The Twin Who Jumped Free Chapter 2

I awoke to a razor blade lodged in my trachea.

Every shallow breath felt like dragging broken glass across raw meat. When I opened my eyes, there were no surgical lamps, no scrub nurses, no family.

Just the peeling water-stained ceiling of a six-bed public ward.

I was shoved into the bed closest to the drafty corridor door. The anesthesia hadn't completely cleared my system; my left side felt heavy and dead, like wet sand. Instinctively, my fingers reached toward my neck.

The moment my fingertips brushed the thick gauze dressing, an electric jolt of white-hot agony tore straight through my skull.

A ragged gasp tore out of me, but no sound followed. Just a dry, hollow wheeze.

"A tiny mark? A surface scratch?"

My hand trembled as I mashed the red nurse-call button hanging from the iron rail.

Ten minutes crawled by before a young nurse pushed the curtain aside. Seeing me awake, a flicker of uneasy pity crossed her features. "You're up? The pain is going to be intense for a while—they had to dissect through superficial muscle layers."

I opened my mouth, gesturing frantically at my throat, mouthing the words: "Where are my parents?"

The nurse sighed, stepping forward to adjust the roller clamp on my IV drip. "Your family is down in the private surgical wing. At the very end of the hall. Suite 401."

She hesitated, looking away. "Your twin sister’s endoscopic procedure wrapped up an hour ago. They’re all in there with her."

My chest seized.

While I was strapped down and sliced open, they hadn't even waited for me to wake from the anesthesia. They had rushed Natalie straight into her own suite, eager to coddle their precious girl the second her eyes fluttered open.

I ripped the IV needle from the back of my hand.

A fat bead of dark blood welled on my skin and spilled over my knuckles.

"Hey! What are you doing?" the nurse shouted, reaching for my arm. "You can't get up yet! You're still a fall risk!"

I didn't answer. I couldn't.

Clutching the bloody bandages at my throat, my bare feet hit the freezing linoleum. The sharp stench of bleach and rubbing alcohol turned my stomach into an acid knot, but I kept walking. One shuffling, agonizing step at a time, dragging myself down the endless hallway toward the sunlit wing at the end.

The door to Suite 401 was cracked open an inch.

A ripple of warm, golden laughter drifted through the gap.

"Our brave little songbird," Mom's voice was so thick with adoration it sounded like honey pouring over velvet. "The specialist said the incision in your mouth was clean. Your high notes are going to sound even clearer than before."

"She was amazing," Dad chimed in, his tone light and buoyant—a voice I hadn't heard him use in years. "Not a single tear."

I peered through the vertical slit of the door.

Sunlight flooded the private room. Vases of fresh pink peonies and hydrangeas crowded every surface. Natalie was propped up against a mountain of goose-down pillows, a tiny, neat square of flesh-toned tape sitting over the corner of her throat.

Mom sat on the edge of the mattress, blowing gently on a bowl of warm bone broth, lifting the spoon to Natalie's lips with infinite patience. Dad sat in the armchair beside them, peeling an apple into paper-thin, translucent slices, arranging them on a porcelain saucer like petals.

A perfect, complete family of three.

As if the other daughter—the one currently bleeding through a thick bandage down the hall—had never existed at all.

I pushed the door open. The hinge gave a low, metallic groan.

The laughter died instantly.

All three heads snapped toward the doorway.

When Natalie saw me—pale as chalk, shivering in a stained gown, a thick collar of blood-soaked gauze wrapped around my neck—she gasped and pulled the duvet up to her chin.

Mom set the porcelain bowl down on the bedside table with a sharp "clack". Her brow knotted into an immediate scowl as she crossed the room in brisk, irritated strides.

"Iris! What on earth are you doing out of bed?" Her voice was a hushed hiss, sharp with rebuke. "Look at you—you look like a madwoman! You're going to give your sister a panic attack. She just got out of recovery!"

I stared at her, my vision blurring with hot, furious tears.

I opened my mouth to scream at her, to demand an answer, to ask how she could leave me behind. But all that escaped my ruined throat was a grotesque, wheezing rattle, like air hissing through a punctured tire.

Tears spilled over my lashes, scalding my cheeks.

Dad rose from his chair, positioning himself like a shield in front of Natalie's bed. "Get back to your room, Iris. Don't start drama here. The doctor specifically said Natalie needs complete calm."

I pointed a shaking, blood-spotted finger at the thick dressing taped to my neck.

"Can’t you see this?" I screamed in my mind. "Can’t you see that I am bleeding, too?"

Mom let out an exasperated sigh. She reached into her cardigan pocket, pulled out a travel pack of tissues, and shoved them into my limp hands.

"I know it hurts, Iris, but your sister's operation was delicate. Yours was just a tiny exploratory nick. It'll heal in three days. Stop making a mountain out of a molehill." She turned me toward the door by my shoulders, careful not to let my gown brush her clean linen trousers. "Go back and lie down. I'll come down and handle your discharge paperwork later."

She didn't even offer an arm to steady me.

From the bed, Natalie peeked out from behind the duvet, her voice a breathy, sweet purr. "Thank you for testing the needle for me, Iris. I wasn't scared at all. When we get home, you can have that pink designer skirt I grew out of, okay?"

I squeezed the wad of cheap tissues until my nails dug through the paper and bit into the meat of my palm.

A memory from three winters ago flashed across my eyes.

Twelve years old. We had both come down with a brutal strain of influenza, burning with fevers pushing a hundred and four. A blizzard had paralyzed the roads; the ambulance couldn't make it up our hill. There was only one dose of liquid fever reducer left in the medicine cabinet.

Mom had poured it into a small dosing cup, walking straight into the bedroom. I had been delirious, my teeth chattering so hard I could barely keep my eyes open, thinking she was finally coming to save me.

Instead, Mom had used two fingers to pry my jaws apart.

"Be a good girl, Iris. Open wide."

I thought she was going to pour the medicine down my throat. Instead, she shoved her index finger deep toward my tonsils, triggering my gag reflex until I vomited the half-cup of chicken broth I had managed to keep down.

"You have food in your stomach—it’ll take too long to absorb," Mom had muttered clinically, wiping her fingers on a towel. "Natalie's stomach is empty. The medicine will work faster on her."

That night, Natalie slept like an angel under a mountain of blankets.

I spent twelve hours shivering on an unheated cot in the drafty back utility room, my muscles seizing in violent convulsions from the fever. When Mom finally pushed the door open the next morning and saw me still breathing, she merely gave a faint, detached nod.

"Broke the fever on your own? Iron constitution, just like the psychic said."

Standing in the doorway of Suite 401, looking at the apple slices and the flowers, I realized nothing had changed. Nothing ever would.

I closed my eyes, turned on my bare heels, and dragged my numb legs down the hallway.

Behind me, the heavy oak door clicked shut with a heavy, final "thud", locking me out in the cold.

"Mom," Natalie's voice drifted faintly through the wood. "The broth is getting cold."