Chapter Sixty-Three Her

Chapter Sixty-Three Her

Present Day

Kathryn stood perfectly still until the second she didn’t. She lunged for the desk next to me. Skipped the lamp and whatever

else might have worked as a weapon. Knocked over a cup of pens and snatched the scissors.

“Mom! What the hell?” Wyatt jumped back, slamming into the bookcase with enough force to make it shake against the wall.

It’s not a knife . Repeating the sentence didn’t ease the panic running through me. Anything but a blade. The sight of it paralyzed me. I could

feel my body and brain shut down.

The edge of the scissors flashed as it caught the light. Kathryn held them in her fist with the pointed end visible and her

expression fierce. She flicked the blade around in the air. Taunting me. She couldn’t know my fear or how anxiety flooded

through every vein at the thought of the end slicing through my skin.

Only Mom knew what I’d done and she’d used that self-defense murder as fodder to make me dance at her command. She’d never

tell Kathryn, but somehow Kathryn picked the weapon of my nightmares.

She didn’t make a sound when she launched her strike. She took racing steps toward me right as Wyatt pushed away from the bookcase. Their bodies slammed together only a few feet in front of me. Wyatt’s block stopped Kathryn’s momentum. She stumbled to the side, losing ground. Her thigh jammed against the corner of the desk. The haze never left her eyes.

Wyatt doubled over.

The air in the room stilled and walls seemed to close in around us, trapping us in a tight, suffocating space. Only seconds

had passed during the shift from silence to the crescendo of harsh breaths and rustling clothing. My reaction was a beat too

slow. I raised the bat but hadn’t set my grip. I didn’t know where to look—at Wyatt to make sure he was okay or at Kathryn

to be on guard.

Kathryn didn’t react to Wyatt’s distress. She stalked toward me again, slower but equally determined. My muscles moved without

any conscious signal from my brain. This time I raised the bat, ready to swing.

“Kathryn, stop.”