A whimper falls from Mum’s trembling lips, her eyes shooting toward the open door behind me.
“Mum, what the hell is—”
A shadow falls over me and my heart plummets into my feet. A second before I get a chance to run, a cold hand wraps around my face, cutting off any kind of noise that might have been about to rip from my throat, and an arm wraps around my waist, pinning me back against a body.
Tears spill down Mum’s cheeks, but she never reaches up to wipe them away. I can only wonder why not.
Despite the fact that there’s no chance of it helping, a scream rips up my throat. I act on instinct and slam my heel into his foot.
A loud grunt hits my ear, but his grip on me doesn’t falter.
“Aw, come on, sweetheart. That wasn’t really the welcome home I was hoping for.” The voice that once used to fill me with joy and comfort now makes my stomach turn over and causes bile to burn up my throat.
“Get the hell off me, you arsehole.”
Mum gasps, I guess realising that I’m not shocked by who is standing behind me.
“You’d better wish you had died in a fucking car crash, because when they get their hands on you, they’re going to make you regret every second of your lying, poisonous life,” I hiss.
“Oh my girl,” he sighs sadly. “He really has got inside your head, hasn’t he?”
“He’s told me the truth,” I spit, desperately trying to get out of his hold. “He’s told me what a monster you really are.”
“You don’t actually believe any of those lies, do you?” He tsks as if I’m the one in the wrong.
“Every single fucking word, Dad,” I sneer. “You’ve been lying to me since the day I was born. You’re nothing but a liar and an abusive cu— Argh,” I scream and he releases me with such force I fly across the room, colliding with the wall with a painful thud.
“Jodie,” Mum cries, her chair scraping across the wooden floor as she tries to get to me.
“Don’t move, Joanne,” Jonas commands, and I watch in absolute horror as she does as she’s told.
Holy shit.
I’m frozen for a moment as I wonder if he’s always had that kind of control over her, or if this is just a result of the shock of him seemingly coming back from the dead.
I hate to admit it to myself, but history tells me that it’s always been right in front of me. I was just too blind and stupid to notice it. Just like Jesse and the Wolves, and the warning signs at the beginning with Toby.
“No,” I cry when Jonas marches over to her, twists his fingers in her hair and drags her head back so she has no choice but to look up at him. “Let her go.”
“You’re glad to have me back, aren’t you, sweetheart?”
Mum swallows nervously, but after a beat of silence, she nods as much as his grip allows. “I’m so happy to see you, honey,” she breathes with such sincerity, making me want to vomit on my own feet.
Fuck, I hope she’s lying.
Please, for the love of God, be playing him at his own game.
“We’ve got a second chance now. Just the three of us together again,” Jonas continues. “It’s how I always wanted it to be.”
He grazes his knuckles down her cheek as if she’s the most delicate thing in the world as I manage to climb back to my feet once more, the entire right side of my body burning from the collision.
“They’re going to realise you’re gone, and they’re going to find you,” I warn.
“They don’t even know I’m gone, sweetheart. And where does your precious Toby think you are right now?”
Clearly, my face must give me away, because he smiles at me, revealing more than a few missing teeth. Unexpected pride washes through me, because I know deep down that Toby did that.
“They’ll notice. Toby will find me, and they will kill you.”