My Stolen Life - Steffanie Holmes

Prologue

MACKENZIE

I roll over in bed and slam against a wall.

Huh? Odd.

My bed isn’t pushed against a wall. I must’ve twisted around in my sleep and hit the headboard. I do thrash around a lot, especially when I have bad dreams, and tonights was particularly gruesome. My mind stretches into the silence, searching for the tendrils of my nightmare. I’m lying in bed and some dark shadow comes and lifts me up, pinning my arms so they hurt. He drags me downstairs to my mother, slumped in her favorite chair. At first, I think she passed out drunk after a night at the club, but then I see the dark pool expanding around her feet, staining the designer rug.

I see the knife handle sticking out of her neck.

I see her glassy eyes rolled toward the ceiling.

I see the window behind her head, and my own reflection in the glass, my face streaked with blood, my eyes dark voids of pain and hatred.

But it’s okay now. It was just a dream. It’s—

OW.

I hit the headboard again. I reach down to rub my elbow, and my hand grazes a solid wall of satin. On my other side.

What the hell?

I open my eyes into a darkness that is oppressive and complete, the kind of darkness I’d never see inside my princess bedroom with its flimsy purple curtains letting in the glittering skyline of the city. The kind of darkness that folds in on me, pressing me against the hard, un-bedlike surface I lie on.

Now the panic hits.

I throw out my arms, kick with my legs. I hit walls. Walls all around me, lined with satin, dense with an immense weight pressing from all sides. Walls so close I can’t sit up or bend my knees. I scream, and my scream bounces back at me, hollow and weak.

I’m in a coffin. I’m in a motherfucking coffin, and I’m still alive.

I scream and scream and scream. The sound fills my head and stabs at my brain. I know all I’m doing is using up my precious oxygen, but I can’t make myself stop. In that scream I lose myself, and every memory of who I am dissolves into a puddle of terror.

When I do stop, finally, I gasp and pant, and I taste blood and stale air on my tongue. A cold fear seeps into my bones. Am I dying? My throat crawls with invisible bugs. Is this what it feels like to die?

I hunt around in my pockets, but I’m wearing purple pajamas, and the only thing inside is a bookmark Daddy gave me. I can’t see it of course, but I know it has a quote from Julius Caesar on it. Alea iacta est. The die is cast.

Like fuck it is.

I think of Daddy, of everything he taught me – memories too dark to be obliterated by fear. Bile rises in my throat. I swallow, choke it back. Daddy always told me our world is forged in blood. I might be only thirteen, but I know who he is, what he’s capable of. I’ve heard the whispers. I’ve seen the way people hurry to appease him whenever he enters a room. I’ve had the lessons from Antony in what to do if I find myself alone with one of Daddy’s enemies.

Of course, they never taught me what to do if one of those enemies buries me alive.

I can’t give up.

I claw at the satin on the lid. It tears under my fingers, and I pull out puffs of stuffing to reach the wood beneath. I claw at the surface, digging splinters under my nails. Cramps arc along my arm from the awkward angle. I know it’s hopeless; I know I’ll never be able to scratch my way through the wood. Even if I can, I feel the weight of several feet of dirt above me. I’d be crushed in moments. But I have to try.

I’m my father’s daughter, and this is not how I die.

I claw and scratch and tear. I lose track of how much time passes in the tiny space. My ears buzz. My skin weeps with cold sweat.

A noise reaches my ears. A faint shifting. A scuffle. A scrape and thud above my head. Muffled and far away.

Someone piling the dirt in my grave.

Or maybe…

…maybe someone digging it out again.

Fuck, fuck, please.

“Help.” My throat is hoarse from screaming. I bang the lid with my fists, not even feeling the splinters piercing my skin. “Help me!”

THUD. Something hits the lid. The coffin groans.

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