Stolen Heir - Sophie Lark Page 0,2

won’t close all the way.

I push the door open, the bright fluorescent light momentarily dazzling my eyes.

My sister is laying in the bathtub, staring up at the ceiling.

Her eyes are wide and fixed, utterly dead. Her face looks paler than chalk.

One arm dangles over the side of the tub. A long gash runs from wrist to elbow, open like a garish smile.

The floor is coated in blood. It runs from the tub all the way up to the edge of the tiles, right up to my feet. If I take a single step inside, I’ll be walking on it.

Somehow, that paralyzes me. I want to run to Anna, but I don’t want to walk through her blood. Foolishly, insanely, I feel like that would hurt her. Even though she’s plainly dead.

Yet I have to go to her. I have to close her eyes. I can’t stand the way she’s staring up at the ceiling. There’s no peace in her face—she looks just as terrified as she did before.

Stomach rolling and chest burning, I run over to her, my feet sliding on the slick tile. I gently lift her arm, putting it back inside the tub with her. Her skin is still warm, and for a second, I think there might be hope. Then I look at her face again, and I know how stupid I really am. I put my hand over her face to close her eyes.

Then I go into her room. I find her favorite blanket—the one with the moons and stars on it. I bring it into the bathroom, and I cover her body with it. There’s water in the tub. It soaks the blanket. It doesn’t matter—I just want to cover her, so no one else can look at her. Not anymore.

Then I go back in my own room. I sit on the floor, next to the empty cash box, that I haven’t yet returned to its hiding place under the floorboards.

I’m feeling a depth of guilt and sorrow that is unbearable. I literally can’t bear it. I feel like it’s tearing away pieces of my flesh, pound by pound, until I’ll be nothing but a skeleton—bare-bones, without muscle, nerve, or heart.

That heart is calcifying inside of me. When I first saw Anna’s body, it beat so hard that I thought it would burst. Now it’s contracting slower and slower, weaker and weaker. Until it will stop entirely.

I’ve never spent one whole day away from my sister.

She’s been my closest friend, the only person I truly cared about.

Anna is better than me in every way. She’s smarter, kinder, happier.

I often felt that when we formed in the womb, our characteristics were split in two parts. She got the better part of us, but as long as she was close by, we could share her goodness. Now she’s gone, and all that light has gone with her.

All that’s left are the qualities that lived in me: focus. Determination. And rage.

It’s my fault she’s dead, that much is obvious. I should have stayed here with her. I should have watched her, cared for her. That’s what she would have done.

I’ll never forgive myself for that mistake.

But if I allow myself to feel the guilt, I’ll put that gun to my head and end it all right now. I can’t let that happen. I have to avenge Anna. I promised her that.

I take every ounce of emotion remaining, and I lock it deep down inside myself. By sheer force of will, I refuse to feel anything. Anything at all.

All that’s left is my one objective.

I don’t execute it at once. If I try, I’ll get myself killed, without achieving my goal.

Instead, I spend the next few weeks stalking my prey. I find out where they work. Where they live. Which strip clubs and restaurants and nightclubs and brothels they frequent.

Their names are Abel Nowak, Bartek Adamowicz, and Iwan Zielinski. Abel is the youngest. He’s tall, lanky, sickly-looking, with a shaved head—a nod to his neo-Nazi ideology. He went to the same school as me, once upon a time, two years ahead of me.

Bartek has a thick, black beard. He appears to be in charge of the prostitutes in my neighborhood, because he’s always lurking on the corner at night, making sure the girls hand their earnings over to him without giving away so much as a free conversation to the men seeking their company.

Iwan is the boss of all three. Or the sub-boss, I should say. I know who