Chapter 2

At that exact second, I shrank my shoulders back, putting on my best helpless, clueless act.

I shook my head violently, forcing my voice to tremble.

"Dad, I'm scared. The buildings here are way too tall. They make my head spin. I wanna go back home and tend to the animals."

Dad stared at me for a few solid seconds. Then his mouth cracked into a wide, satisfied grin, flashing a row of yellowed, tobacco-stained teeth.

"That's my boy," he said, "There's no place like home. You keep this in mind. We're only in New York to bleed your mom dry for every cent she's got.

"Once we get that cash, we're going back to build a massive house and have the prettiest local girl to marry you.

"After that, nobody back home will ever dare call you a bastard without a mother to raise him."

With that, he pulled out his phone and lazily opened TikTok, clicking straight into a pinned profile.

On the screen, a woman stood at a podium in a sharp, tailored blazer, speaking with effortless authority.

Confident. Brilliant. Radiant.

She was living in a world I had never even dreamed of.

The more I watched, the more awe washed over me. My mom was incredible.

She was a renowned scholar, a top university professor in New York City.

Compared to the reeking, sour-smelling monster sitting beside me, a man whose entire brain was consumed by basic breeding instincts, they were lightyears apart.

Then I tapped open the comment section.

A few brutal words sliced through the screen.

[I heard Professor Lyra vanished for a whole year back in the day?]

[Yeah, she was abducted while doing field research in the mountains. After she escaped back home, she dealt with severe trauma for years.]

[It's devastating. If not for that ruined year, her life would've been completely flawless.]

My chest caved in.

My fingernails dug deep into my palms.

The elders back in the holler always said my mom abandoned me when I was barely a year old.

Which meant...

If she hadn't stayed behind that extra year just to protect me, she would've escaped so much sooner, right?

She was meant to fly so much higher, so much further than this.

I was nothing but the physical proof of her nightmare, the living remnant of her disgrace.

Dad had no idea what was running through my head.

We travelled by train for a day and a night. As most of the passengers finished eating, Dad suddenly gave me a stern warning.

"When we get there and you see your mom, you block her path,” he barked, “Cling to her arm and scream your head off!

"You yell, 'Mom, why did you abandon me?'

"Then I jump in, cause a massive scene, and drag the news crews into it!

"This is New York, the place where high-society elites care about their reputation more than life itself.

"Once we make enough noise, she'll pay whatever hush money we want just to keep her name clean!"

His eyes gleamed with manic excitement as he laid out the plan.

Suddenly, his expression hardened, shifting into a lethal sneer.

"Scrappy, you listen to me. If you mess this up, or if you try to pull any fast ones on me...

"The second we get back home, I'm showing you what real house rules feel like."

A cold shudder violently ripped through my spine at the word rules.

That was the backwoods’ way of dealing with traitors.

They'd snap your arms and legs, throw you deep into the mountain woods for the coyotes, and tell everyone you slipped and fell off a ridge.

Except for Aunt Rachel, who was still barely breathing in that barn, not a single person who tried to run ever survived with all their bones intact.

I bit my lip, keeping my eyes glued to the floor. "Got it, Dad."

Right on cue, the automated voice over the train speakers chimed to life.

"Next stop: New York Penn Station."