Page 3 of Mace

“You’ve never understood the way I feel,” she says, emotion making her voice thick. “You judge me. I see it in those eyes of yours. But you have never experienced what I did. I tried to be a good mother. I tried to forget what they did to me, but I have to live with that inside me everyminute of the day, and I can’t.” I flinch as she trails her fingers over my face, as if she is trying to map every part of it. “I’m sorry. I want to be the mother you need, and I want desperately to love you, but I can’t.”

I wait for the pain to blossom through my chest, but it doesn’t. It’s not the first time she’s said this to me, and it won’t be the last. I am a reminder of her demons, and maybe if I didn’t exist, she could have found some semblance of peace with what was done to her.

Her fingers grab my chin, her grip light as she leans up to peer into my eyes. “Every time I look at you, I seehim, and I remember what he did to me.” She whispers the words, a thread of fear running through them. “I should’ve drowned you at birth.”

That breaks through the moment. I tear my head out of her grasp, my jaw tight enough to ache as I step away from her. “Fuck you. I didn’t ask for this either, and it’s not my fault what happened to you.”

I back away, keeping my gaze locked on her in case she decides to attack me again. As soon as I’m out of her reach, I turn away, heading for the door. She screams and yells obscenities at me as I pass through it and into the hallway. I don’t stop or look back as I make my way down multiple flights of stairs at a run. By the time I reach the ground floor, I’m dizzied from the motion of going round and round the stairwell.

Fuck.

I hate that she has the power to shatter me with so few words almost as much as I hate that fucking cunt’s DNA pulsing through every cell in my body. There isn’t a moment that goes by where I don’t worry that I could have his darkness inside me.

You’re not him.

No, I’m not. I could never do the things he did to my mother.

The cold hits me as I reach street level, chasing away the dark thoughts sliding into my mind.

There are a few kids hanging around, trying to make snowballs, but there’s only a thin blanket covering the tarmac. In the past, I would have joined them, but tonight, I walk in the direction of the clubhouse.

Nicky should be there, but if he’s not, his dad will be, and he’ll let me sit in the warmth of the common room until morning.

As I make it to the end of the building, I hear a scream followed by a sickening thud.

A car alarm instantly begins blaring, the hazard lights of the vehicle flashing frantically and casting orange strobes around the walls of the high-rises surrounding me.

A wailed sound of horror wrenches the air and my blood freezes.

“Fuck, someone call the pigs,” a voice shrieks.

I turn, and with feet like lead, I walk back, stepping around the crowd of people gathered.

Nothing could prepare me for what I see.

The bonnet of the car is caved in, and there is a spiderweb of cracks in the windscreen behind the twisted body sprawled on top of it. Dark hair trails like a blanket, and blood spreads down the metalwork, staining the snow.

I lift my gaze to look up the length of the building to the ninth floor. The window in my room is open, the curtains flapping through to the outside.

I couldn’t see her face properly in the flat, and I can’tsee it now, buried beneath the river of blood covering it, but I don’t need to.

I know exactly who it is lying mangled on the front of the car.

My mother.

TWO

MAYLIE

PRESENT…

I glanceat the clock on the wall, trying to keep my perfectly crafted smile in place before I reach for my phone again. I’ve sent Ivy three messages in the last half-hour asking where the hell she is, and so far, there’s been zero fucking response. She was meant to be home an hour ago, and I have ten minutes before I need to leave or I’m going to be late. As much as my boss loves me, Sam’s going to lose his mind if I keep shaving time off the start of every shift because of my sister.

“Face it, Maylie, she ain’t comin’.”

Toby is as sick of our sister’s shit as I am—at least that’s what his tone tells me—but I can’t bring myself to give Ivy a hard time. She’s trying to find her way in the world, and that’s not an easy task for a parentless teenager on the verge of adulthood.

“Of course, she’s coming. She promised.” I inject asmuch cheer into my words as I can, but even I hear the hollowness. Ivy’s promises don’t mean shit these days.

---