When we drive out of the school parking lot, there’s still a crowd of about a hundred people, some parents, but mostly kids still in their homecoming finest. I see them whispering, some of them sad, some shocked, some excited, probably that they got to see something so dramatic in real life or that they’ll have the best drama to talk about in school on Monday.

I can only imagine what they’ll say. I don’t know how much the witnesses heard, but I know it was too much, and soon the cops will know the full truth. Soon, they’ll all hate me.

It’s my fault for coming back here.

It’s my fault for thinking I deserved a second chance.

Chapter Thirty-Three

When I finally make it home, my mom’s worried gaze bores into me. My father shakes his head like he always knew I would end up in trouble. Like it was inevitable. It always is when I’m involved.

They talked to the cops, but they don’t know the full truth. They know a man attacked me in the school parking lot after homecoming. They know Jackson tried to save me. They know the cops now have the man in custody.

But they don’t know that this man wasn’t just a creepy janitor. They don’t know that I’ve slept with him before in New York and that he paid me. They don’t know that’s what he wanted from me now.

And it’s probably best that I’m the one to tell them. I’ve lost every bit of power I thought I had. At least this way, I’m asking for whatever punishment I get.

I won’t hesitate. I’ll tell them before we even go inside.

But as soon as I’m out of the car, my mother wraps me in her arms and holds me all the way into the house. My father glances at us, his anger palpable, but my mother doesn’t seem to care right now whether he’s angry.

I want to stop her. I need to tell her what happened. She deserves the truth. But her arms around me turn me into a sobbing mess.

She helps me to my bedroom, like I can’t walk or something. She does know I’m not injured, right? The blood on my arm is from the janitor. It’s not mine.

“Lie down,” she says. “Rest.”

“Wait,” I manage to say. “Mom. There’s something I need to tell you, about tonight, about that man…”

She shakes her head and shushes me. “It doesn’t matter, not right now. He’s in custody, you’re safe, and you need to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

I swallow and let her tuck me in like I’m five years old, and then I let my body collapse in exhaustion.

As I’m falling asleep, I hear my parents whisper-arguing about letting the dog in to sleep next to me. Apparently my mother wins, because a few minutes later Zara is licking my face and trying to jump up on the bed with me.

She ends up jumping up by my feet, and I scoot to make enough room for her. She lays her head against my thigh, and that’s the last thing I remember until morning.

When I finally wake up, I sneak down the hall to find my mother. She’s rolling some dough behind the counter but looks up and smiles when she sees me. I don’t know where my dad is, but it’s better this way. I’ll tell her first. And maybe then, when I tell him, it won’t be so bad.

“Hi, sweetheart, how are you feeling?”

I attempt a smile. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

She nods and puts down the roller, then wipes her hands on the towel by the sink. “What do you need to tell me?”

“It’s about last night. About that man.”

I need it to be me that she hears it from first.

“Okay, sweetie,” she says, sitting down beside me, brushing my messy hair down calmingly.

“He wasn’t just the janitor. He…he was one of the men from New York.”

She pauses, and I can feel her entire body tense up. “You mean…”

I nod, tears rushing to my eyes.

She takes her arm from around me and presses it to her mouth. Her eyes squeeze shut and push a few tears down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper, but she doesn’t respond. Maybe it’s the first time that she realizes that I’ll never be normal, not really. Because the horrible things in my past will never really go away. There will always be something coming back to slap me back to reality.

I’m a whore. That’s all I’ll ever be, no matter how hard I try to pretend—

Someone grabs me violently by the arm and whips me around. I face my father, terror rising in my throat.

“What did you just say?”

“Daddy?” I manage to get out through a sob.

“Martin!” my mom yells.

“You’re telling me you brought one of those men back with you?”

“No…” I murmur, but there’s no denying it.

My mother rushes forward. Zara barks and growls from the hall, and my father shoves me from him. I nearly fall into the corner of the wall.

“Martin, stop!” my mother yells again.

He pauses for only a moment, as though shocked that she said anything. “Don’t you realize what she’s done? I warned her what would happen. I warned both of you.”

Zara’s barking continues as he approaches me. As he unbuckles his belt.

I wince, already preparing for the blow.

He curls the end of the belt around his hand. “You brought this on yourself.”

He raises the belt—

My mother screams and charges into him. She’s not nearly strong enough to overpower him, but he’s taken off guard, and he falls into the wall.

“Don’t you touch her,” my mother says just before he slams her into the wall and they both fall to the ground. He presses her down by her upper arms and pauses, looking at his wife openmouthed. He definitely didn’t expect his obedient wife to fight back, like ever. He pulls back after a second and grabs the belt, tightening the end of the belt around his hand. “You brought this on yourself.”

It happens so fast that I can’t stop him, can’t step in for her the way she did for me. The belt whips through the air and lands on my mother’s forearm—which covers her face just in time—with a sickening crunch. Zara jumps forward, snarling and snapping at his feet. He kicks her away. I scream and throw all my weight into my father. Before I even know it, he slams me into the wall, and my head hits with a bang and a flash of white-hot pain.

Zara barks again and leaps at him. Her big jaws just barely miss his forearm as he twists out of the way. She stops and stands between me and my red-faced father. She barks at him, threatening him to try again.

“Down, Czar!” he commands, but Zara doesn’t even flinch. Her bark turns to a snarl, and my father clenches his fist.

Then the doorbell rings.

Everything freezes.

My father pauses and looks to the door. My mother is still on the ground, tears in her eyes.

“Nora, get the door.”

She wipes her face, then nods and pulls herself up to answer the door. She doesn’t bother fixing her hair, and I wonder if that’s on purpose. Zara licks my hand to see if I’m okay, her eyes still studying my father. I pet her head. She proved herself today.

“Hi. Are you Mrs. Rodriguez?” I hear a deep voice ask. “I just came by to see if Anna’s doing okay.”

There’s a pause at the door, and my father and I look at each other. He waves his finger over his mouth, a gesture to stay quiet.

I wait for my mother to assure them everything is fine, but we can’t take visitors.

This is just a temporary pause before I get my punishment.

I used to think it was punishment for being me. But now I see the rage in him. The desperate desire for control he’ll never have. I couldn’t control whether the janitor came for me. I couldn’t control whether Luis wanted to sell me. And I can’t control whether my dad wants to hit me.

“Not a word,” my father whispers to me.

He stands to the side of the room, out of sight of Jackson’s dad but close enough to hear whatever my mom says.

“Anna’s…” Her voice trembles. She looks over and sees my dad, who wags his finger, and she gives a quick intake of breath. “She’s not really up for a visit right now.”