Page 160 of Her Wicked Plan

“You were the only person in this damned world that I loved! You were my sister, and even though you were such a bitch to me, I still loved you. I still looked up to you!”

Real tears pool in her eyes. From my words or the volume of my voice, who knows?

“I’m not sorry for killing him because we both know you were so blinded by your love for him that you couldn’t see what he was doing to you!” She told the police that he never hurt her. Never laid a hand on her. She was lucky those bruises had faded to nothing by the time they talked to her. “I did it to save you! Because I loved you enough to remove you from a shitty situation. To save you from being killed by him someday!”

The tears stream down her face, but she stays silent.

“And what thanks do I get for being a good sister?” I stand up from the table, glaring down at her frozen body. Blood rushes back to my hands, warming my knuckles. “I got sent to the fucking nut house while you lived your prissy, privileged life. You only came for an apology, not to see how I was doing. What a waste of time for the both of us.”

Digging my heel into the floor, I spin and rip the door open. I can’t look at her for another second.

Storming out of the visitation room, I slam into a hard wall of muscle. I go to push them away, but their hands cuff my wrists. Angered, I raise my eyes to tell them off when I see it’s Leo. His eyes cautiously search mine, witnessing the heat build inside.

Tightening his jaw, he glances at the visitation room before leading me away from my sister. We weave around patients in the hall, which thankfully grows less and less the more we get away from where we were. Turning a corner, he walks us up to a door. He checks through the window and our surroundings before unlocking it and tugs me behind him.

My vision blurs with red, and I cannot distinguish what is around me. Suddenly, I feel his hand on my back, pushing me forward, and another door shutting. Locking.

“Veronica.” My head is in his hands, but I can’t see his face. “I need you to calm down and tell me what happened.”

Furiously, I shake my head, attempting to escape his grasp. The walls are closing in. It’s getting hard to breathe. This feeling is one I’ve had before when I was locked in confinement for the very first time.

A panic attack.

“I can't... I can’t...” The words sputter out of me, unable to finish a sentence.

“What?” Leo brushes his thumb along my cheek. “Come on, Vee. Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours, baby.”

The single word has me snapping my gaze on him, making him less blurry than before. “I can’t... breathe.”

Leo is letting go of my head, racing to a window, and pushing it open. Aren’t they secured? Coming back to me, he takes my hand and grabs his desk chair setting it before the open window. He sits me down, the fresh air spilling into my lungs. Inhaling in a deep breath, I gasp for oxygen.

Grabbing ahold of the air I seek and force it down my throat. My lungs, which felt empty only seconds ago, heave as the air finds its way back home. The breeze blows my hair back, strands removed from my face as nature's hand tucks the hair behind my ears.

“That’s it, breathe.” His voice is smooth beside me. Calm. Like a siren on the shore calling out to me, saving me from drowning in the storm.

Shutting my eyes firmly, I inhale another breath. The warm air feels like relief in my body, and when I’m breathing steadily, I say, “I can’t believe you witnessed me having a panic attack.”

“It’s all right, Vee.”

“No, it’s not!” I fling open my eyes to stare at him. “It makes me look weak!”

“I don’t have to worry about that with me.”

“I can’t believe I let her get to me like that.” I stare out the window. The land stretches out far, trees scattered around the grass, and weeds sprout from the ground around the trunks.

“What happened?” he asks once again.

“She apologized for being mean to me all our lives.”

I can hear the confusion in his voice when he slowly says, “That’s a good thing.”

Shaking my head, I frown. “She only did it because she was expecting me to apologize for killing him. She didn’t mean any of it.”

“How do you know she didn't?”

Prying my eyes from the scenery, I find his eyes. “You didn’t see her face when I called her out.”

He sighs, feeling bad that this is how it went—that it didn’t go the way he wanted it to.