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“You broke it!” Steve was on his knees, his face covered in blood. “You broke by node!” he moaned, his voice coming out funny now that his nose was sideways.
“You’re lucky I didn’t break your neck,” Strong said shortly. “This is your one and only warning.” He pointed a finger at Melanie’s blubbering ex. “If you ever come near Melanie—if you even try to contact her in any way—I will find you and I will make you pay. Do you understand?”
“Yes!” Steve nodded, blood flying from his broken nose. “Just leab be alode!”
“We’ll leave you alone if you agree to leave Melanie alone,” Clear told him.
Steve nodded again and then Mitzy was trying to haul him to his feet.
“C’mon, Stevie,” she muttered to him. “We gotta go now. Let’s get outa here—okay?”
“Get your hands off me!” Steve pushed her away petulantly. Mitzy stumbled and almost fell, barely catching herself on the hood of their car. “I can get up byself,” he snarled. “Leab be alone, you little bitch!”
Mitzy’s eyes went wide and hurt in the twinkling Christmas lights and Melanie felt an unexpected rush of sympathy for the young girl.
“Is this the first time he swore at you?” she asked Mitzy, who was still looking uncertainly at Steve.
“He’s upset,” she whispered, half to herself, half to Melanie. “He would never—”
“It took him a little while to become abusive with me, too,” Melanie told her softly. “He waited until we’d been married a while and all the bank accounts were in both our names and he’d gotten me to put him on the deed to my house. Then, when my finances were so entwined with his it was almost impossible to untangle them, he started being nasty.”
“You’re lying!” Steve snarled, his face an angry, bloody mask. “You bitch!”
“What did you call our female?” This time it was Clear stepping forward to grab Melanie’s ex and yank him up by the collar. “I thought my brother made it clear that you weren’t to threaten Melanie or speak badly of her anymore?” he growled, shaking Steve until his teeth clicked together and he howled and grabbed for his broken nose.
“Don’t hurt him, Clear,” Melanie said. “Just put him in the car. He won’t be able to shut up until he’s out of here—he never did know when to stop being an asshole.”
Obligingly, the Light Twin yanked open the door of the shiny red car and thrust Steve inside. He slammed the door as Melanie’s ex started to shout something and leaned against it for good measure, so Steve couldn’t get out.
Mitzy stood there frozen, her eyes wide and frightened. Melanie walked up to her.
“Listen,” she said gently to the younger girl. “Get out while you still can. I know you’re pregnant and it’s scary, but you don’t want to raise a child with that man.”
“I…I can’t…” Mitzy began.
“If you have family, go back to them,” Melanie advised her. “If you don’t leave, the abuse will only continue and get worse. Not to mention the cheating. He cheated on me with so many women.” She gave Mitzy a level stare. “You were probably one of them, so you know I’m telling the truth.”
“He…he said you didn’t love him no more,” Mitzy whispered, her candy-cane red lips trembling. “He said you wouldn’t give him sex no more and you were mean to him.”
“Our sex life ended when I started suspecting the cheating,” Melanie admitted. “But I think you can tell who was the mean one in the relationship. Seriously—get out while you can.”
The car horn blared suddenly and Steve rolled down the window a crack and shouted,
“Mitzy, get your fat ass in the fucking car!”
Mitzy jumped, her eyes going even wider.
“I gotta go!” she babbled.
“Are you sure?” Melanie asked her. “We can call somebody for you if you want.”
For a moment, she thought the pregnant girl was actually considering it. Then Steve blasted the horn again and she jumped and ran around to the passenger’s side. She got awkwardly into the car, maneuvering her big belly as she lowered herself into the low-slung seat. But she was barely inside before Steve revved the engine and pulled away.
As Mitzy struggled to shut the door, the car did a messy U-turn, spraying gravel as it drove away at a speed that certainly wasn’t safe.
Melanie watched the cherry red taillights disappear into the gathering gloom and the calm that had covered her pain shattered like glass.
Putting her face in her hands, she began to sob.
19
The antidote! Quickly, Strong—give it to her!” Melanie heard Clear saying anxiously to his twin.
“Hold still, little one,” Strong said to her and then a needle bit into her arm and something hot was pulsing through her veins.
Melanie gasped, distracted from her grief by the sudden pain and the strange sensation. Then, to her utter relief, the horrible gray cloud that had surrounded her all day, from the moment she’d woken up, suddenly seemed to dissipate and blow away on a cool breeze.
