Page 46 of Snowman

His words hit me like a punch to the chest. I sank to the cold ground, my head in my hands, my chest tightening with an ache I couldn’t name. My voice broke when I spoke. "I want to see what you found."

"Julia and the little one just went to sleep," Erik said, his tone softening. "Come over. We can go over it in my office."

I managed a small, tired smile. "Sure," I said. "How are they?"

"Do you really want to know?" he asked with a chuckle in his voice.

"Not really," I replied, chuckling faintly in return.

He paused. "How’s Bree?" Then, after a beat, "And does Mom know?"

"She doesn’t know," I said. "And Bree... she’ll be okay."

"Okay," he murmured. "See you soon."

"Yeah," I said quietly. "Soon."

I hung up, still sitting in front of the hospital, staring at the empty stretch of sidewalk ahead of me. For a moment, fleeting thoughts of normalcy rushed through my mind—what life could’ve been if things were different? But the illusion shattered as soon as I closed my eyes.

All I could see was my reflection in a cracked mirror, staring back at me through the hollow eyes of a white plastic mask. Thesins of my father were so heavy on me, but I bore them willingly. Not for myself, but so Erik wouldn’t have to.

We grew up together, but we came from different worlds. Even though I was the youngest, I always felt the need to protect him. He was the fragile one, the one who cracked under the pain Dad tried to place on us. Our father had big plans, the Family, as he called it, but there was never anything familial about it. Joe, the oldest from his first marriage, was the favorite. The golden child. Erik was stuck in the middle, and I was an afterthought, the youngest.

He refused to let us have sisters. He said daughters would make him weak, and that women brought softness and vulnerability to the family. I never understood why then. But now, as I see Erik fiercely protective of Julia, and I want nothing more than to do the same to Bree, I understand. He never wanted us to go against him, to worry about anyone else. Control was his only goal, and for a time he succeeded.

Joe... Joe was Dad's shadow, his mirror image, but without any of his stability. When I think of Joe now, it's like I'm looking at a reflection of everything I could have been if I'd followed in their footsteps. And as I sit here, in the cold, staring out at the empty streets, I understand why Mom did what she did when I turned sixteen.

She didn't want us to be his pawns. She didn't want us to become any more broken than we already were.

SIXTEEN

BREE

DECEMBER, 2016

"Hold him gently in your hands.

He has been cracked enough as it is,

and his heart is more

shattered than he lets on."

— Unknown

They say every painis temporary, but I never understood why mine felt like it stretched forever. Maybe it was because my pain didn't have an ending. Maybe I was meant to carry it with me.

They say the pain will mute you, will steal your voice, yet here I was, drowning in it and somehow finding a voice that begged to scream. A voice that wanted to tell the world how hard it was to be me.

Bits and pieces of the past started to surface, fragments I had locked away: the accident, the mental hospital, the doctor—memories sharp enough to cut through the fog. They were almost to the moment when Joe took me from kindergarten, pretending to be my uncle. They were almost to the night they snatched Mel from her bed while I sat in the car, clutching a doll and humming a lullaby. They were almost to the plan they made to erase me when I started remembering too much.

Now, they'd called someone to pick me up again. They locked the doors, their voices calm, insisting I was dangerous, that I had a history of mental issues, and that I might try to escape.

I was trapped. Again.

They returned my clothes—clean, folded neatly, the same ones I had on when they brought me in. The memory of who brought me here was hazy, but the smell was still there; cedarwood, smoke, and musk. The scent clung to my skin like a stain as I slid into the freshly washed fabric. The itchiness of the clothes wasn't from dirt; it was from knowing they had scrubbed them clean of evidence. The evidence they thought I would forget. But I hadn't.

I wanted to burn the clothes, and maybe myself along with them.

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