Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2) by Rina Kent

I can’t even make out my own breathing.

I can’t even hear my own heartbeat.

“Hush…”

“Hush…”

“Shut up!” I scream, but no words come out. “Shut up, Ma!”

The little girl raises her head.

I freeze.

Slowly, too slowly, her head turns in my direction. My heartbeat nearly stops when I meet those blue eyes.

The same eyes as mine.

Me.

The girl is me.

I looked like a little monster at that time, too. I was a monster just like them.

Tears run down her cheeks. Black, inky tears.

A chill crawls down my abdomen and straight to my ribcage as she mouths something.

I squint, trying to make out what she’s saying.

“Help. Me.” She mouths over and over again.

My heart jolts in its cavity, but before I can do anything, a dark figure snatches her from Ma’s arms.

Ma shrieks and I shriek, too, when the dark figure throws little Elsa in the lake’s water.

The dark, murky water swallows her whole.

“Help me!” The voice screams in my head.

I wake up with a hoarse cry, tears streaming down my cheeks.



* * *



For a second, I’m screaming so loud, I can’t recognise what’s in my surroundings. For a second, I feel like I’m in that water, hauled in its inky depth.

I’m floating. My lungs burn with the need for air, but the hand won’t let me be up.

I can’t breathe.

My name will be forgotten, too.

It takes me some time for other voices to filter back into my consciousness.

A soothing calming voice.

A familiar non-threatening voice.

I blink twice and Dr Khan’s blurry image comes into view.

I swallow past the ball in my throat and my choked breaths.

“I’m not in the lake,” I say, searching my surroundings.

“No, you’re not.” He offers me a glass of water.

I gulp it down in one go letting it soothe my scratchy throat.

However, I’m still searching for the lake.

For the little girl who asked me for help.

Dr Khan sits opposite me, watching me intently the way I imagine a researcher would watch his lab rats. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t know,” I choke out.

“Do you feel like you got anything out of your subconsciousness?”

“Yes.” I meet his gaze through blurry eyes. “I think I’m not normal.”

“Not normal how?”

“I’m just abnormal, Dr Khan.”

“How did you come to that conclusion?”

“I want to go back again.” I bite down the fear and terror clawing at my chest. “I need to know why I’m not normal.”





10





Elsa





Kim and I walk through the hall as she tells me about her latest Korean soap opera.

I nod along, but I’m not hearing a word she’s saying. Since my appointment with Dr Khan yesterday, I’ve been in this haze of my own making.

Last night, I relived the same memory. When I woke up, I found myself still trapped in the nightmare. It took me a few fake wake-up cycles to come back to the world of the living.

I had to watch that dark figure drowning the child version of me over and over again.

I had to listen to her gurgles and cries for help.

I drowned with her, too.

Black water swallowed me whole and I couldn’t scream or come out, no matter how much I tried to.

It was like my own custom hell.

For some reason, I didn’t scream when I finally opened my eyes to find myself sweating in my bed.

I didn’t wake Aunt and Uncle. I just washed my hands over and over. At that moment, when I looked in the mirror, I contemplated breaking it to pieces.

It took everything in me not to confront Aunt and Uncle and ask them what the hell they’re hiding from me.

This is my life. Mine. How can they keep me in the dark about it?

I stopped myself because if I raise any red flags with them and they figure out my secret therapy plan with Dr Khan, they’d put an end to it. He’s sworn to patient confidentiality, but I’m still seventeen. As my guardians, Aunt and Uncle could — and would — ruin the progress I’ve been making in my therapy.

Maybe it’s because of the endless nightmares, or what I’ve seen in said nightmares, but today, I’m exhausted, lethargic and… numb.

“It’s going to be so much fun.”

My attention snaps back to Kim. “What?”

“A party at Ronan’s.”

I groan. “Not again.”

“Yes, again! We’re totally breaking some records this year.”

“I’m in no mood to break any records.”

“Ellie?” Kim stops and makes me stop, too. We’re standing near our class as she watches me too intently, it’s almost creepy. “Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

“You’re not, are you?” She asks slowly, appearing on the verge of panicking.

Shit. I forgot that Kim, Aunt, and Uncle have been keeping a close watch on me since the pool incident.

Aunt and Uncle think I don’t know, but I heard them talking to the principal on the phone.

Their exact words were: Please contact us if anything out of the ordinary happens to Elsa at school.