want to hurt her for her visits. For her kindness.
It makes me hurt all the more, knowing she pities me.
My foster mother acts as if I don’t exist.
I’ve never known tenderness from her, but I’ve seen her kiss the oldest sister. I’ve seen my foster father wrap his arm around her lovingly, joy in his eyes as he watches her play piano or kick a ball.
I’ve never gotten that.
A ball. A piano.
The affection.
The only thing I get to enjoy is languages.
Now, I’m shivering, the urine beneath me long cooled. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here this time. I haven’t eaten in what seems like days. I can feel my ribs. Feel the constant ache in my belly.
No one has offered me anything, let alone scraps.
It’ll be over soon, they promised me.
I’ll be eighteen soon, and I’ll be one with them.
I close my eyes tight, the ache in my hand causing my fingers to tremble more violently than the rest of my naked body.
I try to sleep.
It’s the only thing I can do.
I clutch the bobby pin in my hand, but I couldn’t get it to open the padlock. I don’t know what I’m doing. Next time I’m out, I’ll have to use a computer and watch a video. Or try again when I can see, when the light spills in from the door for those stolen moments of time.
At first, locked up like this, you try to keep track. You want to know how many days have passed.
But then, after a while, when the voices in your head are screaming and crying and sometimes laughing, turning into real people—lovers. Friends. Parents that want to protect you—when that happens, you…lose it.
I push it all away, try to find the numbness. The darkness inside my head. The wires of the cage dig into my spine, the hard floor leaving bruises along my bottom half, and extending my legs is agony instead of refreshing.
So, I stay in the ball.
And I try to disappear into myself.
For a moment, it works.
I’m gone.
Not here.
Not here.
Not. Here.
But then I hear it.
The door creaking open at the top of the stairs. I jump, my eyes flying open, chin quivering. Light spills down the stairs. Heavy footsteps, the smell of something sweet wafting in from the open door.
Do they bake?
Do they cook?
Do they have meals without me, knowing I’m…starving?
I see black shoes. Polished. Tailored pants. But I don’t look beyond that.
I don’t look, and when I hear his voice say, “You’ve done so well, Jeremiah. I think one more day, and you’ll have served out your punishment for what you did to my daughter, hmm?” all I can do is plead.
I promised I wouldn’t.
I told myself I was stronger than that.
That I would never want my beautiful sister, Sid, to do this. To beg. To kneel. To give. In.
But I can’t stop it, the word that leaves my dry throat. “No. No.” I didn’t touch his daughter, the eldest. She lied.
She lied, because she’s fucking insane.
Another whimper. Snot bubbles from my nose, tears well up behind my eyes, and I’m amazed, as I scream the last word, that I have enough liquid in my body to cry at all.
“NO!”
But he doesn’t listen. He never does. He turns away, and I think, as he walks up the stairs…I think he laughs.
But I scramble upright, the bobby pin shaking as I use the light to find the keyhole in the padlock.
I die a little more, my chest caving in, that plea still flowing from my cracked lips. My broken heart, even as I dig the pin in.
How did I get here?
And why me?
I turn the bobby pin, my hands trembling. Just as he closes the door, the padlock falls to the floor, and for a moment, I can’t even breathe.
I’m fucking free.
“Where is he?”
Maverick inhales from his vape, looking like he wants to kill me, his brows knitted together, eyes full of anger. I don’t care.
I haven’t been able to leave this house.
Just like old times.
Tonight, in just a few hours, we’re leaving. But Mav wanted to talk. Fucker.
Ella is on Maverick’s lap as we sit in their living room. I try to ignore the fact she’s here, that she lives here, but it’s a little difficult, considering her current fucking position.
Mav has his hand on her ass as she leans back against him in the big leather chair, her head resting on his shoulder. She’s in sweatpants, just like he is. But unlike him, she’s got a