Beth gasped, sucking in a massive lungful of air as if she had just broken the surface of the ocean.
Her eyes snapped open.
She was no longer in the white void, but she still wasn't awake in her bedroom. The nightmare had violently shifted, throwing her back into a memory so vivid it felt like reality.
She was standing on the edge of a landing, her feet sinking into a thick, dark red Persian carpet. The air smelled of lemon polish and old wood.
The echo of the little girl's scream was still bouncing off the high, vaulted ceiling of the grand foyer below.
Beth looked down at her hands.
They were small. The skin was soft, unblemished, and lacking the sharp, manicured acrylic nails she had worn for the last ten years. She touched her face. The sharp cheekbones of her adulthood were gone, replaced by the soft roundness of a child.
A wave of dizzying nausea hit her. She grabbed the heavy oak banister to steady herself.
She was trapped in the past. She was experiencing the memory of being twelve years old again, the day her life had truly ended.
Beth forced her eyes to look down the sweeping staircase.
Her heart slammed against her ribs, freezing the blood in her veins.
Lying at the very bottom of the marble stairs, crumpled like a discarded ragdoll, was twelve-year-old Essie Langley.
Essie's head rested at an unnatural angle against the sharp edge of the bottom step. A thick, dark pool of blood was already spreading from her blonde curls, soaking into the pristine white marble.
Beth's breath hitched.
This was it. The exact moment her life had been destroyed. The day she was accused of pushing the golden child of the Langley family down the stairs.
Beth looked down at her own dress. Near the hem of her skirt, three distinct drops of Essie's blood had splattered against the fabric. She was standing too close to the edge. The physical evidence was already against her.
From the dark corridor to her left, the frantic clicking of heels approached rapidly.
A woman rushed onto the landing and grabbed Beth's arm with a vicious, bruising grip.
It was Brenda Paskins. Her adoptive mother.
Brenda was wearing a silk dressing gown that looked expensive but slightly out of style. Her face, usually plastered with a fake, sweet smile, was twisted in raw panic.
Brenda looked down the stairs at Essie's bleeding body. She sucked in a sharp breath, her eyes widening in horror.
Instantly, Brenda's long, sharp fingernails dug deep into the soft flesh of Beth's bicep.
"Did you do this?" Brenda hissed, her voice a venomous whisper right in Beth's ear.
Beth looked at the woman who had sold her out to the Langley family. The urge to shove Brenda down the stairs right then and there was overwhelming.
Instead, Beth kept her face completely blank. She didn't cry. She didn't tremble. She just stared into Brenda's panicked eyes with the cold, dead gaze of a survivor.
Brenda mistook her silence for shock.
She quickly looked around the landing. The hallway was empty. The servants hadn't arrived yet.
Brenda immediately kicked off her right shoe-a soft-soled, embroidered slipper. She bent down, grabbed it, and shoved it roughly into Beth's small hands.
"Listen to me," Brenda commanded, her grip on Beth's arm tightening painfully. "When the staff gets here, you tell them Essie tripped on this slipper. You tell them she slipped and fell. Do you understand me?"
Beth looked down at the slipper in her hands. It smelled faintly of Brenda's cheap floral perfume.
In her past, a terrified twelve-year-old Beth had clutched this slipper, crying hysterically. And when the investigators arrived, that slipper became the "trap" Beth had supposedly laid for Essie. Brenda had walked away completely clean.
Beth's lips curled into a microscopic, chilling smile.
She opened her hands.
The slipper dropped. It bounced off the edge of the landing and tumbled down the long flight of stairs, landing directly in the growing pool of Essie's blood.
Brenda gasped, her face turning purple with rage.
"You stupid little bitch!" Brenda snarled, raising her hand to slap Beth across the face.
Beth's eyes flashed.
Before Brenda's hand could connect, Beth's small arm shot up. She caught Brenda's wrist mid-air.
Beth's twelve-year-old muscles weren't strong, but she used the exact leverage point she had learned in a self-defense class years later. She twisted the wrist sharply downward.
Brenda let out a sharp yelp of pain, her knees buckling slightly.
"Don't touch me," Beth whispered, her voice devoid of any childish fear.
Before Brenda could recover, the sound of heavy footsteps echoed from the foyer below.
A group of servants, led by a much younger Martha Stokes, rushed around the corner and froze at the sight of Essie.
"Oh my God!" Martha screamed, dropping the silver polishing cloth in her hands. "Call the doctor! Call Mr. Langley's physician immediately!"
The foyer erupted into chaos. Servants ran in every direction.
The moment Martha screamed, Brenda's entire demeanor shifted with terrifying speed.
She violently yanked her wrist out of Beth's grip. She threw her arms around Beth, pulling the girl into a tight, suffocating hug, burying Beth's face in her silk robe.
"Oh, my poor baby!" Brenda wailed loudly, pitching her voice so it echoed down the stairs. "Martha! Come quickly! We just walked out and saw poor Essie fall! Beth is completely paralyzed with shock!"
Beth stood stiffly in Brenda's embrace, the cloying smell of the woman's perfume making her stomach churn.
She looked over Brenda's shoulder.
Down in the foyer, the estate's private doctor was already sprinting through the front doors, a black medical bag in his hand.
But Beth's eyes bypassed the chaos below. She looked down the second-floor corridor, toward the heavy, closed oak doors at the far end.
The study of Gaston Langley.
The real storm wasn't the bleeding girl at the bottom of the stairs. The real storm was sitting behind those doors, waiting to pass judgment.
