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Cortez just stares at her in awe, then at me.
“Wow. . . and here I thought that slimy little mole was bad. Governor Gaines, willing to sacrifice her daughter to save her own skin.”
“Do it. She’s no daughter of mine.”
Cortez’s smile vanishes in the blink of an eye and before anyone can anticipate it, he pulls a gun out of his pocket and aims it in the center of my mother’s forehead.
“I would love to. You always did love to bitch.”
“Not yet,” a soft, cool voice rings out from somewhere behind us. “They’re mine.”
The click-clack of heels sounds on the old concrete floor and as they near, I catch a whiff of perfume.
Chanel No. 5.
My stomach lurches, saliva pooling in my mouth when she steps around where I can see her.
Melissa Gaines.
My sister.
“You look positively perplexed, Hannah Banana.”
My words catch in my throat.
“One big family reunion, isn’t it?” Melissa chuckles sweetly, looking back and forth between our mother and me like we’re pests invading her home.
“Melissa—” Mom starts.
“No!” Melissa screeches face morphing into something sinister. “You covered up my disappearance,Mom. What was that about? Were you ashamed of me?”
“Yes,” Mom admits, voice shaking in the face of what she created. “I was. I still am.”
“Good,” Melissa sneers. “Always trying to protect Hannah. Hannah this, Hannah that. I was your daughter, too.”
“You were. We just . . .” Mom’s voice cracks. “I loved you just the same, you were just so hard to handle sometimes.”
“Oh, you hated me from the day I was born. So long as you had your perfect,” Melissa stops in front of me, moving a strand of my hair. I flinch against her touch and she snickers. “Beautiful daughter, you didn’t care.”
“I did care—”
“You did a piss poor job of showing it. Shoving me in that cage? Really?”
Nothing is making sense right now.
“Andyou,” Melissa’s ire is turned on me. “Always trying to be the good girl with the good grades and the hot boyfriends. There was never any room for me at that house. Not unless it came to abuse and then, you can bet your ass I was first in line.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes.
“We were both abused, Missy—”
“It’s Melissa.”
“Okay . . . whatever. We were both abused. It wasn’t just you that got locked in that closet.”
Melissa smiles, her lips cocking up at the side. “No, it wasn’t. Except, I also got the board. The rotten food. The slaps out of nowhere. You only had to eat it once. I had it most of my life.”
“I was trying to help you—”
