Chapter 5 A SECOND CHANCE

All I could see was white. Endless, blinding white in all directions.

For a moment, I thought I was back in the hospital room, staring at the sterile ceiling and waiting for someone to tell me who I was supposed to be. But this white was stretched endlessly in every direction, like the inside of a cloud or the space between heartbeats.

There was no pain, beeping machines, or smell of antiseptic.

Just silence.

My body felt light…almost hollow. When I looked down, I saw my normal hands again. Maybe I was dead, and this was the afterlife.

A slow dread curled in my stomach. “Hello?” My voice echoed too loudly in the emptiness.

“Why are you yelling?” A flat voice suddenly said behind me, making me jump.

I turned around to see a bored-looking woman looking at me. She looked exactly like the face I had just seen in the hospital mirror, a stunningly beautiful face… . Like a dark kind of beauty.

What threw off the entire thing were her eyes. They were hard, flat, and lacked even a flicker of hope. Like someone who had been fighting for too long and had finally decided to lie down.

“Are you going to keep staring, or are you going to say something?” She snapped out.

“You... you must be Sienna,” I whispered.

She looked at me with apathetic, blank eyes. “That is the name I used. Who are you?”

“My name is Elena,” I said. I stepped toward her, but the distance between us didn't seem to change. “What is going on? Why am I in your body? Where is mine?”

Sienna let out a short, dry laugh. “Your body is dead, Elena. It is buried in a box underground. If you want to go back to it, that is your choice. Just know that if you go back, you will be dead. It is a very quiet place, but it is not very exciting.”

The bluntness of it knocked the air out of me.

“No,” I whispered. The reality of it hit me like a physical blow. “Dead? Truly dead?”

“Very truly,” Sienna said. She shrugged her shoulders. She didn't seem to care at all. She tilted her head slightly. "But if you want to go back to it, that’s your choice.”

Hope flared stupidly in my chest. “I can go back?”

She shrugged. “You can return. Just know that if you do… you’ll be dead.”

The words hit like a blade sliding between my ribs.

Dead again.

I hesitated. “Don’t you want your body back? ” I asked. I couldn't understand her calm. “Don’t you want to live?”

“Nah,” she said. “I am tired of it. I am done living. I have fought every single day since I was a kid. I just want to move on. I am ready for the silence.”

I was shocked. I had never met anyone who chose death so casually. “You’re just… choosing to die? ”How can you just give up?”

Her eyes darkened. “You begged fate not to die,” she said, voice sharpening. “You screamed into the void that you wanted to destroy the people who destroyed you. And fate listened. So why are you acting ungrateful?”

The venom in her voice startled me.

“I…” My throat tightened. “I didn’t ask to take someone else’s life.”

She let out a humorless laugh. “You asked not to die. How else did you think it was going to happen?”

I flinched at her cynical tone. Then cleared my throat before continuing. “But you have people who care about you. There was a man... Jax. He was crying. He was so happy when I woke up.”

Sienna’s eyes softened for a split second when I mentioned the name, but then they went cold again. “Jax is a good man. He will be fine. I have nothing left for me in that life. My peace is waiting somewhere else.”

“If I stay… what happens to you?” I asked quietly. “Do we share? Do you stay in here too?”

She looked horrified. “God, I hope not,” she muttered. “I just want to rest.”

The way she’d said ‘rest’ was like it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

“Why?” I asked. “You look so strong. You look like you could handle anything.”

Sienna stepped closer. The apathy disappeared, replaced by a deep, crushing weariness and pain. I could feel it radiating off her. It felt like I was the one experiencing it.

“I’m tired,” she said, her voice breaking slightly. “I’ve never had peace. Not once. Not as a kid. Not as an adult. Always fighting. Always surviving. And  when I finally found the one person who made it worth it…” She swallowed. “He was betrayed by the same person who put me in that coma. There is nothing left for me. Not a single thing.”

Tears burned behind my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

She looked at me sharply. “Don’t waste your pity on me.”

She reached out and gripped my arm. Her grip was like iron. “I will give you this body. I will give you this life. But there is a price. This is not a gift.”

“What is the price?” I asked.

“My payment is blood,” Sienna growled. “You use my hands to find the person who killed my love. You use my strength to kill the person who put me in this state. You kill him. You make him suffer. Do you understand?”

I stepped back instinctively. “I… I’ve never killed anyone,” I said shakily. “I don’t even know if I could.”

Sienna looked at me with genuine shock. “You’re joking. Your father was a drug lord. You were born into the streets.”

“I was,” I stammered. “But I wasn't in the business. I stayed away from it. I just wanted to go to school. I wanted a normal life.”

Sienna laughed. It was a mocking, cruel sound. “Oh, I see. “She sneered. “You’re one of those.”

My cheeks burned.

“The princesses,” she continued coldly. “Living off daddy’s dirty money but never dirtying your own hands. Buying pretty things and dreaming about a normal life.”

“That’s not—”

Her face hardened. She leaned in until our noses were almost touching. “In this new life, there are no princesses. No one is going to pity you. No one is going to save you. It is kill or be killed. On the streets, we struggle for the crumbs that men like your father left behind. If you want to survive, the princess has to die today.”

I thought about my dreams of school.

I remembered how desperately I had wanted to escape that world. Then I thought about Kanan. I thought about the smirk on his face when he shot me. I thought about my baby.

The rage rose again.

I felt something shift inside me. The fear was still there, but a cold, hard shell began to grow over it. I straightened my back. I looked Sienna in the eyes.

“Atta girl,” Sienna whispered, noticing the change in me. “That’s the spirit. Hold on to that rage. It is the only thing that will keep you warm when the world gets cold.”

She suddenly reached out, placed her hand flat against my chest, and agony tore through me. It felt like molten iron searing straight through my skin into my heart. I started to scream, but just as abruptly as it started, the pain stopped. I slumped forward, gasping for air.

“I branded you,” she said calmly. “With our promise.”

Wait. What did she mean by our?

“You don’t just have your revenge now.” She continued before I could ask. “You also have mine.”

I nodded, still trying to catch my breath.

“Take care of my crew,” Sienna said, her tone softening. “They are good people who have been dealt a hard hand and are just trying to survive the only way they know how. You are not living for yourself anymore. You have people depending on you for their next meal. You have to woman up, Elena. You are the leader now.”

“I will,” I promised. “I will take care of them.”

The white space began to brighten, and the edges of her form started to blur.

“It’s time for me to go,” she murmured.

She looked past my shoulder. A smile spread across her face. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The hardness in her eyes vanished. She looked young and full of life. I turned to see what she was looking at.

A young man was standing in the distance, waving for her to come to him. He was looking at her like she was his entire world.

Without looking at me, she ran to him, and they hugged so tightly it looked like they would never let go. They turned together and began to walk toward the brightest part of the light.

I felt a pang of envy. I had always wanted that. I had always wished for a love that felt like home, but all I got was…

I shook the feeling off. That was the weak Elena. That was the girl who let herself be sold and used.

I was Sienna now. I didn't have time for that kind of weakness.

Sienna paused one last time and looked back at me over her shoulder. “Remember what you promised to do for me. You don’t just have your mission now. You have mine.” Her gaze sharpened. “This is your second chance to make things right. Don’t fuck it up.”

Then she stepped into the light and disappeared.

I felt myself falling; the white void rushed past me….

Then I felt a sudden, violent jerk, and my eyes snapped open.

I was looking at a white hospital ceiling with the smell of antiseptic back in the air.

I took a deep breath. My chest felt hot, where Sienna had touched me. “I won't fuck this up, Sienna,” I whispered to the empty room.