Angry tears spring to the corners of my eyes. They shouldn’t need to protect me. Not from my own father.
That was my mother’s job, and she’s failed me. Again.
“No fucking way,” I say. I keep my eyes trained on her as I jab one finger in my father’s direction. “With him? After everything?”
She flinches at my words, her eyes closing to avoid looking at me. “It’s just better this way.”
I freeze.
“How long has this been going on?” I ask, surprised my voice still works at all.
My mother still won’t look at me, our roles now reversed. But I still know the answer from the way her shoulders slump in shame.
Dark circles rim her eyes, her cheeks have grown hollow, even her hair has taken on a dull shine. I knew she’d been growing distant these last weeks, knew she was working hard trying to support the two of us, but I had no idea it was this bad. Bad enough to want to give in to the man who’d scarred my childhood in more ways than I wish to keep count?
Bad enough that she would invite him, our abuser, back?
After everything he did.
It’s my turn to close my eye
s. When I do, all I see is a constant reel of memories. The first time he yelled at me, his voice echoing off the dining room walls. The first time he hit me, his knuckles leaving bruises on my cheeks. Then the last time … his fingers leaving marks that begin on my collarbone and trail upward onto either side of my neck.
The last time.
But if we leave with him now, it won’t be the last time.
If we leave now, it’s all been for nothing. All the moving, all the starting over. And more than that.
Rory. Marlowe. Kaleb.
My heart is beating at a pace fit to burst out of my chest when my eyes fly open again.
Suddenly, our argument earlier feels childish. I was a fool, running like that. If I’d just stayed, if I’d let one of them walk me home … none of this would have happened.
It’s this thought, the thought of them, that gives me the voice I need.
“No.”
“What?” My father steps forward again, his voice dangerously quiet.
I shake my head so hard that the room starts to spin. “I won’t go with you.”
Behind my father, my mother’s face grows pale. She squeezes her eyes shut, but still the glitter of tears builds at the base of her lashes.
She may have already given up the fight, but I haven’t. Not yet.
My father’s eyes bore into mine. He raises his fist, ready to strike, but I don’t wait for the blow to come. Not this time.
This time, I run.
Because this time, I’m not alone. This time, there’s a place I can go.
I turn on my heel and sprint out into the night, screaming for Rory, and Marlowe, and Kaleb—hoping to god that they can somehow hear me. I barely get more than a yard away before my father runs out after me and I feel a heavy, blunt blow to the back of my head.
I stumble forward onto my knees, ears ringing.
I try to call out again, but I can feel warm, metallic blood filling my mouth and my head is throbbing so much I can’t see straight. My voice comes out as a garbled, incoherent mess.