“Answer me, stupid girl. Who the hell did you tell?”
A flash of white pain shoots through my body when my mother’s hand reaches out and slaps me. The inside of my cheek splits, a metallic tanginess coating my tongue. I bite back a scream, nails digging into my palms until skin breaks.
A new confidence grows inside of me, one drenched in finality.
She doesn’t get to win.
“I’ve spent every day since youlefttrying to erase you from my mind, while at the same time, trying to understand what I did that was so horrible that you couldn’t love me.”
She rolls her eyes, already bored of me.
“I remember what you said the day you shot my father,” I continue, glaring at her. “‘I love him. You should have known better. I didn’t want to do this, but you’ve left me no choice. You ruined everything.’”
Acid burns on my tongue as I say the words out loud.
Her nostrils flare.
“Did you kill my dad because I told him about the hotel man—is that who you loved?”
She doesn’t answer, but her silence speaks her truth.
The questions I’ve been wanting the answers to spill from my lips. “If you loved that man, why didn’t you just leave with him?”
She says nothing.
“I blamed myself for Dad’s murder for years,” I admit. “Maybe part of me always will. But you could have left. You didn’t need tokillhim.”
My words are sharp, but they don’t seem to cut her at all. There’s no remorse behind her cold, icy eyes.
“If someone’s threatening you, it’s not me. No one I knowwantsto find you. The farther away you are from me, Clar?—”
Her henchman cuts me off, his fist slamming into my stomach. I double over, gasping for breath.
Before my body hits the ground, he grabs a fistful of my hair and smashes my face into the wall. A dull roar fills my ears, fear drowning out every other sound.
I taste more blood.
His hand closes around my throat again but tighter this time. My feet lift off the ground. Black spots dance across my vision, and somewhere on the floor, I think my phone is buzzing.
Then again, maybe that’s just my heartbeat.
I assiston the winning goal, and we win. My teammates slam into me from all directions.
Damn, it feels good.
“That’s what I’m talking about, Pretty Boy!” Oliver hoots.
I turn my head away from my friends to find Erin in the crowd where she’s been the whole game.
Only, she’s not there.
The roar of the stadium dulls to a muted hum. My heartbeat spikes loud enough to drown out everything else as my eyes scan back and forth across the row.
Nothing.
I search the crowd and watch as people leave.
Still nothing.
