“I’m not an animal.” My chair clattered to the floor. If I’d been in my right mind, I would have stood my ground. Instead, I skittered backward.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” The sheriff took one step toward me, then another. “I’ve given you no reason to be afraid of me.”

Control. I had to stay in control. Breathe in. Breathe out. “I want to leave now. You can’t keep me here.”

“I can if I’m concerned that you’re a threat to yourself or others.” He was within a few feet of me now. “It would be a shame to have to tell Cady that, despite all her work, you’re still what your mother made you.”

“Cady. Is. My. Mother.” If I could form words, I could think them, think: He can’t hurt me. It’s just talk. He can’t do anything but talk.

My back was up against the wall. The tangled mess of thoughts and images in my brain flashed in pace with my heart, racing, pounding.

The sheriff turned and reached for the folder on the table—my file. The space that put between us let me breathe. A single breath—just one, then he pulled out a photograph of a woman with dark hair and blue eyes and features that looked altogether too much like my own.

“Your real mother,” the sheriff clarified needlessly. He studied me. “You don’t recognize her. You don’t remember.”

He was moving toward me again. There was nowhere left for me to go.

“Haven’t you ever wondered? Why you survived? How a child could live like an animal, lost in the wild for weeks?” He lowered his voice to a bone-shuddering hum. “Your biological mother was some kind of conspiracy nut. She lived off the grid. No one even knew she had a child, and that meant that she could do whatever she wanted to you.” He was too close to me—and coming closer.

Can’t think. Can’t breathe. There was a roar in my ears, and a rush of emotion—not mine.

Girl’s.

“The police described the abuse as intermittent but severe. They think you used to take refuge in the forest to escape.”

No. He wouldn’t stop advancing. My body was a live wire, every nerve ending screaming. Man wants to hurt Girl.

“With trauma like that in your background, you must see the world as such a hostile place.”

Man is right on top of Girl. Man reaches—

The motion flipped a switch inside of me. Like a rubber band stretched past its limit, something inside me snapped. I stopped fighting. I stopped trying.

I lunged.

No control, no thoughts, no words.

Chapter 41