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A man with a gun had come down the stairs with the children. She wasn't going to hang around and find out if he was going to use it.
She turned and ran.
She heard voices and commotion behind her but didn't stop to find out what was going on.
The truck’s engine was running, so she sped up and ran as fast as she could, shoving Kinsley in and jumping in after her.
“Shoot at them,” Jay ordered.
As she always did when he told her to do something, Maria complied. Opening her window, she fired off several shots, and Jay took off down the street.
“Mama?”
Maria pasted on a smile as she looked down at her terrified little girl. “We’re all together again. Isn’t that nice?”
Kinsley looked from her to Jay and back again, then nodded.
Her daughter would learn.
Kinsley would learn the same lessons that life had taught her. She would learn that pain could be a beautiful thing when it came from the man you loved. Maria had learned that from her mother, whose husband used to beat her daily. The man wasn't her father, her father had split before she was born, but he was the man who had been her male role model growing up.
Those early experiences had taught her that the husband ruled the house with an iron fist, and it was the wife’s job to cater to his every whim and attend to everything so he didn't have to. If you failed, you were punished. Could she help it if she enjoyed those punishments?
No, she could not.
Despite beating her mother daily, her stepfather had never laid a hand on her. The only person in her life to beat her was her husband.
One day Kinsley would find a husband of her own. And while her daughter had already had that first taste of pain from her father, it would be the man she loved who would show her just how precious pain could be.
“I don’t think anyone is following us,” Jay said.
“That’s good.” All she wanted was to get out of here and start their new lives. “Where are we going?”
“Back to where I've been staying,” Jay answered. “We’ll stay there for a few days, then once Hayley is dead and things have calmed down the three of us will leave.”
She wanted to argue.
To say they should leave now. Staying was too risky. As it was, they would spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders.
But she didn't.
Because it wasn't her place.
Her place was to obediently do whatever her husband told her to, regardless of how she felt about it.
So, Maria settled Kinsley on her lap, put the seatbelt around them both, and then sat quietly waiting for her next directive.
