It hit me the way it had eight years ago, standing there watching my parents burn alive. Their voices kept trading places in my head, overlapping, doubling back, until nothing I was hearing matched anything I could feel. I stumbled out of the villa and couldn't hold it anymore, crouching on the roadside and throwing up until there was nothing left.
My eyes burned red. In the end I couldn't breathe, and all I could do was claw at the fabric over my chest, trying to make the pain ease up even a little.
There were only two things I had left in the world—William, and the seeds my parents left behind.
If either one ceased to exist, the pain would be more than I could survive.
I should have stepped out and confronted them right there. I knew that. But I had nothing left in me.
I could accept betrayal from anyone. Why did it have to be William?
I didn't even have the courage to confront him.
Born in the same delivery room, pulled into the world by the same doctor's hands. William, who had been by my side for as long as I could remember.
Why did it have to be him?
I pulled a slip of paper from my pocket, something I always carried with me, and stared at the faded writing.
My tears soaked through it.