Chapter 2 - The Weight of Terror
The word hung in the cold garage air, freezing my blood more effectively than the industrial appliance behind us.
“She puts me in there when I’m bad. She says the cold helps me think.”
My breath hitched. A tremor that started in my chest rushed down my arms and into my hands, where Lily still clung to my jacket like a drowning swimmer holding onto a raft. Her skin was ice against my chest, her breaths shallow and ragged.
For five years, I had trusted Taylor. I had trusted Evelyn, assuming her overbearing, hyper-critical nature was just an eccentric quirk of a mother trying to protect her only daughter. I had blamed myself for the cracks in our marriage, believing my work hours and my quiet demeanor were the reasons our home had grown so fractured.
I had signed the divorce papers quietly three weeks ago, letting Taylor keep the house and agreeing to joint custody, believing it was the cleanest way to end the misery.
Now, looking at the white frost rimming the inside seal of the chest freezer, I realized I had left a lamb in the den of wolves.
“We’re leaving right now, Lily,” I whispered, my voice thick with a suffocating mix of rage and terror. I scooped her up into my arms, clutching my jacket tighter around her shivering body. “You’re never coming back here. Do you hear me? Never.”
“Mom’s car,” Lily mumbled, her voice muffled against my shoulder. “She’s... she’s almost home.”
As if summoned by her words, twin beams of headlights swept across the end of Aspen Ridge Lane, painting the garage door in a harsh yellow glare. An engine hummed, tires crunched over the gravel driveway, and a car door slammed shut with a sharp thud.
Panic spiked through my veins. If Taylor caught us here with Lily wrapped in my jacket, shivering and smelling of freezer burn, she and Evelyn would twist the narrative. They would lock us out, call the police, and claim I was kidnapping her. They had done it before—framing me as unstable whenever I pushed back against their rules.
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I couldn't let them trap us.
Stepping quickly past the stacks of moving boxes, I carried Lily toward the side door leading out to the dark backyard, away from the driveway where Taylor was currently walking toward the front entrance.
