“Don’t forget! Whether you ever see Bruiser again is entirely at my will. No,” he adds cruelly. “At mywhim. Because he’snotat Ximena’s. He’s with my guys. So maybe you should decide to sit there longer and learn some fuckingrespect.”
He kicks the door, shaking it on its hinges.
Then I hear footsteps stomping back down the hallway.
“Z! Water!” I scream with the last of my energy before collapsing onto my back on the closet floor.
My face rolls to the side, and if I had an ounce of extra liquid in my body, I would be crying.
SIXTEEN
HARPER
Z unlocksand tugs the heavy closet door open as dawn breaks the next morning.
I hold my weak arm up to block the sudden morning light filtering in through the windows, paining my eyes.
Only to see Z holding a bottle of water and a pack of Pop-Tarts like he’s doing me a favor.
I want to scratch his eyes out. But without drinking anything for two days, I’m not sure I’d be able to land the attack.
I’m as weak as a rag doll.
And Bruiser comes first anyway, which I know Z’s banking on.
So I take both without a word, because my son is being held somewhere with strangers. And until I know exactly where he is and that he’s safe, Z holds every card.
“You’re going to see Silas today,” Z says, leaning against the doorjamb, watching me drain half the bottle in one go. “And you’re going to get him to sign the deed over to the Dungeon. Just like we talked about.”
I lower the bottle, keeping my eyes cast down in submission. “And Bruiser?”
“He’ll come home as soon as I get the call that it’s done.”
I dare take a quick glance up at him, standing there in yesterday’s clothes, tracking me with eyes that have gone flat and watchful in a way I never let myself see before.
Z and I used to stare at the stars and tell each other everything.
That boy is gone.
I don’t know when it happened, or maybe that person always was just a fiction. Maybe just a story of the person Ineededhim to be, so I could survive.
“And if I tell Silas the truth?” I ask, keeping my voice very careful and very even. “If I tell him someone’s forcing my hand?”
Z’s jaw shifts. “Then my guys don’t bring Bruiser home.”
There it is.
I cap the water bottle and stand up on legs that are still stiff and cramped from the closet floor.
I stumble out of the closet and over to the bathroom without asking permission. After I use the toilet, I splash water and look at myself in the mirror. My hand is still wrapped in the torn hem of a shirt. My eyes are hollow.
I look like my mother at her worst, and that thought alone is enough to make me square my shoulders and straighten my spine.
I am not her.
My kid will not pay for my mistakes.
So an hour later, I’m signing in at the front desk of a Texas state correctional facility like it’s just a normal Tuesday. They check my bag, log my ID, and a female officer runs a wand over me with the same expression my old dentist used when he was checking for cavities.