Chapter Five
The Transformation of Cassandra
I slept peacefully until early the next afternoon. When I woke up Cassandra wasn’t there. My first thought was that she had changed her mind about our arrangement and had left me in the middle of the night. Without her near, it felt like the walls of my small bedroom were closing in upon me. I started to panic. My breathing became shallow and my heart began pounding in my chest. Then I heard noises coming from the kitchen and smelled food cooking.
“Cassandra?” I shouted.
“Are you awake?” she called out.
A visceral wave of relief washed over me when I heard her voice. She hadn’t left me. I breathed out and relaxed.
“I just woke up!” I called back.
As I sat up in bed, a disturbing thought crept into my consciousness. “I’ll tie her to the
