Chapter 27. No One Is Helping

Trigger Warning: Child Abuse. Mild though

Riley POV

“Do you see what you did?” she hissed, turning around to face me, advancing further as her voice got louder. “Do you see how you embarrassed me?”

I pressed myself back against the door, trying to make myself as small as possible, while she let her anger loose.

This was what I was familiar with.

“I work so hard to make a good impression every single day, to make people like us, to give us a chance at a better life. So that when we get to be the real family of Xenois, nobody will think that we didn’t earn it. And you sit there like a mute little freak, making everyone think something’s wrong with you.”

The words hit me like physical blows. Freak. That’s what I was to her when no one else was around. Not her precious boy, or sweet Riley.

“And then you flinch away from me in front of him!” She was pacing now, her voice getting higher and more desperate as she seemed to be thinking on wha