The moment the doll's leg twisted, pain detonated through Arabella like a struck bell. Her body lurched sharply to the left; her knee slammed against the stone with a sound more brutal than she expected. A scream tore from her throat — raw, torn with pain — and she hated that sound for its honesty. Wendy's face lit with something beautiful and terrible: elation, the kind that blooms on someone who has been given proof that they can hurt another.
"Painful?" Wendy cackled, throwing her head back so that the sound ricocheted off the rafters. "That's only the beginning, sweetheart. You have no idea how much more I want you to learn."
Through the hot fog behind her eyes, Arabella hauled herself up and shoved. Her palm found Wendy's shoulder and shoved hard; Wendy struck the glass of the high window and slid down it with a thud.
