My victory is small but glorious, when she narrows her eyes at me and spits out her reply. “You think you’re pretty special, don’t you, Ms. De La Rosa? But I think you know there’s nothing special about you. That’s why you’re still on the shelf at twenty-five. Nobody can stand to be around you. You can’t even find some poor sap to marry you even with all your money and the trappings of your last name. Lord, what a poor soul the unfortunate bastard would be.”

When I don’t reply, her lips curve even higher, sensing that she’s struck a nerve. But she doesn’t stop there.

“I heard all about how Jackson Van der Smit kicked you to the curb and married his pretty wife instead. What’s her name? Collette? I bet that didn’t feel so good, being passed over like that. But I’m sure you’re used to it. I guess that sort of thing must happen all the time when you have a pretty face and a rotten personality. I suppose that’s the same reason your brother and his new wife wanted you out of the house. It didn’t take long—”

“Get. Out!” I scream at her. “Get out of my room, now!”

When she doesn’t move, my anger bubbles over, and I can feel it flooding my veins, taking over my senses. I know it’s stupid, but I reach for the loaf of food and stare her down, my voice shaking from the force of my rage.

“I’m not going to ask you again,” I threaten.

“You wouldn’t dare—”

She can’t even finish the sentence before I’m hurtling the goop across the room. It splatters across her face and chest, sliding down her cheeks and onto the floor with a satisfactory plop.

For a full second, Miriam is too stunned to move, and then she decides to show me her teeth. She stomps toward me, and I dart around her, narrowly missing her claws as she tries to grab me by the shirt. I’m faster than her, and she made the mistake of leaving my bedroom door open, so I bolt out of it and start running down the hall.

I’m thinking about how easy that was and wondering if I might actually make it to the front door. There won’t be a thing she can say to stop me if I do. That’s what I’m telling myself when I hear a war cry from behind me right before something heavy sails into the back of my head.

It happens so fast that I barely have the awareness of toppling forward. My knees bang against the floor first, followed by the side of my face bouncing off the hardwood. Pain streaks through me, and then everything goes black.