○°●°☆•°~
She turned around after cursing her life out and froze. If a soul ever left a body without dying, it was in that moment that happened for Zara. For a moment she forgot how to breathe and her eyes widened in shock.
There, sitting in her livi...
A/N: I will be putting trigger warnings before chapters, if needed. If it is a trigger for you, feel free to personally message me and I will summarise the chapter for you. The same pattern will follow for not only this chapter but for all the chapters with trigger warnings. Your health matters.
TW: slight physical abuse and mentions of death.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"YOU KILLED HER."
The venom in Stephanie's words wasn't hard to detect for anyone, neither was it for thirteen year old Zara.
"Stephanie, I didn't-" She started, hoping to calm the livid girl. She hadn't killed her so why was her cousin so angry at her? She hadn't done anything.
"I don't wanna listen to your words, you bitch." Stephanie spat and grabbed a hold of Zara's hair, dragging her out of her desk chair in which the young girl had been sitting a moment ago, trying to finish some work before her cousin burst into her room.
Zara yelped in pain and tried to scream for help, even though she knew no one would help her in this cursed house. But Stephanie clamped a hand over her mouth, her long nails digging in her cheek, a clear warning to stay quiet.
"We should've never taken you in." The sixteen year old continued, dragging her out of her room and down the stairs,"Mom was right. You are a problem. You will always cause us problems. You are a burden."
I am not a burden, she wanted to shout, but her voice had abandoned her. A sliver of doubt had started to creep into her mind. Stephanie had been doing this for a month now and it was becoming more and more impossible to keep her out of her head.
Maybe she was right. Maybe Zara was a burden.
Zara immediately shook her head to dismiss the thought. Whatever Stephanie was saying was out of anger. It wasn't true. It wasn't true. It wasn't true.
Right?
Stephanie dragged her towards the back of the giant house and with a start, Zara realised where she was being taken.
No no no.
Her struggles started again and she tried to pry Stephanie's hands away. It didn't work. Stephanie was tall and strong while she was fragile and way smaller.
"Stephanie-" She tried to reason but the tall girl only tightened her hold over her mouth, digging her nails further in her cheek.
She opened a door and dragged Zara down the rotting steps, the sounds echoing in the silence. Zara's bare feet scraped against the chipped wood but she could do nothing to prevent it.
Stephanie slammed and locked the door behind her, bathing them in absolute darkness. She threw Zara at the bottom of the stairs and went deeper into the basement, lighting a candle a moment later.
