Chapter 56

The Prey

“Why are you not home?” she pressed again, softer this time.

I swallowed hard, forcing words past the lump in my throat. “I was just… busy with… college.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she replied, her tone lightening, unaware of the storm in my head. “Your professor called me and said something about you getting a grand prize. I am so proud of you, my child, but I was hoping for a meet-up.”

My heart stilled.

“Prize?” The word felt foreign, like something that didn’t belong to me, something that didn’t make sense.

“Yes,” she said, a smile in her voice. “We also got 100k in our account. You just saved me from going through…”

Her words blurred as my mind spun. Money? A prize? The world tilted, and I fought to stay upright, but the ground beneath me was slipping, shifting, pulling me down. Judas. The name burned in my chest.

He’d sent the money, tied it up in a lie so neat and pretty that even my mother believed it. My l