A SISTER’S REVENGE

The call came at 11:47 PM on a Tuesday. Alexa Lean was folding laundry in her home bedroom she'd shared with her sister for eleven years after their parents death . The room was somewhat empty now except for her stuff filling the room. Alice's bed had been stripped and her posters had been taken down. Alice's smell…jasmine and pencil shavings and something that was just Alice had faded months ago, replaced by the sterile scent of bleach and neglect. The phone was a cheap burner. Alexa didn't own a smartphone. Couldn't afford one. Couldn't afford much of anything except the bus fare she'd been saving for two years. When she picked the call the voice on the other end was a stranger's. "Alexa Lean?" "Yes." "This is Detective Marlene Cross from the Westbrook Police Department. I need you to sit down." Alexa didn't sit. She leaned against the wall, the same wall where Alice had carved their initials with a safety pin when they were nine. A&A Forever. "I'm standing," Alexa said. A pause. The kind of pause that happens before someone tells you your life has ended. "Your relative, I assume, Alice Lean, was found approximately three hours ago in Lake Westbrook on the campus of Westbrook University. Preliminary investigation suggests accidental drowning or more likely….” She paused bracing Alexa “…Murder, we are still waiting for the autopsy results. I'm so sorry for your loss." The words arrived like stones thrown at glass. They shattered something inside Alexa, but she didn't make a sound. She'd learned not to cry when she was six years old, watching her mother's casket lower into frozen ground. Her father had already been gone before they were born, a photograph, a name, nothing more. "You're her only listed emergency contact," the detective continued. "Someone will need to come identify the body." The body. Not Alice. Not her sister. Not the girl who'd held Alexa's hand during thunderstorms and taught her how to French braid her hair and promised they'd get a bigger apartment together after college, a real home, the first real home they'd ever have. "I'll come," Alexa said. The clothes she was folding suddenly became so heavy. She didn’t cry, she couldn’t. She was going through the first stage of grief…denial. The first bus heading to Westbrooke tomorrow was to leave by 6:00am. She had six hours to pack her entire life into a single duffel bag. She didn't pack much clothes. She packed Alice's things, the ones that Alice hadn't thrown away. A hairbrush with dark strands still tangled in the bristles. A notebook half-filled with song lyrics. A sweatshirt that still smelled like jasmine. She stared at the brush as if summoning it to life with her eyes. ********** (FLASHBACK) “Ouch! Careful Alice, you might just rip my whole hair out.” Alexa said, teasing. “Oh relax, I barely even touched your hair yet…. And…done.” Alexa stared at the mirror grinning from ear to ear “My magic fingers strike again.” Alice praised herself “Oh please.” “Now you’ve got hair all over my brush, keep it.” “Fine.” Alexa dragged the brush from her hand. “Fine.” Alice mimicked her and they both laughed. ****************** (PRESENT) She threw the brush into the bag and she sat on Alice's empty bed and waited for dawn. She didn't cry. She would never cry again. Not for Alice. Not for anyone. ********* The bus ride took fourteen hours. Alexa watched the world change through a window streaked with grime. The city fell away first, abandoned buildings, pawn shops, check-cashing stores. Then the suburbs. Then farms. Then trees so thick they looked like walls. She'd never been this far from home. Neither had Alice, until she got the scholarship. The full ride. The chance to escape. And now Alice was dead in a lake. Alexa didn't believe it was an accident. Not for a second. She couldn't explain why, she didn't have evidence or logic or any of the things detectives looked for. She had something else. She had knowing. When you share a womb with someone, when you spend every day of your life with them, when you finish their sentences and feel their pain in your own bones,you will know when something is wrong. And something was wrong. Alice had called her three days before she died. Not the usual weekly check-in, the gossip, the laughter. This call was different. Alice's voice was tight. Her words came too fast. "Lex, I need to tell you something. But not over the phone. I'll explain when I see you." "See me? When?" "Soon. I want you to come visit. “I need to know what’s wrong now.” “Just promise me you will come." "Alice, you're scaring me." "Promise?” "I promise." The line went dead. Alexa had called back twelve times. No answer. Then thirteen. Then twenty. Then she'd told herself she was being paranoid. Alice was probably stressed about her exams and now she was being dramatic. “Always looking for an excuse to see me.” Alexa said to her self tossing the burner phone on the bed. Turns out she wasn't fine, because now she was dead. And someone had killed her.