Page 12 of Blackwood

It’s hell in a designer skin. A place where sunlight can’t reach past the spotless windows and curated decor. Where silence swallows sound. And the walls, no matter how white and gleaming, can’t hide the rot underneath. Nothing blooms inside here except bruises and broken promises.

I shouldn’t have talked back. God, I know better. Zeke taught me the rules. How to keep my head down. How to disappear inside myself. How to swallow every scream before it reaches my throat.

Silence is survival. Stillness is safety. Every bruise had taught me that. Every slammed door. Every muffled sob in the middle of the night reminded me thatquiet girls don’t bleed.

But today, something inside me split wide open. Maybe it was the mind games, subtle and slicing, like paper cuts you don’t see ‘til you’re bleeding.

Or maybe it was the bruises carefully hidden under the prettiest dresses. The way governors and senators come over and smile at us, telling us how lucky we are to live in a house with suchlovingfoster parents.

Maybe it was the way Carlos can gut you with a smile. The way Mariela serves French toast with syrup and sorrow. Maybe it was the scent beneath the perfume, the rot hiding under lemon polish and sea breeze diffusers. That sour bite of something wrong in a house that looked too right.

Or maybe it was the way Carlos looks at Dylan. Like he’s already named a price. Like Dylan isn’t a child anymore. Just a countdown. Just property.

And I couldn’t take it. Not one more second of pretending I don’t see it. Not one more breath of silence that tastes like complicity.

Carlos’s gaze slides over me like slime, slow and claiming, like he’s already deciding where I’ll be sent, what I’ll be worth. I hate him. I hate the walls that hold us, the floors that never creak when he walks, the air that never moves unless he lets it. I hate the fear that curls like smoke inside my lungs, whispering the same old lullaby:Stay small. Stay silent. Stay safe.

I know the price of disobedience in this house. But today, my voice betrays me. “It’s just a glass.”

And now I’m going to pay for it.

“Then pick it up!” he barks, pointing to the shattered glass on the floor.

My hands tremble as I reach for the shards of the crystal glass I’d dropped. Carlos steps forward and slams his boot down on my hand, grinding the glass deeper into my skin. Pain explodes through my palm. Blood blooms almost instantly, warm and bright, staining the white marble floor with thick crimson streaks.

I bite my tongue until I taste copper. I keep moving and keep collecting the shards one by one. If I stop, I’ll cry. And if I cry, he’ll call me weak. Or worse, he’ll remind me just how powerless I really am in this perfect house of horrors.

“Clumsy little bitch,” he sneers.

I don’t say anything. I don’t even look at him. I just scoop up the last piece into my hand, throw it in the trash, and turn away hoping that he’ll lose interest.

He doesn’t.

A hand clamps around my arm like a steel trap, yanking me backwards so violently I barely catch my breath. My hip slams into the corner of the counter, pain flashing white-hot up my side. The sharp edge bites deep and I swear I feel something crack. Tears well up, but I bite down hard on my tongue and swallow the scream. I’ve learned the hard way that making noise will only make it worse.

“You’re not gonna last long,” he growls into my ear, his breath hot and sour against my skin as he leans in, inhaling the scent of my hair like a predator savoring the moment before the kill. “They’ll break you. Just like the rest. But if they don’t…”

He lets the silence linger, dragging it out like a blade over skin. “…I’ll be more than happy to take my time doing it myself, pretty girl.”

He shoves me, again. Not hard enough to knock me down, but enough to tell me he could. And he can.

The sound of his belt sliding free says everything.

I know it is time.

“Please,” I whisper, but my voice is nothing. I’m nothing here.

Dylan’s voice rings out, panicked. “No! No, don’t hurt her!”

Mariela sobs something in Spanish. A prayer, maybe. Or a warning.

“Stop.” A voice so low and calm slices through the room.

Zeke.

He steps into the kitchen like a shadow that has found its fury, shoulders squared, jaw tight, fire smoldering behind his dark eyes.

“It was me.”