Page 134 of Running from Drac

Cipher grabs her wrist mid-swing, seconds from nailing me again. “Ma’am, sit down!” He can try to reason with her, but it won’t work. I’ve seen the Kiplinger sisters as hurricanes, but you should run when they turn into tornadoes.

“Fuck you!” she screams at him, wrenching her arm free. Her eyes cut to me; a dangerous gleam twinkling with spite around her iris. It’s like fire, the kind that burns and sears through flesh and bone. “You don’t get to stand here and tell me she’s gone. Not after what you did to her!”

She swings again, this time nailing me in the mouth, splitting my lip open. Blood trickles down my chin as she cocks back for another punch, but this time it’s halted by Cipher.

“Hit him again, and I’m going to arrest you, Ms. Kiplinger.”

She recoils, but the hate stays in her eyes. “How’d she die? Tell me?”

Cipher gently guides her back to the chair before breaking the silence with truth. “She fell from a very high height. I’m sorry.”

“My sister hated heights! You’re lying. You have to be. She wouldn’t have risked her life like that!”

I wipe the blood off my lip, my chest heaving in frustration. “And yet she did.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Think about it, Poppy. She was fucking obsessed with me, so obsessed she waited until my wedding day to reveal what happened between us. She was fucked up in the head. When I told her I didn’t want to be with her, she lost it, begged me to change my mind, especially when I called off our friendship. She couldn’t take that, so she fucking called me, told me she was standing on top of Rattlesnake Mountain and had nothing to live for…”

“Pippa would never kill herself.”

“I’m not lying to you, Poppy. That’s exactly where I found her, standing on the edge of the cliff, staring down at the city as if she was seeing it for the first and last time. When I got close, she backed up to the edge, telling me to not come any closer.”

“It’s your fault!” she screams.

“I know.”

“If you hadn’t messed with her head, she’d still be alive.”

“Maybe so, but it still doesn’t change the fact that she forced me up there, hoping I’d choose her instead of Amber, begging for forgiveness I couldn’t give.”

“So, you let her die?”

Cipher interjected, “No, Ms. Kiplinger, he tried to save her life. It was an accident. I don’t think she truly wanted to kill herself, but she was too close to the edge, and the ground beneath her gave way. Eddie caught her and tried to pull her up, but he just couldn’t hold on long enough.”

“I fucking hate you!” she says, hands tightening, her breaths quickening like mine right before my anxiety attack. “You killed my sister! My twin! My fucking whole world!”

“I didn’t want her to die. I put that on everything that means something to me.”

“Like Amber? She meant something to you and you threw her away like a fucking grenade!”

That one hurt, hitting me deep, like a knife plunging into my ribcage.

“Don’t bring Amber into this. This isn’t about her! Do you have any idea what it feels like to feel someone’s life slip out of your hands? I do! It fucking haunts me, Poppy. I can’t even blink without seeing her screaming for me to hold on, begging me not to let go.” Suddenly, I feel gutted, like everything in my stomach wants to come out the wrong way.

“I need to sit,” I quickly say, my palms cold and clammy.

Her scream rips through the room. “Don’t you dare make yourself the victim! Not now. Not after taking my sister’s life. You bastard! I won’t let you do this.”

She attacks me without warning, pummeling my chest with pathetic, weak hits as tears spill down her cheeks so violently, it’s soaking the floorboards.

“Stop, Poppy. Please, stop.”

“I hate you!” she screams, just as my breathing turns into suffocation.

“I know. Hate me all you want, but please—”

“He can’t breathe,” Cipher tells her. “He’s having another anxiety attack.”