Page 56 of Not Her Day to Die

But I am stunned to find the most unexpected person on the other side.

26

October 6th

The cell is dark and gloomy. Above, there is the familiar whirring and a grated ceiling with a fan on the other side. A single flickering bulb on the far brick wall provides just enough light for me to see.

“Carrie?” She is wearing the same outfit she was in only hours ago.

She’s on her hands and knees on the floor before me, her head bowed down as close as she can get to the ground.

“Carrie?” I ask again, louder, over the humming that echoes around the room. I bend down trying to tug her up, but another voice cuts through the space before I can.

“She’s dead.”

Jumping back, my head whips to the left, striving to make out where the voice comes from. Now that I am no longer distracted by Carrie, I can see that the strand wasn’t towards her.

Her words finally process. “Dead?” I drop to my knees. My hands find Carrie, attempting to desperately move her. To get her to react.

Carrie is colder than she should be,stiffer.I shuffle forward, the concrete scraping against my bare skin, attempting again to flip her over. But then I shift into something sticky.

Blood.

“They didn’t need her anymore. She was too much of a liability.”

“I just saw her! She was alive!” Guilt stabs me over and over again. She helpedme. Is that why she is dead? Is that why they killed her?

“She isn’t meant to live. It was her time to go.”

My attention whips towards the voice. To the purple strand connecting us together. “Come out of the shadows,” I rasp out. I stand unsteadily on shaky knees.

“Why Sunday? Do you want to see what you already know?”

Goosebumps prickle up my spine, my eyes narrow, attempting to see the person–the woman–speaking. I don’t recognize her soft but stern cadence, but she knows my name. Knows who I am.

“Sunday, you stupid idiot. You made it too late this time. My mom is dead and now we’ll just need to start everything over at the beginning again.”

Realization strikes me in the temple.

As soon as I understand who she is, Luna is jumping onto me, knocking me back down onto the floor away from Carrie. Her long brown hair falls around us in a shroud, her knees press me into the cool concrete below.

Fingers wrap around my neck, squeezing, restricting my airway.

She’s trying to kill me.

Terror and panic.

“One hundred fucking lifetimes of this nightmare. And finally, when I think you are going to change our fates, when I think my wish may finally come true. My mom was murdered.” Luna’s chestnut eyes are wild, unseeing as she continues to strangle me.

I can’t speak, let alone think, as Luna constricts my airway, my vision darkening and stars shooting out.

Her words filter through.

One…

Hundred…

Lifetimes?