Page 127 of Twisting Beauty

“My study.” His voice was quiet. “Now.”

His eyes flicked once toward the vent in my wall. Just once. Just long enough to make sure I’d seen him do it.

The message was clear. She is still there. She is still in reach. Do not test me.

I set the violin down on the bed.

“Bring it.”

I froze.

At first I didn’t understand. Not fully.

Then the weight of it hit me, slow and heavy, crushing the air from my lungs, my pulse thudding hard enough to blur my vision.

I’d learned the hard way that begging only made it worse. Please stop just made him grin. Please don’t lit something wicked in his eyes, made him draw it out.

But I couldn’t help myself.

Please. No. The words moved behind my teeth and I hated myself for them.

His stare didn’t waver.

“You choose,” he said. “Your violin. Or her.”

The air thickened. The choice was a trap.

Pick the instrument and I exposed the truth, showed how far under my skin she had gotten. Pick her and he’d hurt her; the small tilt of his jaw told me so.

My fingers curled in on themselves as I squeezed my eyes shut, pressure burning behind them, the threat of tears I could not let fall.

There was no right answer. Only one that hurt less.

I reached for my violin. My arm ached with the effort not to tremble. I cradled her like a limb I was about to lose. The varnish was warm from my touch, and I pressed my thumb into the spot where the wood was worn from years of playing, the spot where my ma’s thumb used to rest, too.

My throat burned. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t.

But something inside me howled. Something inside me broke.

I glanced once at the vent. I locked eyes with her as she clung to the other side of grate, her eyes already shimmering with tears.

Then I tore my eyes away. I walked out, my back bracing. My fate was already ringing through the silence, as loud as any scream.

I don’t know how but I made it back to my room. The door clicked shut behind me and my legs gave out three steps in.

I sank onto the floor with the shards of my ma’s violin clutched against my chest, the splintered wood piercing into my palms where I would loosen my grip.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror. My shirt was wet through, splinters of pale wood poking up through the material from my back, blood working its way down the cotton in slow crimson lines.

I turned my face away.

The wood needed to come out. The blood needed staunching. The shirt needed cutting off before it scabbed into the wounds. But letting go of the violin would mean accepting that it was gone.

My door opened with a soft click.

I didn’t have to look to know it was her.

“Couldn’t stay away, huh?” I said with a sneer. “Knew you’d come crawling back.”