The sister in the dark

Chapter 31

Part 3: Broken Promises

All of us are too shocked to move. Then Rose starts scrambling under the bed and hiding herself among the various things under there.

"You two, out of the window. I'll go downstairs." Milly quickly pulls the conspiracy board off the wall and shoves it under the bed with Rose, hands us a knife each from her desk and rushes away with her baby sister, leaving Hirah and I to find our own ways out.

I push open the window and stare outside.

"All clear," I say, but just as I'm about to climb out, a policeman walks around the corner, directly under the window, and out of sight.

"All clear? Really?" Hirah sounds judgemental.

"I didn't see him. Look, we need to go."

Once again, I'm about to climb out, but the policeman walks past again.

"Okay, go." Hirah says when he gets out of sight once more.

I slide down the side of Milly's house, trying to be as quiet as possible. Hirah manages it even better than I did. Then we start running. Away through the trees, away to wherever we can, for about three minutes before we stop, panting.

"That should-" Hirah breaks off in a coughing fit. "That should be far enough."

I climb a tree next to where we're standing, trying not to let the pounding of my heart distract me. The two of us sit together on a thick branch, staring silently at the leafy ground. A chilly wind blows, reminding me that it's late autumn, and dark. We should not be doing stuff at this time. We should be in our dorm, in pyjamas, reading. But that would just be boring, right?

Hirah begins to hum quietly, a welcome distraction from the horrors of what could happen to Rose, horrors that are already playing out in my imagination.

About ten minutes later, the rustle of leaves and footsteps catches my attention. I give Hirah a sharp nudge to shut up, and we both stare towards where the sound came from. It crunches the leaves again and I begin to worry that the thing making the sounds might be a badger or fox, since it's dark, but I'm also worried that it could be a police officer or a sniffer dog.

Silently, I hitch my feet up on the branch, so that whatever it is doesn't see me. About twenty seconds later, a human figure limps into sight, bending over quite vigorously, and not making any attempt to be quiet.

I turn towards Hirah and tap my finger to my lips, then begin to climb down, as quietly as physically possible, and pull out the knife Milly gave me from my pocket. Slowly, trying not to step on any leaves, I approach the person with my knife raised. Just as I'm about to stab, they turn around and I find myself staring straight into Rose's eyes.

It's too late, my knife is already coming down towards my sister. In a split second, I shove Rose out of the way, and before I can move my hand out of the way, I stab myself in the stomach.

Pure agony sweeps over me as I feel the metal piercing my skin and the hot feel of sticky blood on the blade. I yank the knife straight out and shove my sleeve on the wound, trying to soak up as much of the blood as possible. I fall to my knees, as Hirah drops out of the tree. Everything is fuzzy, blurry but sharp at the same time. It's like a dream, but a terrible one. My hearing starts fading, my eyelids getting heavy, then slowly they fall and everything turns black.