She tore the picture of Clive and Bennett in half. Quartered it. Scattered it on the floor. The piles were uneven now. Biting her lip, Morgan grabbed a picture from the top of the next pile, this one of Clive pressing his thumb to the nozzle of a hose while Cora and Carlisle danced in their swimsuits. She ripped it. Scattered it. Grabbed the next one.

A trail of tears burned down her neck and soaked into her shirt as she destroyed one after another of the Reynoldses’ memories. A silent scream welled up inside her. She hated Clive. Hated him for leaving her to rot in a room while he traveled the world with his other family. While they toured Roman ruins in Bath, she was being ruined in a house of horrors in exchange for cigarettes and little blue pills. And while they fed little lambs in the emerald hills of Galway, she was a little lamb being fed to the wolves. While they lay atop matching blue-striped beach towels on the white sands of Mykonos, she curled into a fetal position on a hardwood floor, praying her door would remain shut for the night.

How could he have abandoned her? His own blood. His flesh.

His ruin.

Suddenly, everything stilled. Her chest heaving, Morgan looked around her. Little shards everywhere. Kindling.

Dread bloomed in the pit of her stomach, paralyzed her. Eleanor’s photos were destroyed beyond repair. She couldn’t explain this. Warmed by her hatred of herself and for the villain she had become, Morgan threw herself on her desk, her body racked by sobs. She couldn’t face them now, or at the cabin, or ever again. As if the Reynoldses hadn’t had a trying enough past, she’d gone and obliterated every glimmer of a happy memory within it.

Clive and Bern were right. She was a ruin. Fragile like a bomb, she destroyed everything she touched.

When she finally peeled herself off her keyboard, bits of paper stuck to her arms and forehead, she shot an email off to Bennett. I can’t make it to the cabin. I’m so sorry, explain later.

She wouldn’t, of course, explain later. She would never talk to him again. Besides, she didn’t belong at the cabin, with him. He was her brother. Well, half brother.

Morgan dragged her arm across her mouth, wiping away tears and mucus. She drank in deep breaths, attempting to compose herself. She had to clean up this mess.

From upstairs, a knock sounded at the door. She knew it was Hudson before her mom even called down to her.

34 HUDSON