(DISCONTINUED)

○ 3.0 :: Return of the Dragon ○

Dedicated to @1DLover121 bc she let me use this story and it was pretty much the best thing that ever happened to me so thank you so much for that :)

*

I was barely wake before I had my first two heart attacks of the day.

"Bethany Hart, get up right now!"

That was the first.

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter before, my stomach dropping down to my toes as my mother wrenched the covers off of my body.

"Get up!" She screeched. "Get up right now!"

I reluctantly sat up and rubbed my eyes. "Mum, I didn't-" I stopped abruptly as my eyes landed on a little old lady standing at foot of my bed, looking extremely pleased with herself. "Edna?"

"Hello, Katrina," she grinned, rolling the 'r' a little too much with her accent.

"Edna!" I screamed. "I just had a bloody heart attack!"

Edna just grinned, looking nowhere near as old as she was when she was staring at me with the sort of expression a child might give their mother after showcasing a new talent. "My impression is getting good, no?"

"Holy crap, Edna," I breathed, my heart still violently pounding in my chest as I gripped my hair in an attempt to regain my composure.

She stretched out her arms. "Well aren't you going to say hello?"

I threw my legs over the side of the mattress and launched myself into her chest, wrapping my arms around her tiny shoulders. "God, I've missed you," I sighed.

Edna pulled back until she was only holding onto my hands and smiled the same warm smile that had raised me from the age of five. "I've missed you too, Katrina." She glanced down at my bare legs. "What did I tell you about sleeping with no trousers on, hm?"

"It's comfortable," I said sheepishly.

Edna tutted and shook her head. "Yes, if catching a cold is comfortable," she muttered not-so-under her breath. "We don't have time for this anyway."

I had missed her strong Russian accent over the past month and a half: the way she pronounced her 'w's as 'v's, the way any short 'i' sound was automatically lengthened to an 'ee'. It was the sort of accent you gradually picked up; at first it was just the occasional word or sentence that you accidentally said exactly like the certain person you were talking to, and next thing you knew your mother was yelling at you because you asked "veech" dress to wear to the country club meeting today. "Why? Where are we going?"

Edna grimaced apologetically and I knew I wasn't going to like whatever it was that she was going to say next. "We're going wherever your mother wants us to go."

Disappointment filled my body as I thought back to memories of previous 'ladies' days out', filled with fancy restaurants and trying on hideous clothes in shops with bìtchy stuck up attendants. "What? Why would she decide-"

"Your mother is here, Katrina," Edna interrupted. "She's downstairs."

Remember when I said I had two heart attacks that morning?

Well, that was the second one.

It was more than understandable that once I was finally able to find my voice, it came out as a demented half-scream. "What?!"

"I left her downstairs fixing her make-up in the car so I could come and warn you," Edna explained. "I knew you'd probably be asleep, so I thought I could save you some of her wrath."