Metamorphosis (Breaking Free, book 2)

Chapter 17-Owen

Mothers are the single most fearsome creatures on the planet. I've seen men ripped limb from limb by grizzly bears and a village burned to the ground. I've seen dead men, and I've seen men who've witnessed things that make them wish they were dead.

I've seen my little sister, barely fifteen, cry over the sink of a hotel room applying thick coats of foundation over purple and black bruises. Maya's eyes were sunken and red from crying and the skin around them was swollen and purple. She was littered with bruises just like those. There was a goose egg that sat to the left of her temple, six stitches in the middle and a ring of purple and green bruises around it. But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst was the large green hand that clawed at her throat.

It was old. About two weeks old. We'd been on the run ever since and every day she would cover the handprint with my mom's foundation. It was from the dollar store and two or three shades darker than her actual skin-tone, but she didn't seem to care.

Makeup was always her thing. I never understood it, and she never tried to explain it to me. Every week she would lock herself in the bathroom for hours on end. When she emerged, sitting in the crevices of her nose and lips and eyes and coating her soft, brown skin, were famous pieces of art. Picasso, Van Gough, Kahlo. None of them were safe after Maya had found it.

I thought it was stupid at first, not that I'd say that to her face. I didn't understand what it meant to her, and I didn't appreciate her talent. The one time I stopped to ask her why she did it, she rolled her eyes at me, a small smile on her face. It was the kind of smile that called me an idiot but told me not to change. She smiled at me like that a lot.

"You wouldn't understand," She said, then pivoted on her heel and clicked the bathroom lock behind her.

She was right. I didn't understand. Not why she did it, but I knew that she loved it and that was all I needed.

I was taking out the trash when I found all her favorite, most expensive makeup supplies in the trash, buried under a greasy pizza box. She told me I wouldn't understand when I asked about it, but this time she didn't smile at me.

I didn't understand her love of makeup and I didn't understand her talent, but I understood with laser-sharp precision that something was wrong.

She showed up a week later with a black eye. Then a concussion and a sprained wrist. I didn't have to ask this time to understand what was happening.

I wanted to kill the piece of shit boyfriend of hers more than I had ever wanted anything. But that didn't even come close to a mother's love. I wanted to kill him, and maybe I would have. But he showed up first. And when my mother sunk a butcher knife into his gut, I understood why mothers would always be the most dangerous creatures on the planet. She killed him without mercy, and without guilt. He left this world without any mercy. But when he left, he took my baby sister with him.

She was buried with a pale foundation covering the bruises. In a perfect world, she would have been buried with art on her face. In a perfect world, I would've understood how talented she was before she died. In a perfect world, she would never cross paths with Alexander Shaw.

But my mom didn't need a perfect world. The day after Maya died, my mom left for good. The human authorities couldn't make sense of the string of abusers found dead. They could never catch the killer, though I don't think they tried all that hard. No Alexander Shaw of the world was safe from my mom. And I understood what a mother would do for her child.

Dana hovered over me, her face set in a stoic line. She pursed her lips, little wrinkles on her forehead aging her at least thirty years. Her eyes were hard and cold, but her hands were shaking. There wasn't a single crack in her exterior except for that single, subtle tell.