Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt
~ William Shakespeare
Measure For Measure, Act I, Scene IV
...
PROLOGUE
They were late. My plan had backfired and I lay now, my body bloody and broken on the damp ground. If only Edward could see me now. Instead, she kneeled beside me, sobbing and gripping my hand tightly.
I couldn't move. The excruciating pain had faded now and I couldn't feel anything at all. So this was how I would die, in the end. It wasn't how I had imagined all this time. It wasn't how I had planned.
I wanted to turn my head. I wanted to tell her to stop crying over me. I wanted to tell her to just go ahead and do it. My vision began to blur and my heart beat dully in my chest. Faintly, softly. It would soon stop.
She seemed to hear this; the sound of my heart was becoming ever more faint. I watched her hesitate as darkness began to close around me. Do it!
She raised my wrist to her mouth and her gleaming teeth sunk in to my skin. Searing hot pain, like electricity, shot up from my wrist and through my arm, filling my body. But I had no more life in me to cry out. The smell of blood – my own blood – perfumed the air thickly with the scent of rust and bitter salt. An immense wave of nausea washed over me and everything became black.
