Page 76 of Blood Ties
She rocks me, tries to shush me through her own tears. “Shh,” she says. “Shh, don’t cry, my sweet baby.”
“Knox,” I wail. “Knox!”
A light clicks on upstairs.
*
IJERK BACK TO THEpresent with a gasp. More memories surface from the depths of my mind, flashes of things I didn’t know I remembered. Momma running through the rain with me in her arms. Mud rushing up to meet us when she fell. Dad’s silhouette against a streak of lightning in the sky, and...
I shake my head, stare up at Momma.
“You tried to get away,” I say, my eyebrows knotting together. “With me.”
And I ruined it. I know I was just a kid, and I didn’t understand what was going on, but... it was my fault. I woke Dad up, and he caught her. He must have been so angry...
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
But Momma is gone, somewhere deep inside of her head, far away from this place. The only escape she ever got — because of me. Because I couldn’t leave Knox behind.
My stomach churns.
Another piece of memory hits, this one jagged and biting. Shrieking in the rain while Dad dragged Momma back to the house by the hair.
“You ain’t never gonna try to run from me again.”
Then another sound, a distant roar, a deep mechanical revving. The chainsaw.
My chest constricts. I don’t remember what happened after that. Maybe I didn’t see, or maybe I forced myself to forget. But that’s the last time I remember her leaving the house.
The last time she even left this bed.
Cold dread sloshes in my stomach. My hands shake as I reach for the blanket that covers Momma. I grab it, hesitate — and then yank it back, quick and hard.
And I stare at the crude stumps where her legs used to be.
?Chapter Thirty-Seven
