When I touch the tips of my fingers to one, the skin around it tightens, and she stiffens. I stop. Now isn’t the time. It’s enough for one night. Especially this night. So I draw the blanket up to her shoulders and watch her burrow beneath the weighted duvet, small hands like fists holding on tight. Reaching for the switch, I turn off the light beside the bed and walk toward the door. I pause there and glance back at her. But when I hear her sniffle, I walk out of the room.

4

Mercedes

I broke my cardinal rule. The one absolute law I have always abided by.

Never let anyone see my scars.

In my discomfited state of mind, I wasn’t even considering it. It’s probably the first time in my life I forgot those scars were there. Nobody was ever supposed to see them. Nobody ever has, apart from the one witness who won’t utter a word.

But now Judge has. He knows, and it seems to tip the scales of inequity even further in his favor. I hate this. I hate him. I hate everyone right now. And even though I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry anymore, that’s exactly what I do when he leaves me alone in the silent abyss of my room. I cry at the loss of the only life I’ve ever known. I grieve for the woman I thought I was. And I grieve for the woman who almost killed my brother before I killed her. I don’t know why. I didn’t know her, other than the few times we spoke to arrange the deal we made. When I found out she double-crossed me and nearly destroyed the last of my family, I wanted her dead. I swore it was the only punishment fit for her crime. But wanting it was one thing. Carrying out the act myself, so brutally and so unexpected, is another.

The weight of my guilt settles over me as the medicine soaks into my veins and makes my eyes too heavy to focus. So I close them, and inevitably, sleep drags me away for a few blissful hours when nothing else exists.

When the light of day starts to creep into my window, the reality of my situation sinks in all over again. I wake up in a bed that’s not my own, and one glance at my surroundings confirms I’m still living in a hell of my own making.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to forget, but it’s an impossible task. One complicated by the sound of my door opening. Miriam stands with a smug expression and a tray full of breakfast in her hands when I glance up.