Chapter 1(1.3)

Ivy pushed on the double doors leading to the small courtyard out front, the porch creaked under our feet and I saw the kids playing out the front on the run-down play equipment. I lost count of the amount of times I have had to patch the kids up after falling from it or pulling splinters from tiny feet and hands. We stepped out into the bitterly cold air though the cold had never really bothered me. I spent majority of my life on autopilot anyway, barely feeling anything, but it was one thing I could say Mrs. Daley had taught me. She taught me that emotion gets us nothing. That pain, and tears won’t save us, and she taught me just how easily someone could break another. The day she locked me in that damn basement with the butcher. After that day I learned it was better not to feel just switch it off, it is what it is.

The day was overcast, the clouds hiding the sun making it gloomy. The grey clouds were low, and it looked like it would rain later in the day.

The kids stop what they’re doing and rush over, grabbing and reaching for us, wanting us to play. Tears threaten to bubble and spill but I fight them back looking for my boy and enjoying seeing them one last time when a car pulls up and parks on the curb. It is sleek and black, the windows tinted so darkly that we can’t see who is inside. Yet I don’t care because I notice Tyson come over to me. His plushie in his hand, and it was missing an eye that I had sewed on one too many times before giving up. His eyes were glassy. The kids had no idea where we were going yet looking at Tyson’s little face I felt he knew; he knew I wasn’t coming back and seeing the distress on his little face broke my heart as I scooped him up.

"Shh, don’t cry, don’t cry,” I whisper, kissing his temple. He was skinny and fit perfectly in my arms. “You be a good boy, try to stay away from Mrs. Daley okay, and wait for Katrina. Katrina is good, remember,” I tell him and he nods sadly, clutching my neck. Ivy brushes her fingers through his hair. Both of us had a soft spot for Tyson. He was only a few days old when his parents were killed and he was a colicky baby, the first year of his life I hardly slept and when I did catch a few moments, it was because he was on my chest and now I was leaving him to this horrid woman.

I inhale deeply, soaking in his scent one last time, savoring it as I silently prayed to the moon goddess to not let anything happen to him.

Ivy nudges me, telling me we should go, and I place him down when I notice the car was still parked by the curb.

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