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Three years and five months ago.

Death

Don't worry, I'm helping you.

Choking on the smoke, I watched the blazing circle closing around me. I knew this was the end, yet I hoped... I hoped. With tears in my eyes, I believed I could survive when I saw a yellow poppy in the hands of the person standing in the dark outside the window. Yellow. The fire flashed and illuminated her face. "Tatya!" I thought she was dead, I'd lost her--and now I found her.

She smiled. "Don't worry, Dimples." Dimples. She only called me that, when she thought her words would make me happy.

"Please!" I'm not happy. I trusted you. "Why?"

"I'm saving you, that's what big sisters are for," she said, and a hot flaming wave hid her face once again. "The fire will redeem your soul, the pain will purge your sins. That's the way of the witches--the only way to cure you of the poison of magic. Isn't that what you wanted?"

No. There was no air to breathe. No place to run. The inferno bit at my bloodied clothes, melting them into my skin. I screamed. No. Please. Death was not a cure.

Don't worry, Dimples. I'm washing away your mistakes.

The voice haunting me in the abyss never belonged to Vlad. It was the voice that promised to always take care of me. As much as I trusted Vlad, he never promised that--he never saw a victim craving a protector. To him, I was an equal. To my big sister, I was a little soul to take care of.

Don't worry, I'm helping you.

You're a poison.

A disease.

An abomination.

But I'll fix it.

Trust me...

And when the sun rose at dawn, her little Dimples was fixed.

Cured.

The witch had burned, God rest her soul.

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