A cold chill streaks down my back.
I step into the room, and my breath hitches.
There are hundreds of photographs scattered everywhere. I pick one up and see it’s a picture of Torren and me atMaggie’s.
I notice another picture. It’s still Torren and me, but we’re in his bedroom. Naked. Fucking.
He hired a private investigator.
That bastard!
Pictures of Torren and me litter the space, mixed with images of me working atMaggie’s.
I’m so stupid. I should have known he’d do something like this. That disgusting fucking pig scattered pictures of me and—
Torren.
I need to get out of here as soon as possible. I pull out my phone and call him.
“Hey.”
“Torren, I—” The air leaves my lungs in a rush.
A cold chill envelops me, and all I can hear is my racing heart. My feet move toward the image, but, mentally, I’m sailing high above, watching myself approach the picture that’s gripped me by the throat.
I brush my fingers over the image, touching it to ensure I’m not imagining this.
It’s my mother. She’s…
She’s having sex with a man.
Whois not my father.
“Felix?” I hear Torren say on the receiver, but I can’t speak. I see them—dozens of pictures of my mother and this man mixed with the shots of Torren and me. She’s happy. Holding hands with him and staring into his eyes. The bile rises to the back of my throat. I can hear Torren calling my name, and I want to tell him to get here fast, but—
“I should have known you’d be just like her.”
My scream echoes off the walls, and I turn, dropping the phone as I do. Father looms in the doorway of my bedroom, his body heaving as he glares at me. He staggers in, slamming the door behind him, and approaches me.
I instinctively move back, but slip on the pictures, clattering to the ground. Pain shoots up my right side, but I continue crawling backward, trying to escape him, and end up in a corner of the room.
His bloodshot eyes glare at me, and his skin is red and blotchy. The man’s a disheveled mess, his tie is undone, his shirt hangs open, and sweat pours from his forehead.
I’ve seen him drunk before, but this looks different, like he’s finally snapped or something.
He traps me in the corner, and I start begging. “Father, please don’t do—”
His foot connects with my stomach, and I keel over, shielding my gut from another kick, but he grabs me by the hair, lifts my head, and slaps me across the face, slamming my head into the wall. I try to get up, but he kicks my side, and I howl in pain.
Father slaps me again and again before gripping my shirt, forcing me to stare into his deranged eyes.
“You’re a fucking whore just like your mother. Sluttingaround the Patch with scum. Vermon! They’re lower than dirt, and you two,” he slams my head into the wall, “fucked them!”
“P-pl-please—”
“What was your plan? Run away with your dirtbag lover? That was your mother’s plan. Leave me and run away with her new fuck boy—thought she’d take you with her.”
The pain from his beating is nothing compared to the anguish I feel for her. I could see the joy in Mother’s eyes. She was trying to get away…
