the staircase, where in my dream I saw the painting of the rainbow and the field. There’s nothing there. Nothing has ever been there.

Through the foyer, down the hallway toward the study. The house is as silent as a house could be. A tomb.

Abril, I think, panicking. What if Abril shows up?

I see the entrance to the study, twenty feet away.

I don’t want to go in there.

I have to go in there.

My steps grow smaller.

As I close in, there’s a smell. The aroma of chemicals. Bleach.

Ten feet away. Five.

I reach the entrance. It’s dark, the wooden shutters pulled closed. There’s a diffused glow from the outside light escaping through cracks, but not enough to see what I need to see.

I reach in, flick on the lights, clench my stomach.

Breathe out. Breathe in.

Nothing.

Well, except the smell of chemicals. And there, I notice. The area rug is gone. And…the set of fireplace tools. Also gone.

Otherwise, the room is normal and immaculate. Not a book out of place. Not a drink glass touched. I walk inside, not wanting to. The chair I was sitting in is back in place. A few more steps, over to…to where it happened.

No trace of my sister. No blood on the floor. Nothing but the smell, which is stronger here. I lower to my knees, lean over, and sniff the hardwood floor where she died.