Chapter 110
Elena’s Point Of View
The room went dead, terrifyingly still.
My sister Heather’s face went completely white, her mouth forming a silent, frantic oval of terror, a sound catching in her throat that was not yet a cry. Her eyes darted between our mother and me, wide with a child’s helpless understanding that something irreversible was about to happen.
She had seen our mother’s rages before, had felt their aftershocks in bruises and slammed doors, but something about tonight was different, and even at ten years old she seemed to know it. I could feel every jagged beat of my own heart hammering against my ribs like a curse.
For a long, agonizing moment, I saw nothing but my mother’s face… lined, hard, twisted by a bitter, psychotic righteousness that we were never allowed to question, a righteousness that had governed every cruel decision she’d ever made in our lives.
I searched that face, as I always did, for some flicker of the woman who might have once rocked me to sleep or sung to me in the dark, but I found nothing there anymore, only the cold architecture of her fury.
I wondered, not for the first time, what had hollowed her out so completely, what had turned love into something that only knew how to wound.
“Mom,” I managed to choke out, my hands trembling violently over my lower ribs where the thick wooden handle of the broom had already left swelling, purple bruises. “You… you can’t p>
She didn’t just cut me off with words; she stepped into my space, her hand shooting out like a striking viper. Her calloused, heavy fingers tangled brutally into my hair at the crown of my head, yanking my skull backward with a sickening snap that forced a shrill scream of pain from my raw throat. The world tilted, the ceiling swimming above me in a blur of cracked plaster and shadow.
Somewhere distant, as if through water, I heard Dave crying from the corner where he’d wedged himself, too small and too frightened to do anything but watch. I hated that he had to see this, hated that his six-year-old mind would carry this image long after tonight was over.
“Don’t you Mom me, you worthless, ungrateful little bitch!” she shrieked, her hot, sour breath… smelling of cheap gin and stale tobacco, blasting straight into my eyes. She yanked my hair harder, twisting her wrist until my scalping skin felt like it was tearing away from my skull. “Look at me when I’m deciding your fate p>
“Elena! Mama, please! Let her go!” Heather wailed, throwing her tiny, ten-year-old body against our mother’s hip, trying to pry her mother’s thick fingers loose, her small feet scrabbling uselessly against the floorboards for leverage.
She had always been the brave one in moments like this, throwing herself between us with a fearlessness that broke my heart every single time, because I knew exactly what it might cost her. I wanted to scream at her to stay back, to save herself for once, but the words never came fast enough.
My mother didn’t even look down. With a single, ruthless backhand, she struck Heather clean across the face. The loud CRACK of her palm against my sister’s delicate cheek echoed off the bare concrete walls, sending Heather crashing onto the cold, dusty floorboards with a sharp cry of pain that seemed to hang in the air long after she’d fallen silent.
For one horrifying heartbeat, Heather didn’t move at all, and I thought something inside my chest might actually shatter. Every protective instinct in my body screamed at me to go to her, and yet I remained frozen, trapped in my mother’s grip, utterly powerless.
“Heather!” I screamed, struggling against the blinding agony in my scalp, trying to reach for her, my fingers clawing uselessly at empty air.
“Shut your mouth!” my mother roared, giving my hair another violent yank that brought me straight to my knees. Tears of pure, blinding pain overflowed my eyes, tracking through the dirt and dried blood on my cheeks.
She leaned down, her face contorted into something demonic, her dark eyes hollow and completely devoid of human warmth, as though whatever mother she might once have been had long since abandoned the body that stood over me.
I searched, even then, for some flicker of hesitation, some shadow of guilt, but there was only that terrible, empty resolve. In that instant, I understood with sickening finality that pleading would never reach her, that whatever remained of her conscience had died long before tonight.
“It’s decided,” she hissed, her voice dropping into a lethal, deliberate cadence that carved straight into my soul. “You have three days to wipe that pathetic, arrogant look off your face and accept the marriage. Three days to prepare yourself to be his wife. And if you’re still proving stubborn… if you think your pride is worth more than the roof over our heads p>
She paused, her top lip curling into a vile, disgust-filled sneer. She slowly loosened her grip on my hair, only to use the same hand to grab my jaw, her nails digging so deep into my cheekbones I felt the skin break. A thin trickle of warmth slid down toward my chin, and I didn’t know if it was blood or tears anymore.
My whole body had gone rigid, braced for whatever came next, because I had learned long ago that flinching only made her crueler. Every muscle screamed to fight back, yet I forced myself into stillness, knowing resistance would only cost Heather and Dave more than it would cost me.
She threw my face to the side with absolute contempt, letting my head crack lightly against the doorframe. She took a step back, wiping her palm on her faded floral apron as if touching me had dirtied her skin. Rolling her eyes toward the ceiling as she turned toward her bedroom, she delivered the final blow with an icy, careless shrug:
“At least one of you ought to be of value to me p>
BANG.
Her bedroom door slammed shut, the heavy wooden frame rattling the thin glass louvres of the window.
Her words settled over us like a final, inescapable death sentence. The house fell into a heavy, suffocating silence, broken only by the distant hum of the old television set she’d left blaring in the sitting room and the ragged, soundless sobs wracking Heather’s tiny chest on the floor.
Even the walls of that house seemed to hold their breath, as though they too had grown used to absorbing our pain and had nothing left to offer but silence.
I remained kneeling there for a moment longer than I needed to, letting the ringing in my ears fade, letting the shape of what had just happened settle into something I could actually comprehend.
I lay there on my knees for a second, my mind completely numb, tasting the copper tang of blood from my split lip. I cupped my aching ribs where the fresh bruises burned like hot iron, every shallow breath sending sharp spikes of pain through my side.
Slowly, painfully, I dragged myself across the floor and pulled both my trembling siblings into my arms, my whole body screaming in protest with every inch I moved.
Heather was shaking so violently her teeth clicked together, her small hands clutching at the front of my torn shirt, while six-year-old Dave hid his face deep into my chest, his little hands gripping my waist with a vice-like terror. The room narrowed down to just the three of us… three small, broken bodies sitting in the dark, weighed down by the impossible, horrific choice my mother had laid before me.
I could feel Dave’s heartbeat racing against my ribs, could hear Heather’s breath hitching over and over, and something inside me hardened into cold, unshakable resolve.
I thought, absurdly, of all the birthdays I had tried to make special for them with nothing but stolen sugar and candle stubs, of all the nights I had hummed lullabies to drown out the sound of shouting from the next room.
I thought of how many times I had promised myself, silently, that I would find a way out for us someday, never truly believing that someday would arrive this fast, this brutally. None of that mattered now. Only this moment mattered, and the decision I could no longer avoid making.
I knew then… God, I knew with terrifying clarity that we couldn’t stay here. Not another night under her shadow. If I stayed, she would sell me to a man old enough to be my grandfather. And if I ran alone, she would drag Heather to his bed the very next morning to collect her check.
There was no version of tomorrow that didn’t end in one of us destroyed. The realization settled into my bones like ice, cold and absolute, and beneath the fear, something else began to stir… a fierce, unshakable determination that I had never let myself feel before.
When her heavy, rhythmic snores finally began to vibrate through the cracked drywall, I pulled Heather and Dave up by their trembling hands. My legs felt like lead, my whole body throbbing with a sickening ache, but my mind was screaming, racing against the ticking clock.
“Elena Heather choked out, her voice barely a thread of air, her cheek already swelling into an angry red welt. “Is… is she really going to give me to that man p>
“No,” I whispered fiercely, wiping a tear from her cheek with my thumb, my eyes blazing in the dim light. “Over my dead body, Heather. Never p>
I pulled them silently into the tiny back room we shared… a closet-sized space with a single, sagging mattress that smelled of old damp mildew. My ribs screamed as I crouched down under the bed, dragging out the worn, faded canvas satchel I’d kept hidden behind a loose floorboard.
Inside was every single coin and crumpled note I’d managed to scrape together over two agonizing years… money from scrubbing floors for neighbors, coins I’d hidden in my shoes before she could snatch them to buy her liquor. Every bill represented a small, secret rebellion, a sliver of hope I hadn’t dared name until now.
I remembered the nights I’d gone hungry just to keep a few extra coins hidden, telling myself it was for nothing in particular, refusing to admit even to myself that I had always known, somewhere deep down, that this day might come.
Counting it now, in the dark, with my hands shaking and my siblings watching, I finally allowed myself to hope that it might be enough to buy us a future, however small.
It was a pathetic, small pile of cash, but right now, it was our only ticket to survival.
“Heather,” I whispered urgently, my hands flying as I unzipped the bag. “Help me. Pack the clothes. Just the essentials. Enough to carry p>
Her tiny hands shook uncontrollably as she reached for our threadbare shirts, tears slipping continuously down her pale face. “Elena… what are we doing? Where are we going to go? It’s past midnight p>
“Somewhere safe,” I lied smoothly, looking her dead in the eye because she desperately needed to believe it. “I won’t let her touch you again, Heather. Not ever. Do you hear me p>
Dave clung tightly to my hips, his little arms wrapped around my thighs, his voice muffled against my stomach. “Lena… are we leaving forever? What about my toy truck p>
I crouched down, ignoring the flare of pain in my back, and pressed my forehead against his. I brushed his messy hair back, forcing a soft, reassuring smile onto my face, though my chest ached at the innocence of his question. “Shh, baby. We’re leaving this bad place, okay? We’re going on an adventure to somewhere much better. But I need you to be my brave little man tonight. Can you do that for me p>
He swallowed hard, his lower lip quivering, but he gave me a firm nod, and something about his small, determined face nearly broke what little composure I had left. He had no idea, thank God, what waited for us out there in the dark, and I prayed desperately that I could keep it that way for as long as possible. I tucked away the guilt of lying to him, promising myself I would find some way to make the lie true.