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He picks up a framed picture from the side table and chucks it at me.
I duck, and the thing shatters over my head. Bits of frame and glass rain down on me, and something inside me fractures. I unlock the door and slip out.
I run to the neighbor’s house.
Whatever they see has them calling the police. They show up in no time. The neighbor talks about how my parents are always yelling. The police ask me how I was injured.
“My dad,” I whisper.
And then he’s in handcuffs, struggling as they drag him to one of the cruisers. They put my mother and I in another, driving us to the station. She doesn’t look at me until we’re in the station—and she sees them lead her husband away.
Then she comes atme. She blamesme.
They haul her off and shepherd me toward the social worker’s office.
The sad part is that I already know her. I’d met her a few times over the years, although nothing ever stuck. But now, I sit on her couch and tears come pouring out of my eyes, and I can’t stop. My mother’s voice is still digging into me from another room, anotherworldaway.
You fat slut, you ruin everything. How dare you call the cops on your father? He’s just trying to help you! How could you do this to us?
“Here.” The social worker sits beside me with a mug in her hand.
I take it. And take a sip.
Hot chocolate coats my taste buds.
I haven’t had hot chocolate in years.
It’s then that she breaks the news that he’s going to jail for assaulting a minor. That there’s enough proof, enough documentation, for the prosecutor to get him locked away for at least ten years.
And in two weeks, I’ll be eighteen. It doesn’t matter if my mother disowns me. I’m at college. I have a place to stay, loans and grants to pay for school, and friends.Friends, for the first time in my life.
Dad going to jail feels right.
Justified.
My mother hating me… Well, maybe we’ll be able to repair it.
So I sip my hot chocolate and try to stop the guilt from eating me up inside.
37
JACOB
Ipace outside the arena.
Of all the things Ishouldbe doing, this is not one of them. I’m in a weird state between worry and calm. Like, I know where she probably went. And Violet should be with her, according to the call from Greyson. But Violet gave Willow her phone, and she’s the only one not tracked by other means. You’d think he would’ve lived and learned, but he was already taking her feelings into consideration.
Not Melody, though. I didn’t clone her phone or put a tracker under her skin. I’ve been painfully ignorant when it comes to such things, because I thought…
She’s a bird with clipped wings.
Where could she go?
Turns out, she could go anywhere she damn well pleases. And as long as I’m trapped by obligation to my team, there are some times where I simply cannot follow her.
So I’ve been dealing with the weird floating sensation that comes with instability and mild panic, and I keep pacing. Even when Camden Church steps out to check on me, or when Dawes offers me a hit of weed to get my “anxiety” under control.
There’s one thing that will control it, and that’s me. When I finally see her.
