I don't remember the drive home.
One moment I was staring at my mother's name in faded red ink, the next I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub in Killian's estate, his jacket draped around my shoulders, my whole body shaking in a way I couldn't make stop no matter how hard I tried.
"Breathe," Killian said quietly, crouched in front of me, hands wrapped firmly around mine. "Avalene. Look at me. Breathe."
"She bought me." My voice came out cracked, hollow. "Nineteen years of her telling me how generous she was, how lucky I was that they took me in and she paid someone to take me from a woman who never agreed to lose me."
"I know."
"I called her Mom." Something broke loose in my chest, ugly and raw. "I spent my whole life trying to earn a place in her house, apologizing for existing,
