Chapter 2

While my mother cleared the dishes, I hurried into my bedroom for my auto-injector.

Because I knew how much she loved obedience tests, I kept my epi pen within reach at all times.

Before I could use it, the bedroom door swung open without warning.

I shoved the injector behind my back.

My mother walked over and touched my cheek.

"Why is your face so hot?"

She noticed my hands behind me and frowned.

"What are you hiding? Give it to me."

I was shaking as I explained. "It's my allergy medication. I've told you I'm allergic to ginger, Mom."

She tore the injector out of my hand and shouted.

"Did I say you could use that?"

I scratched at the fresh welts rising along my arm and understood that the reaction was getting worse. I was running out of time.

I begged her to give it back.

Instead she pulled out a bottle of homemade ginger extract and sprayed it all over me.

"Ginger burns a cold right out of you. You're just run down.

"Allergic to ginger? I've sprayed plenty of it on you and you're still standing."

Ignoring me completely, she strapped on a garden sprayer and filled the whole house with ginger mist.

"Quit the act. I invited your classmates over to celebrate. They'll be here any minute.

"A little fragrance will keep them from catching whatever you've got."

The house went thick with ginger. Dense red welts came up across my arms, my thighs, my neck.

I tried to step outside for air, and she blocked the door and called it treatment.

"Once your body gets used to it, it won't bother you anymore."

I knew a new round of testing had started.

I couldn't stop her, so I called 911, covered every inch of skin I could, and prayed I'd stay conscious until help arrived.

My classmates showed up not long after.

The second I saw Tyler Vance and his friends, I started shaking.

These were the boys who'd bullied me. They'd shredded my textbooks, put a dead rat in my desk, and accused me of cheating because they couldn't stand my grades.

Back when my mother found out, she hadn't wasted a single word arguing about it. She'd marched into the school with a kitchen knife and made them apologize to my face.

So how was she inviting them to my birthday now?

Tyler came over laughing and clapped my shoulder like we were old friends.

"Happy birthday, Lucas."

Then he leaned in and murmured, "Bastard. Wait till you see what I do to you."

"Ah!"

Before I could react, Tyler went down on the floor.

His leg caught the corner of the table and opened a shallow cut.

"Seriously, man? I reported you for cheating and this is what you do?"

I fumbled for an explanation, and my mother slapped me before I got it out.

She stared at my covered-up body with disgust.

"If you can lie about an allergy, of course you cheated. You had it coming."

Then she turned to Tyler, all warmth. "Tyler, I was wrong about you before. My son cheated, and I'm sorry."

Mom, weren't you the one who put me behind you and swore you'd always believe me?

When I came home too scared to sleep, weren't you the one who sat up all night with me?

How did the woman who promised to believe me and protect me end up standing with the people who hurt me?

My eyes stung, and I forced it back down.

The next second she had me by the collar, her voice full of contempt.

"Crying, again? What kind of man cries this much? Apologize to Tyler. Right now."

The reaction kept climbing, and the welts spread across my chest.

I couldn't tell anymore whether the tightness in my throat came from the ginger or from her.

I pushed through the pain and tried to explain.

"I didn't cheat. They cut up my clothes and locked me in the restroom..."

She cut me off, flat.

"Why is it always you they pick on and nobody else?"

She stripped off my outer layer, baring arms gone an ugly, unnatural red.

"There's no smoke without fire. Look at you, soft and pretty, exactly like that pretty-boy father of yours. If Tyler hadn't toughened you up, you'd be out selling yourself to rich women by now."

I couldn't believe a mother had said that out loud, and I broke.

"Mom!"

She watched me cry without a flicker of feeling and pressed down on my shoulders.

"Don't play the victim. Have you forgotten what I taught you? A real man owns his mistakes.

"Tyler took the blame for you all that time. Now get on your knees and apologize."