Chapter 1 - The Broken Candles
The brightly decorated living room was choked with the suffocating scent of vanilla frosting and cheap birthday balloons. Elena’s chest rose and fell in ragged, shallow breaths, her short brown hair sticking to her damp forehead. She gripped the heavy wooden stick so tightly her knuckles turned chalk-white against her dark maroon long-sleeve top. Across the room, fifteen-year-old Laura shrank against the edge of the mahogany dining table, her long light brown hair falling in tangled strands over her face. She clutched her blue t-shirt with one hand while instinctively rubbing the dark, ugly bruises blossoming across her slender forearm. Several older relatives stood frozen in the background, their mouths parted in sheer horror, too paralyzed to intervene in the domestic nightmare unfolding before their eyes.
Elena swung the wooden stick violently through the air, the wind hissing with raw malice.
“Laura! Give me the money,” Elena screamed, her voice cracking with a desperate, venomous fury that scraped against the walls.
Laura backed away defensively, her boots tangling in a stray ribbon left over from the party preparations. Her lower lip quivered as she stared at the weapon inches from her face.
“What money are you talking about?” Laura cried out, her voice trembling with genuine terror and utter confusion.
Elena didn't hesitate. With a feral grunt, she lunged forward and brought the wooden stick crashing down directly onto the center of the birthday table. The impact was deafening. White cake frosting and sugary debris exploded outward, plastering the sides of the table and splattering across the front of Elena’s top. A stray chunk of white sponge cake landed squarely on her cheek, yet she did not blink. She stood frozen for a fraction of a second, her dark eyes wide and unhinged, staring intensely at the trembling teenager trapped in front of her.
“Don't lie to me, Iris! You know where he hid the money,” Elena hissed, using a name that made the surrounding relatives gasp in unison.
Laura looked up, her tear-filled, frightened eyes wide with panic as she hugged herself tightly to block out the cold hostility in the room.
“I don't know anything,” Laura whispered, her voice barely audible over the heavy ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.
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Elena raised the wooden stick again, but before she could strike a second time, the heavy front door swung wide open, revealing a familiar figure standing in the doorway holding a duplicate pair of house keys.
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