And then—Beatrice’s voice. Smooth, false sympathy wrapped in poison. She stepped inside, shopping bags in her arms, her lips curling. “What’s happening here?”
Coreen’s cries grew louder as she buried herself in Beatrice’s embrace. “Granny is bad, Auntie! She hurt me! She’s evil!”
Beatrice stroked the child’s hair, shushing her gently, but her eyes sparkled with triumph as they flickered to me.
“You bitch,” Oliver snarled. “You have nothing good to give in this house. Now you hurt my granddaughter? That’s it. You’ll spend your time in the basement where you belong.”
“No—please.” My voice broke as panic surged. “Not the basement. It’s dark… I’m scared of the dark.”
But Oliver grabbed me by the arm, his grip like iron, dragging me across the hall despite my screams, my pleas, my sobs. He threw me into the cold, damp basement, slamming the door behind me.
The darkness swallowed me whole.
And for the first time in years, I realized… no one in that house ever truly loved me.
I fell asleep crying in the dark. The basement smelled of damp wood and dust, the kind of place where time didn’t exist, where I was nothing more than the shadow they wanted me to be.