Prologue
Nina
Ten years old
Whore.
That’s what they’d call her. She wasn’t ever Sara, Mrs Anderson, or Mummy as she was to me.
“Whore.” The word falls from his lips as if it is poison on his tongue, seeping through the paper-thin walls and into my impressionable ears. At the age of ten, I knew right from wrong. I knew not to get into strangers’ cars and to look both ways when crossing the road. But still, I wouldn’t allow myself to believe the rancid words he’d spit at her—even when the truth in them was easy to see.
My music plays through my headphones, and I spin, feeling weightless. I should go, leave the house and not come back until they are gone. But it’s got cold out, and my leggings and cardigan are the only clean clothes I have.
My music calms me, making all the bad in the house quiet for a little while. It’s when the shouting and banging starts that I turn up the volume, drowning out my mother’s cries. One day I will help her, but I am just a kid. I learnt the hard way not to interfere when it comes to her houseguests. It only ends painfully for me, and the three hospital admissions have only led to social services trying to take me from her.
I don’t want to go, but I don’t necessarily want to stay either.
A loud thudding penetrates through my headphones, and my body goes rigid. I swallow down the fear in my throat and pinch my eyes tighter together. Don’t be a hero, Nina. Don’t be a hero.
I continue to dance in the small confinement of my room, ignoring the pain in my mother’s voice.
I spin.
“Enough!”
Thud.
“Stop!”
Spin.
Thud.
Spin.
“STO—”
I pull the headphones from my ears, rushing out of my bedroom door on shaky legs. My heart pounds in my chest, but I don’t stop, even when everything inside me tells me to leave.Run! Go down the stairs and out the front door, Nina.
I have to help her—nobody else will—even if it hurts me.
I’ve walked into my mother’s bedroom twice in the years she has broughtthemhere, and both times I ended up in the hospital. My broken wrist was unbearable and not something she could hide even if she tried to.
My nose was left broken for an entire week before she allowed me back to school. Maggie, my best friend’s mum, noticed the minute she saw me and drove me to the hospital. I had a broken nose and a mild concussion. It was already starting to heal, but it meant a visit from my social workers.
Both occasions were the same man. Although my mother sleeps with multiple men, she doesn’t always sleep with men like him. Some of them look at me with pity in their eyes before they go to her room.
I grasp the door handle with no plan, quickly turning the knob. I open the door and let it crash into the wall.
“Get off her!” I shout, my fists clenched by my sides.
His hands are around her throat. She looks purple. Her eyes are glazed, and I can see syringes scattered next to them on the bedside table.
My eyes come back to hers, red-rimmed and wide. I need her to give me a sign to tell me what to do.
I get nothing; it’s as if she has given up.
“Get off of her!” I shout again.
