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The car ride was fucking awkward.
Like, genuinely, painfully awkward. The kind of awkward that made Mara want to claw her own skin off just to have something to do with her hands.
The last time she'd felt this level of excruciating social discomfort was about four months ago. She'd fucked this guy from the app — mediocre experience, two out of ten, would not recommend. He was one of those pent-up types who clearly hadn't gotten any in months, maybe years. Jackhammered away for about ninety seconds, came with a grunt that sounded like a dying seal, and then had the audacity to apologize. Sorry, it's been a while. Yeah, no shit, dude. She could tell.
She'd written it off as a loss and moved on with her life.
And then, two weeks later, David invited a work friend over for dinner.
Guess who walked through the fucking door. With his wife.
Mara had almost — almost — lost it right there. The look on his face when he saw her sitting at the dinner table, casual as anything, twirling spaghetti around her fork. Pure, unfiltered terror. Like he'd seen a ghost. Like God himself had reached down and personally fucked him over raw.
She'd wanted to expose him so badly. Just to watch the chaos unfold. Just to see his wife's face crumble, David's confusion, the whole beautiful disaster of it all. The urge for instant gratification was strong.
But she'd controlled herself. Stayed mum. Smiled politely. Asked him how work was going.
The dinner was so awkward even David noticed, and David was usually oblivious to social tension the way fish were oblivious to water. He'd asked afterward if something seemed off. Mara had shrugged and said she didn't know what he was talking about.
Good times.
This drive to The Bitch's house was somehow worse.
Yeah, she called Amy "The Bitch." Or sometimes just "her." Never Mom. Never Mother. Certainly never Mommy. That word had been dead to Mara since she was twelve years old, and she had no intention of resurrecting it.
Jules's leg was bouncing. That anxious, can't-sit-still energy that meant she was spiraling inside her own head. Her knee kept hitting the door, a rhythmic thunk-thunk-thunk that was probably going to drive Mara insane before they even got there.
David was tapping the steering wheel. Not to any music — the radio was off, because apparently they were all just going to marinate in silence like emotionally constipated pickles. Just tapping. Irregular. Annoying.
Mara was bored out of her fucking mind.
They'd left the garage five minutes ago. It already felt like hours.
She didn't know where The Bitch lived now. Didn't care. Could've died in a ditch somewhere and Mara would've shrugged and asked what was for dinner.
She glanced at Jules. Saw the tension in her sister's jaw, the way her hands were clenched in her lap.
Mara's expression hardened.
Fine. I'll do this. For her.
-x-
Thirty minutes later, they arrived.
Thirty. Fucking. Minutes. To go maybe fifteen miles.
This was why Mara hated LA. The whole city was designed by someone who'd never heard of the concept of "getting from point A to point B without wanting to commit a felony." It was like a maze built by a sadist, except the walls were made of traffic and the reward at the end was more traffic.
And the horns. Everyone in this city honked like it was going to solve something. Like the cars in front of them were just going to magically disappear if they honked hard enough. Oh, you honked? My bad, let me just teleport out of your fucking way. Fucking idiots.
The people, too. Millions of them. All crammed together. All annoyed. All convinced they were the main character and everyone else was an NPC blocking their quest.
Mara hated this city with a passion that bordered on religious.
The one good thing about East Highland? Probably less traffic. Probably. She'd have to wait and see. But it couldn't possibly be worse than this. Nothing could be worse than this.
They pulled up to an apartment complex. Nothing fancy — two stories, beige stucco, the kind of place that screamed I'm trying to get my life together but the rent is still too high. Amy's car was in the lot. An old Honda that had seen better decades.
David killed the engine.
Nobody moved.
"So," David said.
Nobody responded.
"We should probably—"
"Yep," Jules said, not moving.
"Okay," Mara said, also not moving.
They sat there for another thirty seconds.
This is pathetic, Mara thought. And then: But also, fuck going in there.
She looked at Jules again. Jules looked back. Something passed between them — solidarity, maybe. Or just mutual dread.
"Let's get this over with," Jules muttered.
They got out of the car.
-x-
The thing about memory is that it's not linear. It doesn't play back in order, like a movie. It jumps around. Skips. Lingers on moments you'd rather forget and speeds through the ones you wanted to hold onto.
Standing in front of Amy's apartment, Mara's brain decided it was a great time to take a trip down memory lane.
Specifically, the worst lane. The one with all the potholes and broken glass.
-x-
Flashback — Nine Years Ago
Mara was seven years old and she had just gotten her report card.
All A's. Top of her class. Again.
She'd also won the fifty-meter dash at the school track meet. First place. The ribbon was still pinned to her backpack, bright blue, fluttering whenever she walked. She kept looking at it over her shoulder, making sure it was still there.
She ran into the house, report card clutched in both hands like a holy artifact.
"Daddy! Daddy, look!"
David was in the kitchen, doing something with dinner. He turned when she came barreling in, and his face broke into that big, goofy smile he always had for her.
"What's this?" He took the report card, scanned it, and his smile got even bigger. "All A's? Again? Mara, you're incredible."
"And I won the race!" She pointed to the ribbon. "See? First place!"
"My little angel." He scooped her up, spun her around, and she shrieked with laughter. "Smartest, fastest kid in the whole school. I'm so proud of you."
Mara beamed. This was the best day ever.
Then she heard footsteps on the stairs.
Amy came down, looking tired. She was always tired lately. Always somewhere else, even when she was standing right in front of you.
"Mommy, look!" Mara wiggled out of David's arms and ran to her mother, holding up the report card. "I got all A's! And I won the race! Look at my ribbon!"
Amy glanced at the paper. At the ribbon. Her expression didn't change.
"Good," she said. Quiet. Flat. And then she walked past Mara to the kitchen, asking David something about Julian's homework.
That was it.
Good.
Mara stood there, report card still raised, ribbon still fluttering.
For some reason, she couldn't quite explain it, she wanted to cry.
-x-
She started noticing things after that.
She'd always been observant — too observant, her teachers said, like it was a bad thing — but now she was paying attention in a different way. Analysing and comparing.
When Julian brought home a B-minus on a spelling test, Amy hugged him and said it was okay, they'd practice together, she was proud of him for trying.
When Mara brought home a perfect score on the same test, Amy said "good" and went back to whatever she was doing.
When Julian had a nightmare, Amy stayed with him all night. Held him. Sang to him.
When Mara had a nightmare, Amy told her to go back to sleep.
When Julian needed new shoes, Amy took him shopping, made a whole day of it, got ice cream after.
When Mara needed new shoes, David took her. Amy didn't come.
It wasn't that Amy was mean. She wasn't cruel. She didn't yell or hit or say terrible things.
She just... wasn't there. Not for Mara atleast. All her love, all her attention, all her presence — it went to Julian. There was nothing left over.
Mara was seven years old when she realized her mother loved her brother more.
She didn't tell anyone. What would she say? Mommy likes Julian better? That sounded whiny. That sounded like something a baby would say.
Instead, she found a TV show on one of the channels David didn't know she watched. Some drama about an orphan girl who got adopted by a family that didn't really want her. The girl in the show kept trying to earn their love and kept failing.
Mara watched the whole thing. Three hours. Didn't move.
That night, when David was tucking her in, she asked:
"Daddy? Am I adopted?"
David froze. "What? No, sweetheart. Of course not. Why would you ask that?"
Mara shrugged, pulling her blanket up to her chin. "Just because."
She wasn't being sarcastic. She was seven. She didn't know how to be sarcastic yet. She was just a little girl trying to understand why her mother looked at her like she was a stranger.
"You're not adopted," David said firmly. He kissed her forehead. "You're my angel. You've always been my angel."
Mara nodded. Smiled.
She didn't ask again.
But she didn't stop noticing, either.
-x-
Flashback — Four Years Ago
Mara was twelve years old and she was living in hell.
Literally. She was living in a two-bedroom apartment with her mother, in a neighborhood that couldn't decide if it was up-and-coming or falling-apart. The apartment smelled like stale cigarettes and something chemical that Mara had learned not to ask about.
Hell was more of a metaphorical description. But an accurate one.
Amy was... gone. Not physically — she was usually somewhere in the apartment, sprawled on the couch or locked in her bedroom — but gone. The mother Mara remembered from before, the one who at least made meals and asked about homework and pretended to care, had disappeared somewhere between the divorce papers and the first needle.
Now there was just this. A ghost who wore her mother's face.
They lived like strangers. Two people occupying the same space, orbiting around each other without ever really touching. Amy made food — three times a day, food appeared on the table, that was the one thing she still did — and that was it. No conversations. No questions about school. No acknowledgment that Mara existed beyond the basic requirements of keeping a child alive.
Mara ate the food. Did her homework. Went to school. Came back. Repeated.
She saw Jules twice a month, if she was lucky.
Those visits were the only thing keeping her sane. She'd take the bus across town — Amy didn't notice or care where she went — and show up at David's house and Jules would be there, and for a few hours everything felt almost okay.
She always cried. Every single time. She'd promise herself she wouldn't, that she'd be strong, that she'd be the kind of little sister who didn't burden Jules with her problems. And then Jules would hug her and ask how she was doing and Mara would just... break.
"It's okay," Jules would say, stroking her hair. Jules was in the middle of transitioning by then, still figuring out who she was, still dealing with her own mountain of shit. And here was Mara, sobbing into her shoulder like a fucking baby.
"I'm sorry," Mara would gasp out between sobs. "I'm sorry, you have your own stuff, I shouldn't—"
"Shut up." Jules's voice was gentle but firm. "You're my sister. You're allowed to cry."
Mara felt like shit for bothering her. But she couldn't stop.
-x-
The money situation was a problem.
Amy got child support from David, but most of it disappeared into... Mara didn't want to think about where it disappeared. The point was, there was never enough for anything extra. Never enough for new clothes or school supplies or, say, joining a gym.
Mara needed money. Mara didn't have money.
So Mara got creative.
It started with Amy's purse. Small amounts at first — a five here, a ten there. Amy was too high to notice. Mara could've taken hundreds and Amy wouldn't have blinked.
But that wasn't enough.
She started observing the neighbors. The old couple in 4B who went to church every Sunday morning, gone for exactly three hours. The guy in 2A who worked night shifts, apartment empty from 10 PM to 6 AM. The woman in 3C who visited her sister every other weekend.
Mara watched. Mara learned.
She found lockpicking tutorials on YouTube. Practiced on their own door first, then on the storage closet in the basement. She was good at it — of course she was good at it, she was good at everything — and within two weeks she could open a standard pin tumbler lock in under a minute.
The old couple in 4B had cash in a cookie tin. Mara took fifty dollars and left the rest.
The guy in 2A had a PlayStation she could've pawned, but that was too risky. She took the twenty bucks from his kitchen drawer instead.
The woman in 3C had jewelry that looked expensive but probably wasn't. Mara didn't bother.
She was careful. Never too much from one place. Never anything that would be immediately noticed. In and out, clean and quiet.
The druggie three floors up was a different story.
His name was Marcus — no relation to her gym friend from years later — and he was exactly what you'd expect from a guy who sold heroin out of his apartment. Skinny, twitchy, always looking over his shoulder. Mara had watched him for weeks before she made her move.
She waited until he left for a deal, then let herself in.
The apartment was disgusting. Needles on the coffee table. Burnt spoons. That chemical smell that Mara was unfortunately becoming very familiar with. She found his stash in a shoebox under the bed — amateur hour, honestly — and took half of it.
Little baggies of white powder and brown powder and pills she didn't recognize.
She didn't take them for herself. She wasn't stupid.
She took them to sell.
-x-
The alley was three blocks south of Amy's apartment, behind a liquor store that had stopped carding people sometime around the Reagan administration. A guy named Terrell ran things back there — mid-twenties, gold chain, the kind of smile that made you check for your wallet afterward.
Mara approached him on a Tuesday afternoon.
"I have product," she said. Trying to sound professional. Trying to sound like she'd done this before.
Terrell looked at her. Looked at the baggies she was holding. Looked at her again.
Then he burst out laughing.
"Shorty, how old are you? Eleven?"
"Twelve." She kept her voice steady. "And I have product. You want it or not?"
He laughed again, but there was something else in his eyes now. Curiosity, maybe. Or calculation.
"Where'd you get this?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yeah, actually. It does."
"I stole it." No point lying. "From some junkie upstairs. He's too fucked up to notice."
Terrell stopped laughing. He took the baggies from her, examined them, and his eyebrows went up.
"This is good shit."
"I know."
"You know what you're doing, little girl?"
"I know I need money." She stood a little straighter. "And I know you can move this faster than I can. So let's make a deal."
He studied her for a long moment. Then he smiled — a real smile this time, not the predatory one.
"I like you, shorty. You got balls." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a roll of bills, and peeled off a few. "Five hundred bucks for what you brought. You bring me more, we can talk about a partnership."
"What kind of partnership?"
"You run, I sell. Cops don't look twice at a little white girl with pigtails. You could move product better than any of my guys."
Mara thought about it. Five hundred bucks was a lot of money. More would be even better.
"Sixty-forty split," she said. "My favor."
Terrell laughed again. "Fifty-fifty. And that's generous."
"Fifty-five-forty-five."
"You're a pain in the ass, you know that?" But he was still smiling. "Fine. Fifty-five-forty-five. But you don't tell anyone about this. Not your friends, not your family, nobody. You get caught, you don't know me. We clear?"
"Crystal."
They shook on it.
Mara was twelve years old and she'd just become a drug runner.
-x-
School was a joke.
Not in the fun way. In the this is insulting my intelligence way.
Mara had always been ahead of her class — years ahead, if she was being honest. The stuff they were teaching in seventh grade was stuff she'd figured out when she was seven. She sat through lectures about fractions and basic algebra and felt her brain slowly rotting from disuse.
Her grades didn't drop. That was the funny part. She stopped trying, stopped caring, stopped doing anything beyond the bare minimum — and she still aced everything. The tests were too easy. The homework was busywork. She could've done it in her sleep, so she basically did.
What changed was everything else.
She stopped sitting in the front row. Stopped raising her hand. Stopped being the teacher's pet who always had the right answer.
She started sitting in the back, with the kids who didn't give a shit. The ones who smelled like weed and cheap body spray. The ones who talked back to teachers and got sent to the principal's office like it was a badge of honor.
They were more interesting than the honor roll kids. At least they weren't boring.
"Yo, new girl." This was maybe two weeks after she'd moved schools. A guy named Derek — backwards cap, permanent smirk, the kind of kid who'd definitely been held back at least once — slid into the seat next to her. "You're smart, right?"
"Depends who's asking."
"I'm asking." He grinned. "I need someone to do my math homework. I'll pay you."
"How much?"
"Ten bucks."
Mara considered it. She didn't need his money — she had plenty from her other activities — but there was something appealing about the transaction. The honesty of it.
"Fifteen," she said. "And I'll make mistakes on purpose so it doesn't look suspicious."
Derek's eyebrows shot up. "You're a little hustler, huh?"
"I'm a businesswoman."
He laughed. "Alright, businesswoman. fifteen bucks. Deal."
Word got around fast. Within a month, Mara was running a homework operation out of her locker. Math, English, science — whatever they needed, she provided. She charged based on difficulty and how much she disliked the person asking. Some kids paid thirty bucks for an essay she wrote in twenty minutes. They never complained about the price.
The teachers started noticing. Not the homework thing — she was too careful for that — but the change in her. The way she slouched in her chair. The way she talked back when they asked stupid questions. The way she showed up late and didn't apologize.
"Mara, can I speak with you after class?"
This was Mrs. Patterson, her English teacher. Nice woman. Meant well. Had no idea what she was dealing with.
"Sure," Mara said, not looking up from her phone.
After class, Mrs. Patterson closed the door and did that thing where she sat on the edge of her desk, trying to seem approachable. "I'm worried about you."
"Okay."
"You used to be so engaged. You were one of my best students. And now..." She gestured vaguely. "Is everything okay at home?"
Mara almost laughed. Is everything okay at home. What a question.
"Everything's fine," she said.
"Because if something's going on, you can talk to me. Or the school counselor. We're here to help—"
"I said it's fine."
Mrs. Patterson hesitated. "Your grades are still excellent. But your attitude has changed. Your... demeanor. I'm concerned about the crowd you've been spending time with."
"The crowd?"
"Derek Martinez. Tanya Williams. Those kids." Mrs. Patterson lowered her voice like she was sharing state secrets. "They're not good influences, Mara. They're going to drag you down."
Mara stood up. Slung her backpack over her shoulder.
"With all due respect, Mrs. Patterson," she said, "Derek and Tanya are the only people in this school who don't bore me to death. Maybe if your class was more challenging, I'd have better options."
She walked out before Mrs. Patterson could respond.
-x-
The "bad kids" adopted her pretty quickly.
They thought she was hilarious. This tiny blonde twelve-year-old who talked like she was thirty and gave zero fucks about authority. She didn't fit the profile — too smart, too small, too... whatever — but she didn't care about fitting the profile. She just did what she wanted.
Tanya was her favorite. Sixteen, already on her third suspension of the year, had a tongue piercing she wasn't supposed to have and didn't bother hiding. She called Mara "Baby Genius" and thought it was the funniest thing in the world when Mara corrected teachers on their own subject matter.
"Did you see his face?" Tanya wheezed after Mara had pointed out — politely, even — that Mr. Hendricks had gotten a historical date wrong. "He looked like you'd kicked his dog."
"The date was wrong. Someone had to say it."
"You're fucking feral, Baby Genius. I love it."
They started eating lunch together. Mara, Tanya, Derek, and a few others who rotated in and out. They sat on the bleachers behind the gym, where the teachers didn't bother patrolling. Tanya smoked cigarettes. Derek sold weed to sophomores. Mara did homework for cash and watched everything with those too-sharp eyes of hers.
She didn't tell them about the other stuff. The drug running. The gym. The apartment full of needles and silence. They didn't need to know. Nobody needed to know.
But she liked them. In a way she hadn't liked anyone since Jules.
They didn't expect her to be perfect. They didn't expect her to be anything. They just let her exist, sharp edges and all.
It was nice.
-x-
The principal called Amy once.
Once.
"Mrs. Vaughn, we're concerned about Mara's recent behavioral changes—"
Mara could hear the principal's voice through the phone. Amy was holding it away from her ear, barely listening, eyes fixed on the TV.
"Uh huh," Amy said.
"She's been late to class multiple times. She's been seen associating with students who have disciplinary records. And frankly, her attitude toward authority figures has become—"
"Uh huh."
"Mrs. Vaughn, do you understand what I'm saying?"
"She'll be fine." Amy's voice was flat. Empty. "She's smart. She'll figure it out."
She hung up.
Mara watched from the kitchen doorway. Amy didn't even look at her. Just went back to staring at the TV, waiting for her next fix.
That was it. That was all the parenting Mara got.
She went to her room and laughed until she cried, sobbed.
-x-
The money was good. Better than good.
Mara used some of it for the gym — Charlie's place, three miles away, cash only, no questions asked. She used some of it for new clothes, since Amy sure as hell wasn't buying her any. She used some of it for food, because the three meals Amy made were getting increasingly questionable.
She started making friends.
Not the kind of friends she'd had at school. These friends were different.
Destiny was sixteen, had been running with Terrell's crew since she was fourteen, and had more tattoos than teeth at this point. She thought Mara was hilarious.
Marcel was fifteen, quiet, good with numbers. He helped Mara figure out the logistics of moving product without getting caught.
And then there was Jade.
Jade was seventeen. Long braids, sharp cheekbones, eyes that looked right through you. She was Terrell's second-in-command, the one who actually made things run while he postured and smiled for the customers.
Mara had never felt anything like what she felt when Jade looked at her.
It was... weird. Confusing. Her stomach did this flip thing, and her face got hot, and she kept finding excuses to be wherever Jade was. She didn't know what it meant. She was twelve. She'd barely started thinking about this stuff.
Destiny figured it out in about three seconds.
"Oh my god," Destiny cackled, watching Mara watch Jade across the alley. "Baby girl's got a crush."
"Shut up." Mara's face was on fire. "I do not."
"You absolutely do. Look at you! You're all red!"
"I'm not—"
"Jade! Hey, Jade!" Destiny was waving, the traitor. "Come over here, someone wants to talk to you!"
Mara wanted to die. Actually, literally, genuinely wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole. This was worse than getting caught. This was worse than anything.
Jade walked over, eyebrow raised. "What?"
"Nothing," Mara said quickly. "Destiny's being stupid."
"She's got a crush on you," Destiny announced gleefully.
"I DO NOT—"
Jade looked at Mara. Really looked. And then she smiled — slow, amused, a little bit fond.
"Cute," she said. And then she walked away.
Mara stood there, face burning, heart pounding, as Destiny collapsed into laughter beside her.
She was going to kill Destiny. Murder her. Hide the body. No one would ever find it.
But also... Jade had called her cute.
Cute.
Mara didn't know what to do with that information.
-x-
The smoking was Destiny's fault.
"Try it," Destiny said, offering her a cigarette. They were behind the liquor store, waiting for Terrell to show up with a new shipment. "It's not a big deal."
"I'm twelve."
"So? I started at ten."
Mara looked at the cigarette. Looked at Destiny. Thought about Amy, who smoked constantly, who filled their apartment with that gray haze that clung to everything.
Fuck it.
She took the cigarette. Put it to her lips. Inhaled.
And immediately doubled over coughing.
Her lungs were on fire. Her eyes were watering. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except hack and wheeze like she was dying. The cigarette fell from her fingers and she just stood there, bent in half, coughing so hard she thought she might throw up.
Destiny was howling.
"Oh my god— your face—" She was literally crying with laughter, clutching her stomach. "Baby girl, you're supposed to— you can't just— oh my god—"
"Shut—" Cough. "—up—" Cough cough. "—I hate you—"
"You look like a dying cat! I can't— I can't—"
Even Marcel was laughing, and Marcel never laughed at anything.
Mara finally stopped coughing, wiped her eyes, and glared at all of them with as much dignity as she could muster.
"That was a test run," she said. Her voice was raspy. "I was just testing."
"Sure you were, baby girl." Destiny was still giggling. "Sure you were."
Mara never did get the hang of smoking. But she tried a few more times, just to prove she could. The coughing got better. She still hated it.
Small victories.
-x-
The Night Everything Changed
Mara had been living with Amy for almost seven months.
Seven months of silence, neglect and watching her mother dissolve into something unrecognizable. Seven months of running drugs and stealing money and learning to fight at Charlie's gym. Seven months of crying on Jules's shoulder and hating herself for it.
She'd finally learned the truth about Jules. About the hospital. About what Amy had done.
She'd overheard David on the phone — bits and pieces, half-sentences, things she had to piece together like a puzzle. Jules was transitioning. Had been for months. Amy had put her in a psychiatric facility because she couldn't handle it, couldn't accept it, couldn't love her child enough to let her be who she was.
Mara sat with that information for a day.
Then she went downstairs.
Amy was on the couch. Same place she always was. The coffee table was covered in the usual debris — empty bottles, pill containers, a spoon with residue that Mara had learned not to look at too closely. The TV was on, playing something neither of them was watching.
Amy was preparing a hit.
Mara watched her do it. The ritual of it — the spoon, the lighter, the needle. Amy's hands were steady despite everything else about her being a mess. She'd done this so many times it was muscle memory.
The needle went in. Amy's eyes rolled back slightly. Her whole body relaxed, sinking into the couch like she was melting.
Mara felt nothing but disgust.
"You put Jules in a hospital."
Amy's eyes opened. Glazed. Confused. "What?"
"You put her in a psychiatric hospital. Because she told you who she was. Because she trusted you." Mara's voice was steady. Cold. "You locked her up like an animal because you couldn't deal with it."
"That's not—" Amy blinked, trying to focus. "That's not what happened."
"That's exactly what happened." Mara took a step closer. "I heard David on the phone. I know everything."
"You don't understand. She was sick, she needed help—"
"She needed her mother." The word came out like poison. "She needed you to love her. And you couldn't do it. You couldn't love her enough to accept her."
"I do love her—"
"You don't love anyone." Mara was shaking now. She hadn't meant to shake. "You don't love Jules. You don't love me. You don't love anything except whatever's in that needle."
Amy stared at her. For a moment, something flickered in her eyes — recognition, maybe. Guilt. Shame.
Then it disappeared.
"You don't know what you're talking about." Amy's voice went cold. Dismissive. "You're a child. You don't understand anything."
"I understand that you're pathetic."
"Watch your mouth—"
"I understand that Jules is better off without you. That I'm better off without you." Mara was crying now, and she hated it. Hated that Amy could still make her cry. "You're not a mother. You're just a— a fucking junkie who got lucky enough to have kids before she ruined her life."
Amy stood up. Swaying slightly, but standing.
"Don't you dare talk to me like that. I am your mother—"
"You're not my anything."
The slap came fast.
Amy's hand connected with Mara's cheek hard enough to snap her head to the side. The sound was loud in the quiet apartment. Sharp. Final.
For a second, neither of them moved.
Mara touched her cheek. It was hot. Stinging.
She looked at Amy.
And something inside her snapped.
-x-
The training at Charlie's gym had been brutal. Six months of getting knocked down and getting back up. Six months of learning to take a hit and give one back twice as hard. Charlie didn't go easy on her because she was young or small or a girl. He treated her like any other student, which meant he pushed her until she broke and then pushed her some more.
She'd learned to fight. Really fight. Not the theatrical stuff from movies, where people traded elaborate combinations like they were dancing. Real fighting — fast, brutal, efficient. Hit first, hit hard, keep hitting until they stop moving.
She'd learned about vulnerable points. The liver, just below the ribs on the right side. The solar plexus, dead center of the chest. The knee, which bent wrong if you kicked it at the right angle. The throat, if you wanted to end things quickly.
She'd learned that it didn't matter how big someone was if you were fast enough. If you were mean enough.
Amy was bigger than her. An adult, even if she was wasted. Taller, heavier, longer reach.
It didn't matter.
Mara kicked her in the stomach.
It wasn't a wild swing, wasn't a panicked flail. It was a precise, practiced motion — hip rotation, leg extension, foot connecting with the soft spot just below the ribs. Charlie would've been proud.
Amy doubled over, all the air leaving her lungs at once.
Mara kicked her again. Same spot. Digging in.
Amy went down. Hands and knees on the carpet, gasping like a fish out of water.
Mara mounted her. One knee on Amy's back, pinning her down. And then she started punching.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Her fists connected with Amy's head, her shoulders, whatever she could reach. She wasn't thinking anymore. She was just moving, all that rage and hurt and abandonment pouring out through her knuckles.
Amy made a sound — something between a sob and a scream — and managed to roll over, hands coming up to protect her face. But Mara was faster, was better, and she batted Amy's hands away and hit her again.
Blood.
Amy's lip had split. Red was smearing across her chin, her cheek, dripping onto the carpet.
Mara stopped.
She was breathing hard. Her knuckles were raw. Amy was beneath her, crying now, blood and tears mixing on her ruined face.
I did that, Mara thought. I did that and I don't feel bad about it.
That should've scared her. Maybe it did, somewhere deep down. But mostly she just felt... empty. Like she'd finally done what she'd been wanting to do for months and now there was nothing left.
She got off of Amy. Stood up.
Amy stayed on the floor, sobbing.
"You're not my mother," Mara said. Her voice was calm. Eerily calm, even to her own ears. "I don't have a mother. And if I never see you again, it'll be too soon."
She went upstairs. Packed a bag — clothes, the cash she'd saved, a few other essentials. Didn't take much. Didn't need much.
She walked out the front door and didn't look back.
-x-
The bus ride took forty-five minutes. Then a transfer. Then another bus. Then a twenty-minute walk.
By the time Mara got to David's house, it was past 2 AM.
She stood on the porch for a long time. Looking at the door. Trying to figure out what she was going to say.
Finally, she knocked.
David answered in his pajamas, blinking sleep out of his eyes. He took one look at her — the bag over her shoulder, the bruises forming on her knuckles, the expression on her face — and his whole body went rigid.
"Mara? What— what happened? Are you okay?"
She looked at him. This man who had let Amy put Jules in a hospital. Who hadn't fought hard enough. Who hadn't protected them.
She hated him too.
But Jules was inside. And Mara needed Jules more than she needed to hold onto her anger.
"Can I come in?"
He stepped aside.
-x-
Present Day
The memory faded. Mara blinked, and she was back in front of Amy's apartment, the California sun too bright, David's hand hovering over the doorbell.
Four years. It had been four years since that night.
Amy was clean now. Supposedly. Had been for over a year. David said she'd changed, that she was trying, that she wanted to make amends.
Mara didn't give a shit.
But Jules was standing next to her, tense and scared and trying not to show it. And Mara had promised. She'd promised she'd do this.
"Ring it," she said.
David pressed the doorbell.
They waited.
And then the door opened.