Chapter 6

Emily's POV

I stood outside the Riverside Motel, watching Ethan's taillights fade into the darkness. The plastic bag of medical supplies dangled from my left hand, the cash he'd given me folded carefully in my right pocket. Seventy-five dollars. Enough for one night in this dump and maybe a meal tomorrow if I was careful.

He thought I'd chosen this place because it was cheap. Because it was the kind of establishment that didn't ask questions when a bruised teenage girl showed up alone at night. He had no idea that price had nothing to do with it.

Across the street, a yellow porch light illuminated the peeling paint of a narrow townhouse. Number 247. Marvin Locke's place. My father's drinking buddy. The man who'd been in our apartment this afternoon, the one whose voice I'd heard through the bedroom door while my mother—

I cut off that thought before it could take root. There wasn't time for emotion. There wasn't room for the sick, hollow feeling that wanted to claw its way up my throat every time I remembered.

If Ethan knew what you're about to do, would he still think you deserved saving?

The question whispered through my mind as I stared at Marvin's porch light.

What would Ethan think if he knew the fragile, stubborn girl he'd rescued was actually standing here calculating the best way to manipulate a predator into committing murder?

My fingers tightened on the plastic bag. It didn't matter what Ethan would think. It didn't matter that accepting his help while planning this made me exactly the kind of person he'd probably never imagine I could be. I didn't have the luxury of being the girl he wanted to save—the tragic victim who just needed a helping hand and a safe place to sleep.

I needed something much darker than that.

I turned toward the motel's front window, using the grimy glass as a makeshift mirror. My reflection stared back at me—hair disheveled, face marked with the beginning of bruises, long-sleeved shirt wrinkled and stained, jeans dirty at the knees from where I'd fallen in the hallway. I looked exactly like what I was: a girl who'd been beaten and thrown out of her own home.

Perfect.

I set down the plastic bag and began adjusting my appearance with methodical precision. First, I smoothed my hair back from my face, tucking the loose strands behind my ears to expose the full extent of the bruising on my cheekbone. Then I straightened my shirt, buttoning it all the way to the top button—the one I usually left undone because it felt too constricting. The long sleeves hid the old scars on my wrists, which was good. I needed to look damaged but not broken, vulnerable but not beyond saving. I brushed the dirt from my jeans as best I could, though some stains had already set in.

The reflection that emerged was younger than my eighteen years. Vulnerable. The kind of girl who followed rules and trusted authority figures. The kind of girl men like Marvin Locke fantasized about corrupting.

My stomach turned, but I forced the nausea down. This was a role. A performance. I'd spent years learning how to read people, how to become invisible when my father was in one of his moods, how to predict violence before it arrived. Now I was going to use those skills for something else entirely.

I picked up the plastic bag and crossed the street, my footsteps deliberate and unhurried despite the way my heart hammered against my ribs. The townhouse loomed closer with each step. Through the front window, I could see the blue flicker of a television. Marvin was home. Awake.

You can still turn back. You can check into that motel room, lock the door, and figure out some other way.

But there was no other way. I'd spent the entire walk from Ethan's truck to this street corner running through every possible alternative, and they all led to the same conclusion: my father wasn't going to stop. My mother wasn't going to leave. And in five months, when I finally escaped to college, I'd spend every day waiting for the phone call telling me my mother was dead.

Unless I did something about it now.

I climbed the three concrete steps to Marvin's front door and pressed the doorbell. The sound echoed inside—a flat, electronic buzz that made my skin crawl. For a moment, nothing happened. Then I heard footsteps. Heavy. Uneven. The shuffle of someone who'd been drinking but wasn't quite drunk yet.

The door swung open. Marvin Locke stood in the doorway, backlit by the television glow. He was shorter than my father but broader, with a beer gut straining against a stained undershirt and jeans that hung low on his hips. His face was flushed, whether from alcohol or the heated apartment I couldn't tell, and his eyes took a moment to focus on me.

When they did, something shifted in his expression. Recognition, then confusion, then something else—something that made my skin crawl even as I forced myself to hold his gaze.

"Emily?" His voice was rough, surprised. "Jack's girl? What the hell are you doing here?"

I let my lower lip tremble slightly. Let my eyes go wide and glassy, the way they'd been in Ethan's truck when panic had overtaken calculation. It wasn't hard to summon that fear—it was always there, just beneath the surface. I just had to let it show instead of hiding it.

"I didn't know where else to go," I whispered, my voice breaking on the last word. "My dad—he threw me out. I thought maybe... maybe you could help me."

Marvin's eyes traveled down my body, lingering on the buttoned shirt, the jeans, the bruise blooming across my cheekbone. I saw the moment his confusion transformed into interest. Saw the way his tongue darted out to wet his lips.

"Jesus," he said, but there was no sympathy in his voice. Only a kind of hungry fascination. "Jack really did a number on you, huh?"

"He was so angry." I took a small step forward, close enough that Marvin would have to back up or let me into his space. He didn't back up. "I tried to stop him from hurting Mom, and he just—he lost it. Said I was in the way. Said if I didn't like how he ran his house, I could get out."

"That's rough, kid." Marvin's hand came up to rest on the doorframe, blocking part of the entrance but not closing the door. His eyes hadn't left my face. "But I don't know what you think I can do about it. Your old man and me, we're friends. Can't exactly go against him."

"I know." I dropped my gaze to the ground, letting my shoulders curve inward. Small. Helpless. Harmless. "I just... I don't have anywhere else to go. And I thought, since you and Dad are friends, maybe you could talk to him. Tell him I'm sorry. Tell him I'll be good."

"You'll be good?" Marvin's voice had dropped lower, taken on an edge that made my pulse spike with genuine fear. This was the dangerous part. The moment where I had to gauge exactly how far to push, how much to offer without making it so obvious he'd suspect a trap.

I lifted my eyes to meet his, and I let him see what I'd been hiding from Ethan all night—the cold, calculating part of me that had held a knife this morning and regretted putting it down. The part that knew exactly what kind of man Marvin Locke was and exactly how to use that against him.

"I'll be whatever I need to be," I said quietly. "If it means Mom is safe."