Chapter 4

"She's bleeding!"

I shoved Jarvis aside and rushed to Madison's side.

Her face was chalk-white, her lips drained of color, her whole body trembling.

"Jarvis, give me your phone, we need an ambulance."

Jarvis stood where he was and didn't move.

Gregory only glanced down, curled his lip, and didn't so much as furrow his brow.

"A little blood won't kill her."

"She wouldn't even let them tell us the sex at the checkups. From the look of this one it's just another money-losing burden. Better it's gone, saves us the trouble."

"I can put another one in her tonight."

The mother-in-law walked over, took one look at the blood, and actually nodded.

"Exactly. She can't even sit still with her pickled scraps, has to come out in the middle of the night to fuss over people."

"She had this coming."

Madison's fingers clutched the hem of my clothes, her lips trembling as she murmured.

"Livvy, I'm fine. If I just bear it, it'll pass."

Gregory nudged her shoulder with the toe of his shoe.

"Get up and mop the floor already. That blood stinks."

Jarvis blocked me again, thrusting that plate of liver up in front of my face.

"Olympia, I'd worry about yourself first if I were you."

"You don't eat this liver tonight, you don't set one foot out that door."

I knelt on the floor, watching the blood still spreading beneath Madison's dress.

Then I looked up at the ring of people standing around me, and felt nothing but how absurd it all was.

I stood up slowly and, out of nowhere, started to laugh.

"Rules, is it? Fine."

Jarvis saw the smile at the corner of my mouth and instinctively stepped back.

"What are you doing?"

I reached out as if to take the plate of liver.

Jarvis blinked, then grinned, smug all over his face.

"There you go. See how much easier this is."

I brought my hand up and slammed the plate of liver square into his face.

Bloody juice splattered across his head and face.

He screamed, both hands over his face, body pitching backward.

I followed it up with a kick, driving my foot with everything I had into the softest spot below his belt.

Jarvis shrieked and dropped to his knees, and both his phone and mine slid out of his pocket.

Gregory caught on and came charging over.

"You're fucking asking to die!"

I snatched up both phones and spun into the kitchen, my hand reaching for the knife block on the counter. The instant my fingers touched the handle, I saw the two green onions beside the cutting board.

And I thought of Madison, hollowed out by years of his mind games.

I grabbed the cleaver in one hand and the two green onions in the other.

When Gregory rushed into the kitchen, I held the blade out in front of me.

He jerked to a stop.

"Are you insane?"

"Back off."

He looked at the knife in my hand, instinctively pulled his neck in, and took two steps back.

I turned sideways, squeezed past him, and hurried over to Madison.

I crouched down, set the cleaver beside my knee, and pressed one of the green onions into her hand.

Madison stared at me, blank, her eyes empty.

My own eyes were red as I gripped her hand tight.

"Madison, eat more green onion. You fight your way up."

"You eat pickled scraps every day, so you sit idle and take the beatings. Today you get up and fight!"

"You don't stand up right now, and you and the baby in your belly both end here."

Madison stared dully at the pool of blood beneath her dress, and in those empty eyes, all at once, there was light.

She bit off a big mouthful of the raw green onion.

The sharp, stinging juice made her eyes stream, but she forced it down anyway.

Then, with a scream, her eyes changed.