Chapter 2 - THE BLOOD ON THE CARPET
Mom didn’t even glance up from her glass of Pinot Noir. “I saved you from wasting your money, Mave. We don’t need strangers in this house.”
“I prepaid that agency, Mom,” I said, my voice dropping into a register so quiet it surprised even me. “That was your support system. I am leaving on Sunday.”
Jolene set her crystal wine glass down onto the coffee table with a sharp, deliberate clack. She stood up from the sofa, smoothing her designer silk loungewear.
“You’re not going anywhere, Mave,” Jolene said, her eyes flashing with a terrifying, venomous entitlement. “You think you can just march in here with your corporate binder and walk away? Who’s going to pay the mortgage? Who’s going to cover my car note?”
“You are,” I said, stepping forward. “You’re thirty-two years old, Jolene. Get a job.”
Before the last word left my lips, Jolene’s hand shot out.
She snatched her crystal wine glass off the table and swung it violently. The heavy leaded crystal shattered against the left side of my forehead.
The impact sounded like a gunshot inside my skull.
Pain exploded behind my eyes. Warm, thick liquid flooded immediately over my eyebrow, streaming down into my left eye, blinding me in a slick sheet of crimson. I stumbled backward, my knees giving out, and collapsed heavy and hard onto the living room carpet.
I pressed my palm against my forehead, wet heat oozing thick through my fingers.
“Mom!” I gasped, choking on the metallic taste of blood pooling near my mouth. “Mom, help me! She cut me!”
My mother stood up slowly from her armchair. She didn't hurry. She didn't look horrified.
She walked past my bleeding form on the floor, stepped over to the front door, and flipped the heavy brass deadbolt into place. She slipped the deadbolt key into her sweater pocket.
“Don’t let her leave, Jolene,” Mom said, her voice flat, cold, and entirely devoid of motherly warmth. “Not until she promises to cancel that apartment and transfer her paycheck back to the household account.”
I lay bleeding on the carpet, staring at the woman who had brought me into the world.
“You’re trapping me?” I whispered, my breath ragged.
“We’re keeping this family together,” Mom replied, folding her arms over her chest. “You’re hysterical, Mave. Look at you. You need to calm down and realize where your loyalty belongs.”
Jolene stepped over me, her designer slippers leaving small red smudges on the carpet where my blood had pooled. She looked down at me, a cruel, triumphant smile stretching across her face.
“Cancel the lease, Mave,” Jolene hissed, reaching down to grab my purse off the entry table. She unzipped it, dumping my wallet, my car keys, and my phone onto the floor just out of my reach. “Or you can sit on that carpet and bleed all night.”
They thought they had broken me.
They thought the blood in my eye and the locked door meant I was their prisoner forever.
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What they didn't know was that while I lay on the floor, my fingers were quietly slipping into the secret lining of my work jacket—where my spare fob, my new apartment keys, and a second emergency phone were hidden.
And they had no idea that the financial secret I was about to uncover would burn their perfect, cozy cage to the ground.
