"Mother truly knows best, my love."
"Be it your own or someone else's."
In which the world of two siblings turns upside down when their father brings home a new addition to the family.
18+
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DANA'S NUMB GAZE was trained upon the dried pool of blood in the center of the attic— where Maddie once used to lie, her fate at the hands of a monster. Despite the fact that Dana was able to keep Aisha from enduring the same thing, she couldn't stop grieving.
"Mom!" Dana had shrieked right when Jocelyn's knife was about to dig into Aisha. She had strongly refused to kill Aisha despite Jocelyn's demands, which was why the woman took it upon herself to do so.
Jocelyn craned up her neck to look at Dana with surprise, her hand hovering in the air a small distance away from Aisha's chest. Then, a cockiness overtook her features.
"For how long will we be there?" Jim whispered, his head on Dana's lap. He was still bound by his hands and feet— just as Dana and Aisha were. Dana silently stroked his hair as her friend observed them from across the room, with sleep slipping in and out of her eyes.
"Hmm?" He prodded when he was met with silence, but Dana didn't respond. She couldn't.
"Mom?" Jocelyn repeated in shock. "I'm your mom?"
"Yes... which is why I'm begging you not to kill your daughter's only friend."
Every word stung Dana's tongue, but she had to let them out for the sake of Aisha's life. It seemed that Jocelyn had a soft spot for being called 'mom', and Dana planned on fully exploiting it.
"Dana?" Jim sat up all of a sudden, her fingers dropping from his hair. Her glossy and wide eyes were unfocused, and her mind clearly ran a thousand miles an hour.
Jocelyn gradually pulled the knife aside, before she stood up and stepped over Aisha to head to where Dana was. Dana flinched away when Jocelyn crouched down to observe the girl's features, a sort of love hovering in her stare.
Dana snapped out of it when she realized she was looking deep into the worried eyes of her little brother. She blinked a few times, before she offered a weak smile as affirmation. Jim flashed a wide one in return, and he plopped down where he previously was.
"You know..."
Aisha's slur from afar made Dana look at her, her heart wrenching when she saw the patch of blood on the front of Aisha's shirt. Even though Jocelyn didn't kill her, she left a shallow cut near her collarbone, as a reminder to both her and her friend.
"If she wouldn't have introduced herself as your stepmother, I would have thought she was your real Mum."
"What the fuck?" Dana couldn't stop herself from blurting out. Aisha lazily rolled her eyes in response. She stretched her bent knees, and a low groan rumbled in her chest.
