This will be rather scandalous, Marissa thought.
No matter. It should all be over in a few moments, and if the prince was really on her side now, they might even learn to like each other. Perhaps.
The girl's eyes narrowed. Marissa stared daggers back at her, into her heart. She was going to do it. She wouldn't back down now. She didn't care what might happen to her family. She didn't care if she was wrong.
Marissa's hand tightened on her sword.
That single nagging feeling, the thought that was there in her mind, was the only thing holding Marissa back.
But then the girl's eyes narrowed even further. Marissa's eyebrows raised. And, with the snap of a finger, Marissa lunged at the girl.
It was a sharp crack, like a cicada sting. Sharp and piercing. As Marissa's blow landed upon the girl, a knife was plunged into her. The blade sank deep into her throat. She screamed. And then she started to laugh.
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The sound was terrible. Like a gurgle, like a loud sob. There was blood. As much as a man could bleed from an open stomach wound, she was bleeding. She was in agony. But she wasn't dead yet.
She tried to scream again, but the cruel blow had split her throat in two and sent her into such spasming pain that she couldn't get the air to escape. Marissa felt her neck being pulled backwards and she gasped, dimly aware of the crowd's gleeful cheers, and the fact that she couldn't breathe.
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Marissa was in a room inside a house. It took a moment for her to recall what had happened - the knife's sharp, cold tip piercing her throat, her warm, slick blood seeping down her chest. In that moment she realized something pushing up against her, shoving her into a wall, scraping her back. Her mouth opened in a scream, and she began to cough.
"Marissa!"
It took Marissa another second to realize with brutal clarity that she was still in the bathroom, her hand aching from its tense grip on the hard bristles of the hairbrush. She was trying to pull away from the pain, and her phone was ringing.