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.A lawyer or something.Hell, maybe America can represent me.”“Naomi!” Katie screams, her voice like needles, cutting into my ears and bleeding me out on the table.“Shut your mouth and listen to me.” Katie leans forward, calming herself just enough that the guards pause on their way towards our table.I touch my fingers unconsciously to my Real Ugly tattoo.Never were truer words spoken.How else can I describe the situation we're in here? It's fucking disgusting.I hate that I'm even sitting here having this conversation.“I'll tell you what happened to Cassie and then you'll leave.You'll walk out that door and go on with your life.” I glare at her, but she just stares at me, waiting for a confirmation I guess.I can't give her one.I can't do this.“You think you're being strong for me, but you're actually weak, Naomi.” I gape at her, but she doesn't stop to let me speak.“I'm not going to have this baby, Naomi, but I can't live with myself if I murder an innocent either.Do you see where I'm coming from?” I have no clue, but my heart is ringing so loud I can't hear anything else.Murder an innocent.Don't even get started with me on that whole abortion debate bullshit – I don't care what anyone else thinks.I did what was right for me.What was right for fucking me.Doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt, that hearing my sister talk like that doesn't cut me to the core.I choke on my own heart and can only pray that there's no blood running down my lips.I've only ever loved three things in my life, and none of them worked out for me.Katie's stopped talking, so I force myself to say no in the world's quietest whisper, in a voice laden with regret but simultaneously weighed down by hope.Oh God.Things are not going to work out well for me, are they?“I won't bear my brother's rape baby, Naomi.”“Okay.” What else am I going to say to that?“But I hear angels calling.”My heartbeat picks up – didn't think that was even possible – and I actually consider flagging one of the guards.Katie has that dangerous edge to her voice again.“Angels?” My mind flashes to Turner, to his sleeping face that night on the bus, to his blue-black hair glimmering onstage.I think I might be on the edge of a panic attack, but I'm a strong person and I fight the fuck out of those emotions, hit them back with raging fists and well-placed kicks.I won't give into this world.I refuse to let it get me down.“Yes, angels,” Katie whispers, looking up at the fluorescent lights hanging above us.Her face has that rapturous beauty etched into it again.I feel like I'm going to pass out.I start to rise from the table, fingers curling around the edges like I'm holding onto a sinking life raft.“Who has Cassie, Katie? Who adopted her?”“Stephen,” she says and I nearly drop to my knees on the floor.“Stephen Hammergren.”And then suddenly there's this bit of metal in Katie's hands, gleaming bright, reflecting back the glare from above and temporarily blinding me to the reality of what's happening.Before I can stop her, she's lunging at me, swinging the knife and cutting me right across my belly, across the Real Ugly tattoo.I stumble back out of surprise and even though the cut's not that deep, the blood running down my belly and into my jeans causes me to collapse, fall right to my ass on the floor.I look up at Katie as the guards come running, watch as she places the blade to her throat and smiles at me.“I love you, Naomi.Enjoy the rest of your life.”Standing above me, bald head limned in golden light, a broken angel falls from heaven in a spray of red.“Katie!” My scream echoes around and around inside my own skull as the shard of metal slides across my sister's throat.Red spills down the front of Katie's orange jumpsuit, sprays me in the fucking face, and yet it's nothing at all like it is in the movies.It's worse.So, so, so much worse.“Katie!” I screech again because I'm effectively paralyzed.That voice I'm so proud of, the one that supposedly trumps Hayden's, that touches people's souls, it's the only weapon I have left.“Katie!”My sister slumps forward, her wrists catching on the handcuffs until she's twirling like a ballerina and slamming into the side of the table, dangling there like a morbid fishing lure.A temptation that the world's worst predators could not resist, not until they'd damaged her irreparably.Her eyes are so faraway now, pale and empty, but her lips still smile as she gurgles and thrashes, red splattering me as I shake and tremble.In my mind, I call myself a coward for not standing up and helping Katie.In reality, I know that there's nothing I can do for her.So I lay there in a pool of warm blood and accept the world's most precious gift.Life.But is a life bathed in death and pain really worth anything at all?Hot salty tears eat at my face as the guards unhook Katie and lay her flat on the ground.She's twitching and shaking, but still smiling.The world around me goes silent, blocking out the sounds of the guards calling for a paramedic, of the desperate gasps my sister makes as she chokes on her own blood.And that's how it happens.Katie doesn't bleed out; she drowns.In doing so, she seals my fate.I will never, ever forget that fucking smile [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]