Willow grabbed Rose by the neck before the latter could jump. Willow squeezed tight with her gauntleted hand, drawing blood, thanks to the sharpness of her metal and the softness of her sister's skin.
Willow met Rose's eyes as she continued squeezing harder. Tighter. Crueler.
She ignored the shouts from the crowd. If only someone had shouted like that for her sake.
Eventually, following a soft crack, the light in Rose's eyes faded. Her arms hung limp at her sides. Her nails and fingers were bloody from trying to tear Willow's arm away from her throat.
The red blood dripped to the wooden floor with pattering sounds that haunted the painful silence that followed in the wake of Rose's death.
"No going back now."
Willow dropped Rose's dead body to the floor.
The crowd shouted at her in outrage. But the grizzled elders that seemed to have fused with their seats at the top of the amphitheater's seats were unmoved.
