The knock on the door wasn’t a knock at all—it was a pounding, sharp and commanding, the kind that made the flimsy motel walls tremble.
Jason’s hand tightened around mine, his jaw locked, eyes burning with defiance. He didn’t need to say it. I could feel it in the way his body stiffened: this was the moment.
Mom looked between us with panic etched into every line of her face. “Please,” she whispered, “don’t fight him. Just listen. Please.”
But Jason had already moved toward the door. He opened it with a force that rattled the frame.
His father filled the doorway, shoulders squared in his tailored suit, his presence sucking the air out of the room. Behind him, headlights still glared from the car, casting him in sharp relief like some judge from another world.
“Get your things,” he sai
