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She was on the floor, expression twisted with desperation.
I’d never seen it—not in this way. She’d never let me.
My fists balled around the long sleeves of my favourite sweatshirt.
Today had been special. My pack dads had been gone for a few days, they did that sometimes. And the third Hunting Falcon’s movie was out at midnight. She’d promised we could stay up and watch it. I’d picked out my outfit, so excited.
That seemed stupid now. We would have been asleep by the time he’d come home.
I stared, absolutely frozen, as a thunderclap boomed outside.
She was crying.
“You fool,” he laughed.
I blinked, eyes flickering to the window at another movement that shook me to my bones. Moonlight spilled through swaying sheer curtains, and wind slammed rain into the glass pane.
My mother whimpered from the blow.
I shook.
My fault.
I’d wanted stupid things and sung too loud. If I’d been quiet, she wouldn’t have picked up the knife. And now I couldn’t move as he kicked it from her hand.
It clattered across the hardwood, away from his attention.
“You can’t stop me, you useless bitch.” He’d grabbed her again. It felt like my heart was trying to burst from my chest it was beating so hard. Her eyes were wide as she looked at me.
They were a rich brown, not gold.
Desirable.
Beautiful.
Frightened.
I glanced again at the window. Out to the storm that usually made me more afraid than anything. “We’re bound,” he was snarling. “You have my bite.”
He moved again and my breath caught.
I was frozen, clutching the sleeves of my stupid sweatshirt. Instead of looking at the storm this time, I dropped my eyes, finding the glinting silver of the knife that had come to a stop before my fluffy socks.
“You can never kill me.”
Tears blurred my own fingers as I reached down.
And somehow, at that moment, I wasn’t frozen anymore.
It was the last line of the song. The one embroidered on the cuff of the shirt I’d worn here.
It was the words I’d never sung since that day. The day I hadn’t whispered.
A promise.
A dare.
I’d done what my mother never had. I’d claimed gold like she hadn’t.
