Page 3 of Hideaway Whirlwind
“With who?”
I open my mouth to lie again, but nothing comes out. I should be better at this by now. Telling her I’d switched shifts was the worst lie I could have come up with. No matter which co-worker I pick, she could easily verify if I’m telling the truth, which would only lead to more questioning and potentially hurting them if Priscilla thought they were covering for me.
She gets in my face, her pupils dilated as large as her irises from more than just the lack of light. She’s been hitting her stash more frequently than I thought since her son passed. “You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you?” For once, her increasingly volatile paranoia isn’t misplaced.
“No, I promise,” I say, keeping my voice low, careful not to let my foot bounce on the floor with anxiety and the need to dosomething. “You saw it. You saw my phone. You know I’m not hiding anything.”
My shoulders curl inward as I try to lean away when she harshly drives her sweaty forehead into mine and screams, “Lying bitch!”
“Mama!” Kendall toddles out of our bedroom, clutching her polar bear, her little chin quivering. She wants to run to me, but she’s always been terrified of her smelly, crazy grandmother, who stands between us, and she waffles about what to do.
Priscilla slaps an easy, clownish smile on her face and moves toward her. “Kendall, baby, come here.”
Kendall screams and tries to dart around her on her little legs, running to me for safety with her mouth open wide with a cry.
I shoot up onto my feet, reaching for my daughter, but Priscilla snatches her up and bands an arm around her back, crushing her to her skinny chest, growing angrier the harder Kendall thrashes against her, twisting and reaching for me, screaming forMamarepeatedly.
Approaching six feet tall to my five-foot-nothing frame, Priscilla towers over me as I approach, holding my unsteady arms up, adrenaline surging through my veins with the need to yank my daughter out of her hold and run for our lives…But I can’t. Not with my other two children asleep in their bedroom.
And Priscilla knows it, angling her body to further block the hallway.
I swore I would never let anyone hurt my babies. That I would happily continue to take it all to protect them, as I promised each when they were born.I’ve broken my promisewhen Priscilla gives Kendall a quick swat on her butt, and I sink further into my guilt.
“Please, give her to me. I’ll put her back to bed and then we can talk,” I say, ducking my head slightly in forced submission.
“Yeah, you wish,” Priscilla yells above Kendall’s cries, bouncing her roughly up and down in a poor imitation of a soothing gesture, which only serves to terrify her further.
“Please,” I beg on a whisper, taking another step forward. “She’s scared.”
Priscilla raises her hand, but I automatically back away before she can shove me again, which pleases her, given the smirk that morphs her smile into something more sinister. “Why would she be scared?” she asks in a mockingly innocent tone. Her grin drops in an instant when Kendall claws at her cheeks to get away, arching her back to put as much distance between them as she can. “Are you turning her against me?”
“She’s two, and you’re hurting her! Of course, she’s scared,” I snap instead of keeping control of my emotions and trying to de-escalate the situation.
I whip my head to the side at the mouth of the hallway when my six-year-old son, Dustin, asks, “Mommy?” Standing in his race car pajamas, he shields his five-year-old sister, Sydney, behind him in her pony pajama dress.
No, no, no, no!
Priscilla raises an overly plucked brow at me expectantly. Shoving my fear and rage into a tiny black box in my mind, I lift my voice. “Go back to bed. I’ll tuck you in soon.”
“Here.” Priscilla shoves Kendall into Dustin’s arms, making him and Sydney stumble backward. “Take the fucking brat with you.”
“But, Mom—”
“Now!” Priscilla screams shrilly at Dustin, advancing on him, making him and Sydney cower while Kendall clings to her brother.
And I see it. The glint of her favorite knife kept in the leather sheath buttoned to her belt loop beneath her jacket.
Priscilla whirls on me before I can finish debating whether I should risk everything by reaching for it, and she grabs me by the throat, forcing me to roll up on my tiptoes with her freakish strength. “Tell your bastards to fuck off, or you know what will happen.”
She doesn’t give me a chance before she spins me around and pushes me into the galley kitchen with the kids screaming for me in the background. I crash into the counter with a cry, twisting my body around in time to avoid hitting my stomach. But my momentum is too great, and I can’t find my balance in time, falling on the trash can, knocking it over. When thelid skitters across the peel-and-stick vinyl floor, but none of the “trash” spills out, Priscilla cocks her head to the side with feverish glee, and I know it’s all over.
Priscilla moves faster than I can react, ripping the garbage bag open and throwing everything I’d packed so carefully across the room. “I knew it! You were trying to take my granddaughter away from me, you fat cunt!”
“No! I swear!” I lie, even as I’m getting my feet under me, ready to spring up and grab my kids.
Priscilla shoves me onto my back but fists my hoodie with both hands to lift my upper half off the floor, her dusty, high-heeled, gaudy cowgirl boots planted on either side of my hips. “Bullshit!”
“They’re old clothes I was throwing out, I promise!”
