A twisted, cruel smile stretched across the mother's face.
"You know, I have been wishing to kill you from the very day you took your first breath," she confessed, her eyes gleaming in the dim light. "But that wretched old woman... your grandmother... she always protected you. She hovered over you like a hawk. But today? Today I finally got my chance."
She leaned down until her lips were only inches from Heena's ear.
"Wouldn't it have been so much better if you had just died when you fell down that cliff?" the mother whispered, her voice trembling with dark anticipation. "Why the heck did you even bother returning?"
"Because of you... and your father... damn all of them, every single dream of mine was destroyed!"
The mother's voice hitched, pitching upward into a deranged, suppressed shriek. She suddenly lunged forward, her hands shooting out to wrap tightly around Heena's throat.
