[/html]She was drowning. With body curled and her head buried, she could not see and she could not breathe. Blood rolled over her tongue inside her closed jaws and her lungs screamed for new air. Cassandra did not notice her sister rise or move or pace, and though her body jumped at the noise, she did not really acknowledge the abuse of the desk and the clattering of the bone to the floor. Her stomach lurched and she felt again the pressure against the back of her throat. She swallowed hard, sucking in another ragged breath as she did so, and tried to calm her heaving chest.
The pallid woman laughed again when her sister spoke, though she did not really hear the words. Her voice was softer now, too asphyxiated and heavy to maintain its prior volume. She uncurled slowly, taking gasping breaths in between desperate giggles and hacking coughs as she continued to supress the urge to vomit. "I was pregnant," she continued. There was barely substance to her voice now; she had to consciously work more saliva into her mouth between the swallows of blood. "They could have been his... they could have been anyone's." A shrill sob of laughter. "I killed them too. They were never born."
Cassandra lay on her side on the bed of furs, uncertain of how she got there. Her knees were still drawn halfway up to her chest, but she did not hold them in place. Tremors rocked her body with each breath she drew, but slowly, gradually, the terror gave way to exhaustion. The adrenaline had run its course and there was no energy left to feel or fear or say anything more. Her eyes were open, but she didn't know what she was looking at. She breathed in whimpering gasps. She didn't know how to do anything else.
It had been nearly two years already, but she had never said the words before, even alone, even to Lady. There had never been anyone else to tell or to care. It had taken everything she had to even tuck it away in a place she did not look at every day. They were someone else's secrets.The things she'd said and admitted to were only lies, pretend nightmares and scary stories. They never happened to her. She had never loved. She had never killed. She had never been betrayed. She had never been left alone. She breathed.
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