Freya almost smiled as she watched me grapple with her accusations. And then she narrowed her eyes at me. “Pack your shit and go home to your sex cult.”

Obediently, I hurried from the room.

Chapter 64

64

It didn’t take me long to gather my belongings. I’d been living there less than a month and had been too busy with the baby to really make myself at home. I shoved my clothes, my bag of weed, and a few trinkets into the backpack. And then I reached under the mattress for the photographs. I’d intended to use them in an instance exactly like this.

Take me to LA with you or I’ll post these online!

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing she was right about me: I was a voyeur and a pervert. I grabbed the photos and stuffed them into my bag.

Lugging my backpack up the stairs, I moved to the living room to collect my camera from the low teak coffee table. Had the breastfeeding photo shoot really been this morning? It felt like an eternity ago. I could hear Freya and Max arguing.

“You’re upset. You’re not thinking this through.”

“You didn’t think it through when you moved us to this island full of freaks and losers!”

I drove home in a fog. I was losing her. Them. Forever. It couldn’t be real. Maybe I was in shock because the next thing I knew, I was parked in my driveway. My dad and my brothers were chopping kindling. My mom was pushing Eckhart on a rickety swing. I slowly got out of the truck with my backpack.

“Low!” Wayne ran over to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “You came home.”

His words were a punch in the gut. I didn’t want this to be my home.

My mom approached, “Are you okay?”

I didn’t want to tell her; she wouldn’t understand. But the words fell from my lips. “Someone called Child Protection Services about Maggie. Freya thinks it was me.”

“I’m sorry,” my mom said, reaching out to stroke my arm. “But it’s for the best.”

“How is it for the best?” I snapped.

“What matters is that the baby is safe and well cared for.”

“She is safe. I was caring for her.”

My dad had joined us by then, the hatchet still in his hand. “I didn’t like what I saw when I brought you the dal. You were in over your head.”

“You called CPS?” I shrieked. “I was fine! I was happy! How could you do this to me?”

My mom sounded stern. “We did this for you, Swallow. A teenaged girl is not equipped to look after an infant on her own for days on end. It’s too much.”