My chest starts to heave in panic and my whole world comes crashing down around me. This can’t be happening. My friends are turning on me.
Not all of them, of course… there were only a few down by the shore… but enough of them want me dead that they would sacrifice me to Bethea herself!
Just as I feel complete hopelessness and darkness consuming me, a hand gently rests on my back.
“I’m so sorry,” Drusilla whispers.
I rub my burning eyes and stubbornly blink back the tears. “It’s fine,” I say, “I should’ve seen it coming.”
“It doesn’t make words like that any easier to hear,” she says quietly. I hear her take a long, slow breath. “I’ve found that usually the right path is the harder one to take.”
I scoff. “I guess taking a harder path can turn friends into enemies.”
“No,” answers Dru
