PROLOGUE
“Do you think I’m pretty?” Amanda asked with a tearful sob. I thumbed away her tears, the way I always did. The shower grew heavier and the rain flattened her platinum curls against her skull. I blinked away a rain drop caught on my eyelash.
“Of course,” I whispered, breathless, without thinking. And I soon regretted it, just as I realized how Amanda’s crystal blue eyes had darkened to a deep violet, almost black. A little smile played on her lips and I knew. She trapped me.
I smiled bitterly. How I hated to lose.
“You clever witch.” The black widow.
She smiled wider, the corners of her mouth suddenly splitting. Blood tricked, rolled, then poured as the tearing slowly traveled up towards her ears, like the run of a stocking. Bloody slivers of torn flesh kept her jaws together as her irises became a dazzling ruby red, just like the streams of crimson that dripped off her chin. The fabric of Amanda’s ivory skirt greedily drank the blood and the stains flourished like the blooming flowery patterns of a sun dress.
The whites of her eyes had completely darkened to black as she let out a shrill, dark laugh like a crow’s caw. Blood spilled over her once attractive, pouty lips as she began to speak, blood splattering across the bridge of my nose. It stung like acid.
The soft patter of the rain on the sidewalk became roaring in my ears as I stared into Hell.
“Am I pretty now?”
I blinked away my stinging tears and raindrops and smiled with grim sarcasm.
“Gorgeous.”
