Ruthless Love (Ash and Innocence 1)

“When I was your age, they made a fool of me. These boys, they teased me until I thought I’d rather be dead. Every day was hell. I knew if I ever had a girl of my own, I’d protect her from that, no matter what it took.” She finally looked up at me, standing straighter and meeting my eyes. “And I’m not going to apologize for what I did.”

Anger mingled with pity inside me. “You drugged Tristan, didn’t you?”

“He was just like those boys who bullied me when I was young. Cocky. Arrogant. He was a snake, Kennedy. Boys like that will use you up. They just want to conquer you, like climbing some kind of mountain. Except they get to move on as conquerors and all you get is to be the thing that got conquered. That’s what he was going to do to you if I didn’t stop him.”

All I could do was stare at her, feeling like the woman I’d known and loved my whole life was transforming before my eyes. I’d heard people say there comes a time when kids realize their parents are mortals—just flawed humans like the rest of us. In that moment, I realized I’d never reached that point until now. But I finally saw my mom for what she was. Protective. Jealous. Broken. She had been hoarding me like some precious treasure—some relic of what she thought she could have been if things were different. Keeping me away from the things that had ruined her childhood was her form of therapy.

“You need help.” My voice sounded surprisingly soft and emotionless.

“Excuse me? How dare you talk to me like that?”

“How dare I? How fucking dare you? You fed me lies. You made me take pills that could have done permanent damage to my body. You made me live with all this,” I said, slamming my palm against my chair. “And for what? Because you were too scared to do what a real parent does and teach me to be better? Because you didn’t trust me to be stronger than you were?” I pulled out my purse that still had the pill bottles I’d taken to give the doctor samples. I dumped them all out on the floor with a rattling clatter. “These aren’t going to make me sick anymore. But thinking about what you did? That makes me feel so fucking sick I want to vomit.”

My mom fell to her knees and covered her face. I’d never seen her cry, and I didn’t relish being the one that brought it on. I hardened myself to the moment, all the same. She deserved to feel pain for what she’d done. She deserved to pay a price. Distantly, I knew my anger would probably cool with time—that I’d want to try to work with her to heal the wound we were tearing open. But right now, she needed to understand the cost of what she’d done.

I saw a police cruiser drive up to the house from the window. It didn’t have its sirens on, and the officers who got out didn’t look like they were in a hurry. That was good. I didn’t want my mom to be scared when they took her.

She went without a fight, letting them cuff her and take her into the back of the car. The female officer stayed behind on the porch to talk to me, and Tristan—who had come down from my room when the police arrived.

“Is she going to go to jail?” I asked.

“Some of her crimes were very serious. Stealing prescription medicine from the pharmacies where she worked is a federal offense. And what she did to you.” The woman looked like she wanted to say more, but she seemed to stop herself. “It may depend on your testimony and her lawyers. But in a case like this, she could end up in psychiatric care instead of prison.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You’re eighteen, so legally, you can maintain the residence of this house. I’d need to look into the laws about how your mother’s funds could be used to pay for the mortgage, but—”

“I’ll worry about all that later,” I said. “Thank you.”

The officer nodded, heading to the car and driving away.

It was surreal seeing my mom go in the back of a police car. It was even stranger to know our life as we knew it was done.

“I should get back home,” Tristan said. “With that out of the way, I’m probably the last person you want hanging around right now.”

I wanted to tell him to stay, but I couldn’t make the words come. He was already down the porch and far enough that I’d have to yell before I realized it. I didn’t want him to go. I wasn’t sure if that made me an idiot, given everything he’d said and done to me—not just this summer but ever since the hospital.