Page 10 of Scapegoat

“Not one word,” she cautioned me when we pulled up outside our house. I wasn’t sure why. I hadn’t said a thing on the whole drive home, so why would I have decided to start? “Get inside and then I’ll deal with you.”

Her words gave me a sense of impending doom. I moved slowly, each step feeling like it took a million years, right up until I got inside the front door and that’s when all the violence that had been simmering inside her erupted.

When she raised her hand, when she called me a little bitch, right as she slapped me so hard, I saw stars. None of that was a surprise. It was what had made me think twice about sneaking off, and was also the reason why I did in the first place. I couldn’t stand living under my mother’s tyrannical rule, so I escaped sometimes, just to fucking breathe. But every time I did, I was hauled back here, reminded of my place.

“Kaia…” Dad jumped to his feet from his seat at the dining table. His brows creased, then real rage flickered in his eyes when he saw the mark on my face, the tears glistening in my eyes, unshed. “Jesus, Abigail, what the hell did you do?”

“What you can’t,” Mum sneered, marching into the room and then pointing imperiously at the kitchen. “Your father, your sister, have yet to have their dinner. They’re starving hungry because of your selfishness, so you march right in there and—”

This was the problem with hitting me too early. Mum never did learn. I’d gotten into the car, done as she asked, to try and avoid just this. But once she’d slapped me? The wolf shifted in me, forcing my spine straight, my head held high. Well, there was nowhere left to go, was there? If she hit me again, it wouldn’t make my jaw ache more or less than it already did, so what did I have to lose? Only a week until I was an adult. One week until my wolf and I were one.

“So why didn’t you cook them something?” I snapped. Dad sucked a rapid breath in, not due to my insolence, but from fear. His eyes went wide, flicking backward and forward between the two of us, while Anna sat back, arms folded, watching everything. In response to my words, my mother’s eyes shone with a manic light, a mirthless smile spreading across her face. I wasn’t going to let that stop me now that I’d finally started. “Any of you. Your arms aren’t broken. If you went hungry, you only have yourself to blame.”

The wolf growled inside me, muscles tensing, my arms going wide, my weight resting on the balls of my feet, as my mother launched herself at me.

Blows smacked my head right and left and I tried to shake that off, see through the explosions of white inside my head, right before I hit back. Raking my nails across her skin, slamming my fists into anything that was in reach, with no skill or strategy. The wolf hated this, bucked and fought inside me, desperate to get out, to shift, to run the fuck away, or stand our ground and howl, right before we launched ourselves at her. My mother, the one who had borne me, she wanted me to hurt, I could taste that in the burst of coppery blood inside my mouth. But right now, I wanted to hurt her too. Cloth ripped, muffled growls and screams filled the dining room until a roar cut through it all.

“Enough!” Hands pushed us apart and I think we were both surprised to see my father standing there, panting hard, as he struggled to keep both of us away from each other. Mum lunged at me, snapping her jaws. I was about to do the same when he said it again, “Enough.”

Dad’s voice had dropped in tone, becoming a plea rather than a demand, and that’s what had me stepping back.

“Kaia, go to your room,” he instructed. As I moved to obey him, Anna started to whine.

“But I’m hungry…”

“Make yourself some toast and baked beans,” Dad said.

“But I don’t like baked beans!”

“Then get a bowl of cereal!”

Anna jolted in her chair, not having flinched a second as the fight between Mum and I broke up, but shaken to her core now. She blinked, then blinked again, rapidly. Tears formed in her eyes and that’s all it took to move Mum.

“Don’t cry, darling.”

Not for the first time, I stared at my mother, wondering what the fuck turned her from the vicious bitch of five minutes ago, to this. She moved to Anna’s side and gathered her up in her arms, making my sister seem so much younger as she was held to her mother’s breast.

This, exactly this was what I was jealous of. I didn’t need to be blonde or pretty like her, nor good at drawing and I didn’t need a phalanx of adoring friends. I didn’t need anything else Anna had. Just this.

My mother loved Anna, that was plain to see, as she stroked her hair and crooned soft words to her, giving her all the comfort that had never been bestowed upon me. At Anna’s behest, Mum fussed around in the kitchen, opening drawers and cupboards, although not really knowing where anything was. And why would she? Feeding and caring for the family was my job, not hers. But Mum made my sister a bowl of cereal, as if pouring out the stream of grains and then adding milk was far too much for Anna.

“Go to bed, Kaia,” Dad prompted in a soft voice and I did, because I couldn’t stand to be around my family for one moment longer.

Chapter 7

You’d have to wonder why she’d allowed me to keep my phone. That was the first thing that got confiscated when a kid was in trouble, right? But as soon as I entered the room I shared with Anna, after I flopped down on my bed, feeling wrung out and nauseous, I reached for the device.

Are you OK? Atlas asked.

Tell me that bitch of a mother didn’t fuck with you, Jayden demanded.

You can come and stay with us any time, no strings attached, Xavier wrote. You know what we want, but we want you safe most.

Tell me you’re OK.

Kaia?

Kaia?

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