Free In the Shadow of Angels: The Guardian Series 1 by Fanny Lee Savage Page B

He told me so.”
    Part of me was glad, the other just felt horrible.
    “When he left, I should have told you that I had made a move on him that day. He didn’t push me away, it was worse. He allowed me to come on to him and then told me he could never love me the way he did you.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. I wanted to take my words back, tell her I was sorry. That I had never wanted to hurt her. The sight of her in pain was just as physical as if it were my own. And it was. She was my other half. I reached my hand out and touched her arm.
    Emily turned her face to mine. In the dark, the light from the moon gleam in her eyes. Mad and dangerous. Her smile twisted into a sneer. The streaks of tears glistened on her cheeks. “I hated you for it. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I hated you. I still do.”
    I pulled my hand back as if bitten.
    “You think it was easy growing up with you? Hearing them whisper how great you were? How special?” Emily laughed again, but this time there was something in it that was false. It echoed and bounced in the car. No mirth, no emotion. Vacant. “You were always so good. So sweet.”
    “It wasn’t easy to live with me?” I wasn’t sure what world she lived in, but it wasn’t one based in reality. “You were the one to get all the attention.”
    Her laugh was high, verging on mad. She was still gripping the steering wheel as if hanging on for her life. “Henri told me he was going to marry you. I can’t let that happen.”
    I was beginning to question her sobriety, maybe even her sanity.
    “I love you, Char, I really do. But I can’t let you win. He was meant for me.” Emily seemed suddenly calm and focused. A tingle of fear spread in the pit of my stomach, cold vines lacing up, tangled in my gut.
    Emily had always won, always gotten whatever she had wanted. I had envied how she had somehow gotten the extra DNA that made her more beautiful, more desirable to everyone around us. I had been jealous at first that even Henri had wanted her over me. But, in her eyes, I had been the one to receive the admiration.
    Her version of our childhood seemed distorted. She had betrayed me out of jealousy. I had always swallowed my pride and fell back as she got all the attention. It sickened me that my sister couldn’t stand that I was the focus of Henri’s desire. Of anyone’s. Instead of easing my pain, she let me believe that Henri had hurt me. She was right. I was naive. I couldn’t see my twin for what she was.
    How had I missed this person? How had I grown up giving her every benefit of the doubt, protecting her from herself and everyone around her? I had stood there while she had developed into a stranger. Maybe I had seen her cruelty and callousness but ignored it. She was my other half; we were an exact match. But something in her was wrong. I saw it then.
    “I never meant for you to get hurt,” I told her.
    Emily turned to look at me. Her face was blank. One hand left the steering wheel and tugged at her seat belt, then went to the small angel charm around her neck.
    “I’m sorry, Char.”
    Someone said that time slows down during traumatic events. Like the powers that be push a button, imprinting your brain with each image, burning them forever in your memory. It wasn’t like that at all. What happened next didn’t playout in slow motion. I didn’t see each detail frame by frame. It was a blur of motion, an infusion of sounds and smells. The lasting impression of horrific betrayal.
    Emily yanked the wheel of our father’s small vintage car, forcing it off the road. My head slammed into the side door, my vision blurring as the wheels caught, and the car spun out of control. There were slick sounds of the tires failing to grip the wet grass. I watched her hands on the wheel, how she gripped it tight, struggling to regain control. I saw the line of trees stretched out in front of us. Felt the sickening twist in my stomach; the sudden truth we were going to