Page 163 of Whispers of Wisteria

Whose was this? It wasn’t mine.

Gloria’s.

My whole body shuddered. The haze that had been covering my thoughts shifted.

“Bianca.” One of the strange, buzzing sounds began to make sense. Maria.

I rolled to my stomach and pressed my head on my folded arms.

“Hey, babe,” Maria’s voice was soothing. “Come back now.”

I didn’t want to.

Everything hurt, even my fingers and toes.

I pressed my cheek against the ground. It was warmer here, where something red lay splattered across the floor—it was sticky against my cheek.

Red…

My arms and legs shook as I pushed to my knees.

The crimson cape seemed to go on forever. It rolled in waves at my waist and across my lap. It was longer than I remembered, stretching across the mud-and-stone floor, even reaching—at some points—across the cell.

I blinked once, then rubbed at my eyes with my fists until my vision cleared.

That wasn’t the cape at all—at least not most of it. It was blood.

The bodies of my assailants were nearby.

“Bianca, don’t look at them,” Maria was saying. “Look at me.”

But her frantic demands couldn’t hold my attention for long. I couldn’t stop.

“Damn it,” Maria cursed, banging on the bars of her cell.

Ada was on the floor with one arm wrapped around her knee. “She’s in shock.”

“I knowthat, Ada,” Maria growled at the hyena. She kicked at the bars.

“Titus is going to kill us,” Ada replied calmly.

“I don’t even careabout my cousin right now,” Maria snapped, pacing. “She’s my friend first before she belongs to him.”

“How very feminist of you.” Ada tilted her head. After a moment, when Maria wouldn’t stop stomping around, the hyena sighed. She lowered her leg back to the floor and pressed her hands onto the ground. “I like her too.”

Maria spun to face the other girl, a retort ready on her lips, but she froze as the two shifters exchanged a long look.

“Better?” Ada asked. “Because you’re the only one with enough authority to reach her enough to make her move. We won’t get another chance. She’ll die the next time anything happens.”

Maria swallowed, then nodded before she faced me once more.

“Bianca.” Her voice was like honey, languid and thick. It dragged me back from the edges of numbness. “Bianca, look at me.”

This time, I did what I’d been avoiding before, ever since all of this started, and met her eyes.

“Good.” She sounded happier, and a warm feeling welled up in my chest.

I wanted to make her happy.