Page 250 of Wicked Brutal

“Jane told you?”

“No.” Ally looks down. “I saw it.” I don’t say anything. “She was fighting him. Angry. Trying to get away. And then—“ Her voice trails off.

“Then what?”

“She stopped.” Ally’s eyes fill. “She knew what was coming. She turned her face before he hit her. Changed the way she was standing. She knew exactly when to stop fighting him.”

A tear slips down her cheek.

“Baby.”

“And then I started remembering. Bruises she said came from walking into something. Long sleeves. Makeup when she wasn’t going anywhere. Days she stayed upstairs with a headache.” Her voice breaks. “It was all right there.”

“Ally.”

“I believed her.”

“Of course you did.”

“I should’ve known.”

“No.” It comes out harder than I mean it to. Her eyes lift. I soften it. “No. Don’t do that to yourself.”

“But I lived there.”

“You were a kid in that house too.” She wipes at her cheek. “You were her daughter, Ally. You weren’t supposed to be running an investigation into whether your dad was hitting your mom.”

Her mouth trembles. “She tried to protect us tonight.”

“I know.”

“I thought she never did.”

That one hurts, because I know exactly how long she’s carried it. I lean closer to the screen, wishing for the hundredth time tonight that it wasn’t between us. “She did tonight.”

“She knows about the baby.”

I go still. “What?”

“She saw my stomach… so I told her the truth. I showed her the ultrasound pictures.”

Of all the shit Ally has told me tonight, somehow that one hits differently. “What did she say?”

“She told me to hide them.” Ally’s mouth trembles. “And to get out.”

“Ally—”

“She knows about you too, Ry. She knows it’s yours.”

Then she reaches for something beside her. “I took pictures.”

“Of your injuries?”

“Mine. Tobias’s.” She pauses. “And Mom’s.”

I sit up. “She let you?”

“After Dad left. She didn’t want me to at first. I told her we needed them.”