Chapter 1 - Tell Them You Fell
My sister was smiling when I woke up with my face broken.
Not a happy smile. Not a relieved smile.
It was the small, calm smile people wear when they think they have already won.
Brooke stood beside my hospital bed, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear as if she were the loving little sister everyone believed she was.
“Easy,” she whispered. “Don’t try to talk yet.”
My mouth tasted like metal. Every breath hurt. One eye was swollen almost shut, and the ceiling lights stabbed through the other.
Mom sat in a plastic chair near the wall, pale and shaking. She looked twenty years older than she had two days ago.
I tried to lift my hand. A pulse monitor chirped faster.
Brooke leaned closer.
“Tell them you fell,” she murmured so softly I almost thought I had imagined it.
Then the door opened.
A nurse in dark gray scrubs stepped inside with a clipboard. Her name tag read RENEE CARTER. She looked at me, then at the bruises across my cheek, then at Brooke’s hand resting near my shoulder.
Brooke stepped back and folded her arms.
Nurse Carter’s eyes narrowed.
“What happened to her?”
Nobody answered.
Mom made a sound like she had forgotten how to breathe.
I turned my head toward Brooke.
She was no longer smiling.
“Claire fell down the stairs,” she said.
The nurse didn’t write anything.
She looked at my wrists instead.
There were dark marks around both of them.
“Stairs don’t usually do that,” she said.
Brooke’s jaw tightened.
Mom suddenly stood and covered her mouth with both hands.
Heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Two police officers appeared in the doorway.
Brooke froze.
The white officer looked at the nurse. The Black officer looked straight at me.
“Claire Bennett?” he asked.
I managed one tiny nod.
He stepped closer.
“We found your car.”
Brooke’s eyes flicked toward Mom.
The officer continued.
“And there was blood in the trunk.”
Mom whispered, “Oh God.”
May you like
Brooke finally lost control of her face.
For the first time since I woke up, she looked afraid.
