"Don't lie to me." Pricillia's voice was low, menacing.
"I'm not!" Alice said, her voice rising in genuine exasperation. "What's so wrong with asking what's wrong with my twin? You expect me to pretend to be her but treat her like a ghost?"
For a moment, silence held. But not the soft kind. The brittle kind. The kind before something breaks. It was also the kind that reminded them both this was a conversation that needed hushed tones, not a full-blown quarrel others could hear.
"Do a good job," Pricillia simply said, her voice tight, a thin thread of control holding it back from a scream. "After her treatment, she'll come back and take over her life. That's all you should be concerned about. She's my daughter. She's not your business." Pricillia's words were cold, definitive, drawn like a line in the sand.
Then she leaned in, her voice venomous and low. "You will lay low. Do you understand me?"
