A severe split cut through her lower lip, leaving dried bl00d across her chin, while both of her arms were marked by dark bruises shaped exactly like fingerprints.
She still wore what had once been an expensive designer dress, now ripped across one shoulder and streaked with dirt.
Seeing her in that condition shattered something inside me, bringing back memories of the little girl who used to call me overseas simply to talk about the stars.
She would draw bright pictures of soldiers and tape them across our kitchen cabinets every single time I returned home from deployment.
Now she trembled so uncontrollably that she could hardly even raise her head enough to meet my eyes.
“Mom,” she whispered, her voice cracking like glass under the weight of her fear.
I crossed the room in only two long strides before pulling her tightly into my embrace, allowing her to hide her face against my shoulder.
Her entire body trembled with the des.per.ate intensity of a frigh.ten.ed animal that had finally discovered safety again.
Just as I began softly humming to soothe her trembling, a sharp burst of mocking laughter echoed from the doorway behind me.
“Oh look at that, she has always been so incredibly dramatic whenever she gets caught in a lie,” a man’s voice sneered.
I slowly turned around, my hand instinctively resting near my hip while facing the three people who had just entered.
Standing before me were her husband Nicholas Ferguson, his mother Patricia, and his smug older brother Gregory.
