Prologue

“STOP!”

The word came out like a strangled cry. It didn’t even seem to belong to me. My baby sister was in my arms, and Mom was nowhere to be seen. She must have still been in the garage, stress-smoking her cigarette. Didn’t she hear me scream?

“I said leave her alone! You can’t grab her like that!” I tried as best as possible to make my voice firm, but its wavering gave me no power over Richard, who was potato bagging my thirteen-year-old sister, Kristine, on his shoulder.

I saw his gigantic hands on Kris’s thighs. They dug into her skin, and I knew those would leave bruise marks later. I was sure about it.

My new little sister, Gabby, was a crying mess in my arms. Nothing seemed to soothe her. But I couldn’t blame her.

I snuggled her close to my body, trying to shelter her from Kris’s screaming, thrashing, and banging. My stepfather kept climbing the stairs, and I never left his heels.

Richard looked like a demon. His face was contorted as if in pain and fury. His eyes almost bulged out, and a slight vein near his temple looked like a worm wriggling underneath.

Everything appeared unreal, like something you would see in a horror movie. I asked myself what a fifteen-year-old teenager could do against such a man, and I miserably determined I couldn’t do much.

As Richard was carrying Kris on his shoulder, she started squirming making him lose his balance. He lost his footing and fell against the wall. Richard held Kris’s legs tightly to prevent her from falling, but she stopped shifting her weight on him and let out a muffled cry.

Suddenly, the door to our stepfather’s bedroom burst open, and he stormed in. He threw Kris on the bed and hurried out of the room, slamming the door shut and holding the doorknob close. The sound of Kris banging on the door and crying on the other side was heart-wrenching.

Gabby was screaming in my ears, causing a commotion. I held her close and stared Richard right in the eye, bewildered by his actions. We had gone through hard times in the past few months, but Richard had never abused us like this. It was as if he had turned into a completely different person. I wondered who Richard had become and what had caused him to act so cruel and evil toward us. The memory of that incident will stay with me forever.

“Let her out! You can’t throw someone in a room and lock them in!” My voice shook from fear and anger. “It was only scissors. Why are you so mad?”

Richard’s eyes widened with anger, and they seemed to bulge out of his head even more than before. When I noticed the sudden change in his demeanour, I instinctively backed away toward the opposite wall, trying to put some distance between us. Cold sweat started prickling on my neck as he reached out with his free hand and grabbed my shirt with a fistful of fabric. The force was so strong that my head was pushed back, hitting the wall behind me before being dragged closer to him.

Despite my fear and confusion, I could see words forming in Richard’s mouth, but I was too dazed to understand what he was saying. My mind was blank, and all I could feel was the racing of my heart and the blood rushing to my ears. After what seemed like an eternity, I slowly started to regain my senses, and I became aware of commands being barked at me in a harsh and authoritative tone, “Give me my baby!” he kept repeating.

I tried to turn around and free myself, but his grip on my shirt was too firm. If I tried harder, he’d surely rip it. Richard finally let go of the fabric but quickly caught my arm to prevent me from fleeing. His grip was like iron. It kept getting firmer and tighter. It was so strong that I thought his hand was on fire, and my skin sizzled underneath.

Tears lurked in the back of my throat, and my body shivered. I couldn’t give him Gabby, not like this. He’d hurt her… or worse.

The door connected to the garage opened and closed. I could hear my mother jingling her keys and the sound of her coat being dropped in the entryway. Meanwhile, Kris pounded on the door, and I listened to our mother climbing the stairs with haste at the strange sounds. As Kris continued to batter the entrance to the master bedroom, Richard demanded again, “Give her to me!”

His thumb’s nail cut the inside of my arm this time.

“Mom! Mom, we’re up here. Hurry—” My words were interrupted as Richard shook me violently and threw me against the wall.

Mother ran up the stairs two at a time, and disbelief was apparent in her eyes when she finally saw the entire scene. This was the man she had shared almost five years with, a man with whom she now shared a child.

As soon as I caught sight of my mother, I panicked and tried to break free from Richard’s iron grip. However, my struggles were in vain, and this seemed to spark an intense anger in my mother. I had never seen her look so furious before, and it was almost like she was a different person entirely. Her expression then shifted, and it was as if she began to calculate probabilities in her mind.

In a deadly calm voice, which she only used on rare occasions, my mother instructed me to hand over Gabby to Richard. The calmness in her voice felt eerie, and I began to feel even more scared. I protested, desperate to keep Gabby safe from harm. But my mother gave me an urgent look, and I knew that I had to relent. As I prepared to give Richard the baby, my lips started to quiver, and I felt numb.

“Where’s Kristine,” Mom asked.

I pointed to the door with my nose. “Kris is in there.”

Without wasting another moment, Mom rushed past Richard and me and tried to open the door. However, as Kris was kneeling at the base of the door, she couldn’t open it fully.

The tension in the hallway was palpable, and I felt like everything was happening too quickly for me to process.

Mom grabbed Kristine’s arm and helped her get on her feet. Hot tears were flowing down her little face and nose.

As I struggled to hand over Gabby to an impatient Richard, he grabbed her out of my arms with such force that it made my heart skip a beat. I was horrified to see Gabby’s delicate head jerk to the left, and I immediately protested, “She’s only three months old. You can’t hold a baby like that!”

Richard, who was usually a handsome man who could make any woman swoon, looked like a completely different person. His face was twisted in anger, and he bared his teeth like a wild animal. I was terrified.

My mother, who was watching the scene unfold, called out to me with a sense of urgency in her voice. “Let him have her, Liv. We’ll come back for her with the police.”

Something in the way she said those words made me feel uneasy. It was as if she knew something I didn’t. I hesitated for a moment, but before I could say anything else, Richard suddenly backed away from us after he returned Gabby to my arms. I breathed a sigh of relief, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was really wrong with him.

My mind was in disarray, and I was struggling to make sense of the events that had just unfolded, all because Kris hadn’t returned a pair of scissors from the drawer she had taken them from. I turned around in a daze, following my mom and Kris down the narrow steps and into the dimly lit garage. The space felt claustrophobic, and I couldn’t shake off the feeling of unease that had settled deep inside me. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I was acutely aware of the urgent need to put Gabby in her car seat before Richard returned. I could feel my hands shaking as I deftly pushed the straps into the lock, making sure everything was secure over her tiny chest.

I then opened the front passenger door of the RAV and slid into the seat, buckling myself up. The leather felt cold against my clothes, and I could feel my body going numb. Gabby’s piercing cries had become a distant noise, like a muted buzzing in the background. I could barely hear her over the sound of my own thoughts. I thought I was in shock.

As I looked around, I noticed that my mother and Kris had already closed their doors, and the car had started moving backwards. It was a relief to feel the movement as it signified that we were finally leaving that place. Yet, a part of me still felt trapped, unable to shake off the feeling of dread that had taken hold of me.

My trembling hands were covered in dried blood, and I could see tiny half-moons embedded in my skin that had already started to crust over. It was then that I realized I must have been clenching my fists tightly while Richard had the baby. The thought sent shivers down my spine, and I couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if we hadn’t left when we did.

When we finally reached the end of the street, I breathed a sigh of relief and felt the coldness of the winter air hit me hard. It was as if a bucket of icy water had been poured over my head. A sudden realization hit me, and I felt a tinge of panic. I had left my winter coat inside the house. I had been in such a hurry to escape that I had forgotten to grab it before running toward the garage.

I was tempted to look back at the house, but fear took over me. I didn’t want to see my stepfather running after us, screaming and raging. The thought of what he would do if he caught us sent shivers down my spine. So, I tried to distract myself by looking at the heavy snowflakes hitting the car’s windshield.

Mom drove us toward the highway, and she accelerated the car, determined to put as much distance as possible between us and that dreadful place. I didn’t know where we were going, but I knew it had to be better than staying with Richard. The fear and heaviness in my heart weighed me down.

My mother’s voice interrupted my thoughts as she gently touched my face and asked me if I was okay. It was then that I gathered I had been crying without even realizing it. Tears had streaked down my face, and my cheeks were damp. I had been cradling my sore ribs, which throbbed with pain from the force of Richard’s shove against the wall. The memory of the incident played over and over in my mind, making it hard to focus on anything else.

I wiped the tears out of my eyes, struggling to see through the blurry haze. But as my vision began to clear, my heart sank as I caught a glimpse of a car in the opposite side suddenly changing lanes, heading straight toward us.

Despite Mom’s best efforts, the collision was unavoidable. The two cars collided with a deafening roar, sending me hurtling forward and then violently jerking me back as the airbag deployed. Pain shot through my neck as it twisted and hit the side window, and then, everything went black.

Every night was the same. I woke up drenched in sweat after the nightmare car crash, with my heart hammering inside my chest.

Fear gripped me tightly, and I couldn’t stop sobbing. That dream plagued me, reminding me of the tragedy that had befallen my family. I felt guilty for surviving while my siblings and mother didn’t.

And it was all my fault…

The most frustrating part of all was that I didn’t understand why I was given a second chance.