When Mom Wants Me to Join Her in Death

I ended up back in the hospital. And this time, it clearly scared Claire half to death.

She cried so hard, and she was apologizing over and over. "I'm so sorry, Maeve. This is all my fault. If I hadn't insisted on fulfilling Mom's last wish, this never would've happened to you. I'm so sorry..."

In my previous life, right up until the day I died, she never once slipped up about the injury-transfer phenomenon. It always left me wondering whether she truly knew about it.

She was my only living family member. I didn't want to think the worst of her.

But she just wouldn't stop crying. Her voice seemed to drill into my skull. Between that and the ridiculous way I kept getting hurt, my patience snapped.

"Enough! Why did you have to go skydiving? Didn't I tell you to stay home?

"Mom's dead! Are her last words really that important to you? Important enough to make you throw your life away?

"I had bodyguards guarding the house around the clock. How did you even get out?"

It wasn't just bodyguards watching her. From the day I came back, I'd had cameras installed in every corner of the house. And yet, not a single camera caught how she slipped out of that house.

Claire suddenly went quiet, and her sobbing stopped. Tears hung from her lashes as she stared at my bandaged face in stunned silence.

"Maeve, what are you saying? That's our mom! How can you... say something like that?"

The last few words were barely a whisper. It was as if she might break if I pushed any further.

"And how did you even know I went skydiving? Were you spying on me?"

Guilt flickered in my eyes, but I kept my voice firm. "You only need to know that I had your best interests in mind. Now, answer me! How did you get out of the house?"

A flicker of hurt passed over her face. When she spoke again, her voice sounded low and defeated. "I used the dog hole we dug when we were kids. I crawled out through it."

Hearing this, I was stunned.

Our parents had divorced. Claire went with Mom, and I stayed with Dad.

It wasn't until Dad suddenly went bankrupt and Mom fought for custody that I moved in with them, and we started living under the same roof.

Back then, when they first brought me home, I was moody and volatile. I was only willing to play with stray dogs in the yard. But Mom had a strict no-pets rule.

When Claire caught me sneaking food out to a puppy, she didn't tell on me. We dug that hole along the fence. It was one of the few peaceful memories we ever shared.

I'd had the bodyguards watching her so closely because I'd wanted proof she wasn't the one doing this. I wanted to clear her in my own mind.

But now, everything was pointing straight at the answer I least wanted to see.

Lying in my hospital bed, I called out her name. "Claire Dawson."

She straightened up at once. Her spine snapped rigid, and her eyes were wide with alarm.

"If you still think of me as your sister, then from today on, you'll stay home. You won't go anywhere."

"W... Why?" she asked.

I shot her a look, and she immediately shrank back, nodding like a kid who got scolded.

"If Mom shows up in your dreams again, tell me first. I'll handle it."

To keep an eye on her myself, I signed my own discharge papers and went home to recover, ignoring the doctor's objections.

The moment I got back home, I took away her ID card and her passport. I also called the airport and put a travel flag on her name so she couldn't leave the country.

I even called a friend who worked with cruise lines and warned him not to let Claire board a ship. If they saw her, they were to send her straight back.

My friend laughed and said I was the most overprotective sister he'd ever heard of.

He had no idea this was the only way I knew how to stay alive.

Just when I finally managed to fall asleep, I woke up from a cold that felt like it was freezing me from the inside out.