Chapter 2
I didn't look back.
Not once.
I carried Rosie to my car, parked down the street.
She didn't make a sound.
Her face was still pressed against my chest.
I could feel her heart hammering against mine.
Fast.
Scared.
I opened the back door and carefully strapped her into her car seat.
That's when she finally looked up at me.
Her eyes were wide and wet.
"Daddy?"
Her voice was small.
Broken.
"I'm here, baby," I said. "Daddy's here."
She reached up and touched my face with her small hand.
"Did I be bad?"
My chest felt like it was being crushed.
"No," I said. My voice cracked. "No, baby. You were perfect. You didn't do anything wrong."
She blinked.
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
"Aunt Bethany said I was spoiled."
I closed my eyes.
I took a breath.
I had to stay strong for her.
"Aunt Bethany was wrong," I said. "Very, very wrong."
I closed the back door and got into the driver's seat.
I started the engine.
I didn't know where I was going.
I just knew I couldn't go back to that house.
Not ever.
I drove for a while.
Rosie fell asleep in the back.
Her breathing was shallow.
Occasionally she would whimper in her sleep.
Each sound was a knife in my heart.
I thought about what had happened.
I had dropped Rosie off at my parents' house three hours earlier.
Just for a family dinner.
I had to run an errand, and my mother had insisted.
"She'll be fine with her auntie," she had said.
I had trusted them.
My own family.
I had left my daughter with people who were supposed to love her.
Protect her.
Instead, they had hurt her.
I thought about Bethany's smile.
The way she had dismissed it as a joke.
"Toughening up."
My hands tightened on the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.
I thought about my mother.
Calling me a bastard for defending my child.
My father.
Throwing a glass at us.
At a four-year-old girl.
I felt sick.
I pulled into a gas station parking lot.
I needed to think.
I needed to plan.
I looked in the rearview mirror.
Rosie was still asleep.
Her cheek was swollen.
The bruise was already darkening.
I took out my phone.
I had no idea where to go.
My apartment was small, but it was ours.
It was safe.
But I knew my family.
They would come.
They would demand apologies.
They would say I overreacted.
They would try to take Rosie from me.
I couldn't let that happen.
I called the only person I could trust.
Sarah.
My ex-wife.
Rosie's mother.
She answered on the second ring.
May you like
"Mark?"
"Sarah," I said. My voice was shaking. "I need your help."
