my empire of dirt, adna

[adna]

one touch will make you so nervous you might stop breathing
one touch will make you so reckless you might start feeling
one touch will finally show to me what you can't hide

Adna has had to live with her guilt since she parted ways with her sister.

She has had to know that a child is growing in her belly that will have both a sister and a cousin. She has to know her secret will come out eventually and it will burn her sister the way that she is burning now. The only thing that she can do is live with the poison in her belly and let it eat away at her.

Affect only her—only her—for as long as she can.

What she does not expect, could never expect, is how her sister would drag Ophanim into this. There is nothing but confusion on her face as she moves forward, her scaled belly swelling with the growing life.

“Ophie?” her confusion washes across her delicate features as she steps forward but it is quickly replaced with dread when she listens to him. Her heart stops cold and she just shakes her head. “I-I,” she stumbles over her words, swallows hard. “I don’t know what to say. I am so sorry.” It seems like all she does these days is apologize and she is not sure she will ever reach a time when the apologies don’t come so easily.

“It’s my fault, Ophie. It’s all my fault. I have made such a mess of things.”

She looks behind her to the woods and hopes against hope Beth is not nearby. That he is doing something else—avoiding her, perhaps—but anything but close enough to overhear this.

When her gaze comes back to the angelic boy in front of her, she just sighs.

“I don’t know what to do,” she chokes out. “I can’t seem to do anything right anymore.”

ADNA