The house was too quiet.
Maria Moretti lay still in the dim glow of the chandelier, her once-smooth skin pale and clammy under silk sheets. Her chest rose with shallow effort. Her limbs felt like lead. Every breath dragged like it was borrowed.
She hadn't eaten in days. Not really. The soup always tasted wrong. Bitter. Metallic. Wrong in a way the doctors couldn't explain or refused to.
They called it stress. Her mother rolled her eyes and said it was exhaustion. Damien, her husband, hadn't even looked at her in weeks.
But Maria knew the truth, deep down.
Someone was killing her.
She just didn't have proof. Not yet.
Footsteps. Whispered voices outside the door.
She froze.
"It's working," a female voice murmured. Cool. Familiar.
Keyla. Her younger sister. The one everyone praised. Brilliant. Ambitious. Dangerous.
"She's already weak," Keyla continued. "Another dose or two, and she'll be gone."
Maria's stomach clenched.
"She won't make it through the week," said a deeper voice, flat, uncaring. Damien. Her husband.
Maria's heart squeezed painfully in her chest. Her hands trembled, gripping the blanket.
"I'm tired of pretending," Damien said. "She's useless. Pretty, but nothing more. I want her out of my house."
Out of his house.
The man she'd married. The man who kissed her forehead on their wedding night. The one her parents swore was "a perfect match."
It had all been a lie.
The doorknob turned.
Maria shut her eyes and forced her body limp, chest rising just enough to pass for sleep. Her pulse thudded in her ears.
Damien entered without a sound. His presence filled the room, all cold calculation, no warmth.
He sat beside her.
Then came the soft clang of a spoon against ceramic.
"Drink," he said.
Maria opened her mouth. Swallowed the bitter liquid. Let him think she was still his puppet.
He left just as silently.
She lay frozen. Her blood burned. Her heart thumped erratically. The poison was stronger tonight.
So this was it.
They'd win.
Her vision
blurred. Limbs numb. She stared up at the ceiling the same ornate crown molding she'd memorized as a bride. And now, she'd die beneath it.
Alone. Betrayed.
Her parents had paraded her beauty like a prize.
Keyla had always watched her with veiled disgust.
Damien had never loved her. Only used her.
Maria didn't cry.
Not this time.
Everything dimmed.
And then..
Drip.
Drip.
Rain tapped against glass.
Maria gasped.
She bolted upright, lungs desperate for air.
She was no longer in her bedroom.
The air smelled like vanilla candles.
She turned, wide-eyed. Posters on the wall. Her cracked wooden dresser. A mirror with a faded butterfly sticker she'd placed at sixteen.
This was her old room.
Her childhood room.
She leapt from the bed and stared at herself in the mirror.
Her hair was thick again. Her cheeks full. No sickness. No darkness under her eyes.
She looked… eighteen.
She turned toward her desk. A calendar sat there.
April 15th.
Two months before the engagement.
Two years before the poisoning.
Two years before her death.
Maria staggered back.
This wasn't a dream.
She was back.
Her breathing quickened.
She dropped onto the bed, palms pressed to her temples.
She remembered everything, the slow sickness, the lies, the betrayal.
And now, she was here again.
Alive.
Younger.
Before everything fell apart.
She looked up slowly, eyes locking onto her reflection in the mirror.
There was no fear left in her expression.
Only fire.
"They thought I was a decoration," she whispered. "This time, I'll be the fire that burns them alive.