CHAPTER 7

DIANA'S POV The morning was quietly unquiet. Not the peaceful kind of quiet, but the kind that clings to you, thick and suffocating. The kind that signals an impending storm. I was smarter than to think silence in this house. Alex had left early that morning, and with him the sole fragile barrier between me and what was to come. Lily didn't tarry. I heard the stiff, rehearsed clack of her heels against the frozen stone floors before I had even seen her. The sound had grown as familiar to me as my own breathing—a signal, a mark of the poison she bore. I canted my head, gaze following the monotonous rhythm of the broom forcing dust into a neat pile. A mundane, senseless task. One that I had done too many times before. But I wasn't thinking about dust. I was thinking about survival. "Maybe today, she'll leave me alone." It was a futile wish. "Good morning, Diana." Her tone was honey-sweet, with a pretended civility. But under it was poison. I didn't reply. Experience had sh