Page 18 of Revere

Her church.

My hell.

“Again, Patience.”

“Please, Father, forgive me for my sins. I’m sorry?—”

“You’re sorry?” Mom pauses in front of me, blocking the center mass of the cross, while the arms stretch out at either side of her shoulders. “You knew how much this business meeting meant to your father, and you walk in like this—” She waves me up and down. “You always think so highly of yourself. I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“I didn’t mean?—”

“You didn’t mean to do what?” She cuts me off again. “Look at you right now. Hair down like a whore. Skirt above the knees. Do you honestly need more attention than you already get? The world does not revolve around you, PatienceLancaster. You will do well to accept that. And you’ll stay like this until you learn that lesson.”

She starts to circle again. Her cold glare slithering over me.

“I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask foryou. But I suppose you’re my punishment for wanting more. From the moment you were born, you’ve gotten in the way. And just when I thought I could—” She cuts herself off, shaking her head and leaving that thought hanging. “At least your brother shows potential. If only you would stop distracting him with your damsel-in-distress act. How many times do we have to do this before you listen?”

Listen?

Like she cares for me to actually hear her. I’m convinced all she wants is to break me until I finally disappear. Then I’ll no longer be her problem.

Mom pauses behind me, raking her fingers through my hair. She pulls it back in a ponytail that is so tight my eyes water.

“These ideals you cling to will get you in trouble, Patience. It is not your role to be independent.” She snaps the hair tie into place and takes a step back. “Go. Clean yourself up before dinner. We have guests, and your brother needs to make a good impression. Don’t give him a reason to be irritated.”

Mom turns and disappears at that. Her shoes scratch against the cement staircase as she climbs them until the creak of the door at the top tells me she’s finally gone, and my shoulders sink.

I wait until the door closes behind her before I finally push myself to standing, and blood drips down my legs.

The first few times she brought me here, I waited for her to remember that I’m her daughter. That she should care about seeing me in pain. Now, I don’t believe she sees anything in meat all. Just a shell she plans to empty. A vessel she makes suffer for whatever it is about me that always seems to bother her.

I spent too long waiting for her anger to break in this room.

All that breaks is me.

If I do something wrong, Mom punishes me. If Alex does something wrong standing up for me, Dad punishes Mom, and Mom punishes me. It’s a vicious cycle, and I’m at the center of it.

I wipe the blood from my knees with my sleeves, but all it does is smear it more. I’ll have to wrap them before dinner, or they will bleed through my pants and Alex will realize what she’s done to me again. I appreciate his concern, but if he gets angry with her, it will only cause more problems.

It’s fine.

I’m fine.

I’ll suffer it for him. For me.

Someday we’ll escape them, and this will all be worth it.

“Patience!” Violet snaps me out of my memory.

A car barely misses us as she drops down beside me, and Kole watches the driver like he’ll slash their tires or their throat for not paying attention.

“Are you okay?”

“I—yes,” I lie through the pain that radiates up from my knees.

It’s been two years since I started at Briar Academy. Two years since I’ve been in the basement at my parents’ house. And still, my knees never feel as though they’re fully healed. The deep scars ache at the simple reminder of kneeling before my mother’s cross. And when they rip open again, the pain is nearly unbearable.

There was a time I thought I’d become numb to it. I thought the scarring would become thick enough that I’d stop breakingopen so easily. I was wrong. All it did was become unsightly. Until the scars were too mangled to be easily explained, and I had to cover them so people wouldn’t stare.