Page 11 of Broken Butterfly
Chapter 4
Day 2: Finding Elizabeth
Halloween in the Atlantic
“You can’t avoid me, you know.”
“I can try,” I tell myself.
“It won’t work. I’m you and you are me. There’s no two ways around it. Our memories are back, and you can’t deny me anymore.”
I’m sitting in a dark room filled with fairy lights, a mirror in front of me. I glare at my reflection because it’s not really my reflection. She is me. Old Elizabeth. And she’s not happy.
“I want to go back. I want Jayson,” she tells me.
“Well, tough shit,” I snap at her.
“He’ll come for me. You’ll see.”
“I don’t care.”
“Why are you making this so hard on us?”
My fiery green eyes blaze at her. “You never could decide who you wanted. Jayson or Ryder. I made the final choice. The right choice. I chose Ryder. You never could do that. You can’t have both. You were selfish thinking that you could.”
“What about Elizabeth Ann?” she taunts. “She was Jayson’s. We belong with him.”
“Don’t you dare bring her into this. I love my daughter.”
“You can’t fight history, New Elizabeth. Everything we are and have been belong to Jayson.”
“That’s not true. I was making a new life for myself. I was happy. For once in my life, I was truly happy. You could never say that. You could never be happy loving two men. Being with one man while wanting another.”
Old Elizabeth throws back her head and laughs and I want to smack her. “You will never find true happiness with Ryder. You’re deluding yourself if you think you can. Jayson will never let me go.”
“You’re a bitch,” I tell her. “A weak, selfish bitch. I’m a different person now. Stronger. I know what I want.”
“Do you? Open your eyes and see, Elizabeth.”
Those words send chills down my spine. “What?”
My reflection sneers at me. The eyes of my reflection turn heterochromatic, one blue and one brown. It’s not my voice I hear anymore. It’sHis.
“Don’t you see, Elizabeth?”
A thick hand strikes out of the mirror, those dual-colored eyes sparking devil fire. The hand grabs my throat and I start to choke.
“It’s always been about you, sweet Elizabeth. Hailey was a poor substitute for you, just like your new life is a poor substitute for Old Elizabeth’s. You will never win because she and I will never let you go.”
“Kill her,” Old Elizabeth chortles. “Set me free. Let me go back.”
“No!” I scream. “I don’t want my old life back!”
A knife appears in my hand. It’s the same oneHeused on me that night. As his fingers continue to tighten around my throat, I stab blindly at his arm with the knife. I will never allow him to hurt me again. He’s taken too much from me already.
“No!” I scream over and over again. Old Elizabeth is screaming now too, our combined voices creating a sonic blast that shatters the glass of the mirror. Then everything goes silent. It’s just me sitting in the dark room. Alone.
I wake suddenly to tangled sheets around my head. No wonder it felt like I couldn’t breathe. Shit. I haven’t had a bad dream like that in a while. Sleeping in Ryder’s arms usually kept them at bay. At least I don’t have to listen to my asshole neighbor pounding on the wall, telling me he’ll call the police if I didn’t quiet down.
