Broken Beyond Belief

Chapter 8: Fractured Hope

Mira’s POV:

Tuesday and Wednesday blurred together in the same endless cycle of work, pain, and silence. It didn’t matter that I had completed all the chores the day before—perfection was expected, and for me, that meant the housework was never good enough.

Each day, my brothers found something to criticize. A speck of dust on the banister. A wrinkle in the bedsheets. The curry wasn’t spicy enough. One missed weed in the garden. That was enough for them to drag me outside, tie me to a tree, and whip me thirty-five times—"one for each minute I lied about doing the gardening." At least, that’s what they told me. Then they left me there until the sun dipped below the horizon, the cool night air burning against my raw skin.

But they untied me in time to make their dinner, of course.

Since I wasn’t in school for those two days, my list of chores had doubled. Weeding, pruning the plants and bushes, mowing the massive lawn, washing Jacob’s car until it gleamed, bringing in the monthly groceries, scrubbing the decking, cleaning the gutters and roof tiles, polishing their trophy cases. I cleaned the skirting boards, dusted every surface in the house, hand-washed their gym gear because the machine didn’t get the sweat out properly, and scrubbed the tiles in every bathroom until my fingers were raw.

On Wednesday morning, before the house woke up, I stole a piece of toast from the kitchen. My stomach ached with hunger, and if I wanted to be strong enough for my shift, I needed food. It was dangerous—if they caught me, I’d be punished—but I forced myself to eat quickly before rushing back to the laundry room. The guilt settled in my gut as heavily as the food did, but the small burst of energy helped me push through the morning.

At some point on Tuesday, Jacob had noticed a mark on his car. A tiny, barely visible streak that I must have missed while cleaning. That was all it took.

He grabbed my leg, his fingers digging into my calf, and dragged me through the house. The carpet burned against my skin as I thrashed, but I knew better than to scream. My ribs were already tender from Monday night—when they had kicked my unconscious body. I still hated them for it, and I was almost certain some of them were broken. Now, every sharp movement sent pain ricocheting through my body.

Jacob hauled me outside and shoved me against the car. My head smacked against the cool metal as he yanked my injured leg up, pressing his palm against my shin.

“You think this is clean?” His voice was smooth, almost amused.

“I—I’m sorry, I’ll do it again,” I whispered.

He smiled, then pressed down.

White-hot pain shot through my leg as a loud, wet crack echoed through the driveway. My vision blurred, and my scream barely made it past my lips before he let me go, letting me crumple onto the gravel.

“Do it again,” he ordered, stepping over me. “And don’t mess up this time.”

By the time I had finished the car, my hands were trembling so hard I could barely grip the sponge. I tried not to cry as I forced myself to my feet, hobbling inside to start dinner. That night, I took extra time cleaning my wounds, carefully wrapping my leg as best as I could. Scott and Ruth’s advice was helping, but it was difficult when the beatings were this frequent.

On Wednesday, the hellhounds all decided they wanted separate meals. Nine different dishes. Nine different sets of demands. I spent hours in the kitchen, cooking, serving, scrubbing down the counters.

After they were fed, I snuck upstairs to study. But my brain felt foggy, my body too exhausted to focus. Every subject blurred together—math, history, science. I was so far behind I didn’t even know where to start.

I knew I wasn’t stupid—but I felt stupid. I felt it every time I stared at a page full of words that refused to make sense, every time numbers blurred together in my mind no matter how hard I tried to add them up. Reading was a struggle; even the simplest sums felt impossible. The teachers never said it outright, but I could see it in their eyes, in the way they sighed when I couldn’t keep up, in the way they stopped calling on me in class. They thought I was dumb. Maybe they were right.

I was failing all my classes. Every single one. I missed too much school to ever catch up, and even when I was there, I spent half the day too exhausted or too hungry to concentrate. The frustration burned inside me, heavy and suffocating. No matter how hard I tried, I always fell behind.

It had always been this way. I still remembered when I was younger, back when I still tried to prove myself. My gym teacher had pulled Jasper aside once, not realizing I was listening, and told him I was weak. "She won’t be able to keep up," he’d said. "There’s no fight in her. She’s too fragile." The words had stung then, and they still haunted me now.

And if my teachers thought I was useless, if my own pack saw me as nothing, then what would my mate think? The thought made my stomach twist. What if he was disappointed in me? What if he saw how weak I was, how slow, how utterly pathetic I had become, and he wanted nothing to do with me?

I couldn’t ask for help. The teachers had already made it clear they thought I was a lost cause. The way they ignored me, the way they barely spared a glance when I failed to keep up, made it obvious I wasn’t worth their time. They wouldn’t care if I asked for help, so I didn’t bother. No one ever did.

So, I forced myself to study alone. I would sit in the corner, hunched over my books, reading and rereading the same words, willing them to make sense. I had to. Every sentence I struggled to understand, every equation that blurred into nothingness, was another step closer to being worthy of my mate. Because if I didn’t succeed, if I didn’t become strong enough, what good was I? How could I expect him to see me as anything more than a failure?

It was humiliating. To be so far behind. To feel like I’d never catch up. But I kept going. I had to. I didn’t know what else to do. All I could think about was the day I would shift, the day I would finally be free of this—free of my brothers, free of their cruelty, free of the weight I carried every day. Maybe then I could show my mate I wasn’t weak. Maybe then, I could finally be someone worthy of him.