Book 18: I'm a Dead Woman

Fallon

There is no point in bracing myself. Aunt Sarah grabs me and pulls me against her chest, cursing first, then mumbling a rushed prayer while tangling her fingers in my hair. The familial compound on Maatua looks and smells the way it always does. Nothing has changed. Not a single picture is out of place.

But everything feels different now. Tense and strained. It’s, most definitely, my fault.

“Is my mom going to kill me?” I murmur against her collarbone.

“She’s made threats, yes,” Sarah doesn’t let me go for a long time. So long, in fact, that I start to wonder if she’s embracing me this way because she’s forgotten she’s doing it. I untangle myself, leaning back enough to track her eyes.

She’s staring at the old man in the doorway.