She angles her chin. "What kind of deal?"
I toss the blanket on the chair and cross to her. I don't touch her. Not yet.
"I'll lay in that bed with you." My voice drops low. "If you tell me who did that to your face."
She flinches. Barely perceptible, but I catch it—the way her hand twitches toward her cheek before she stops herself. The way her shoulders tighten a fraction.
"It's not?—"
"Don't say it's nothing." I hold her gaze. "Don't lie to me, London."
She swallows. Looks at the bed, the floor, the window. Anywhere but at me. Her jaw works, the muscle jumping beneath the skin.
"Okay," she whispers. "Deal."
I kick off my boots. She removes her worn sneakers. We climb onto the bed from opposite sides.
She rolls onto her side, facing me. I mirror her. Less than a foot of mattress separates us. The lamp on the nightstand casts a dim amber circle that doesn't quite reach the walls.
London draws her knees up, curling inward the way people do when they're bracing for impact. Her fingers pluck at a loose thread on the pillowcase.
"His name is Greg," she says. "Greg Bowman. My mom's husband. My stepfather, I guess."
I don't move. Don't react. I give her nothing that might make her stop.
“I’ve walked on eggshells for years." She pauses, pulling the thread tighter around her index finger until the skin goes white. “Sometimes he was almost nice, when I was younger. The beatings weren’t as prevalent. But over the years…”
My hands curl into the mattress beneath me. The fabric groans.
"He'd lock me in my room for hours. Sometimes a whole day. Which I didn’t mind so much. It was better than his fists. Most of the time when he hit me, it was for things that weren’t even my fault. Someone cut him off in traffic. He lost his job for showing up an hour late again." Her voice stays even and emotionless as she recounts facts the way you'd read a grocery list. I know it's a survival mechanism—detachment.
She touches the bandage on her cheek. It's reflex.
"What about your mother?" The question comes out sharper than I intended.
"Mom was…" London exhales through her nose. "She tried, in the beginning. Before her drug use got really bad. But Greg controls everything—the money, the house, who comes and goes. And she was too deep in her addiction to fight him. Easier to disappear into a bottle or a pipe than deal with reality."
"She let him hit you."
Not a question. London doesn't deny it.
“He hit us both. It just became our normal. When Mom overdosed on Raven three weeks ago, Greg got worse.” Hervoice shrinks. "He escalated. Said without my mom around, I'd be 'useful' in other ways."
Rage fills me—pure, volcanic rage. I know what useful means. I know exactly what this piece of shit was threatening. My vision narrows to a red haze, and I have to consciously unclench my jaw before I crack a molar.
"That's when I moved out. Signed a lease the day I turned eighteen. I paid cash and didn't tell anyone where I was going." She pulls the thread free from the pillowcase, wrapping it around her finger in tight spirals. “Then… He found me. I don't know how. He kicked in my door, and I barely got out the window before?—"
Her voice breaks. A fracture, a hairline crack in the composure she's maintained so carefully. She seals it immediately, pressing her lips together and blinking hard.
I reach across that foot of mattress and take her hand. Uncurl those fingers from the thread, smooth them open, and press her palm flat against mine. Her hand is cold. I close mine around it.
"London." I wait until she looks at me. "He's never going to touch you again."
"You don't know?—"
"He. Will. Never. Touch you. Again." Each word is fucking promise. "I give you my word. And my word is the one thing in this fucked-up world I've never broken."
Her chin trembles. She bites down on her lip, wrestling her emotions back under control. But her fingers tighten around mine, gripping with a strength that surprises me.
