The message read: Don’t help that cripple. She’s a traitor.

I stared at the words until they blurred.

Cripple.

Traitor.

About her own daughter.

I looked down at Sarah, shivering on my floor, struggling to breathe through the pain. “What happened?” I asked.

She grabbed my wrist with surprising force. “Don’t answer Mom. Don’t tell her I’m here.”

That frightened me more than the blood on her mouth.

I helped Sarah onto the couch and wrapped her in two blankets. Every movement made her flinch. I brought ice, water, and my old first-aid kit, though it felt useless against the way her body curled inward like it had learned pain too well. She kept glancing toward the window, jumping at every set of headlights that passed.

“Was it Mark?” I asked quietly.

Her husband.

She closed her eyes.

That was all the answer I needed.

Over the past year, I had watched Sarah slowly fade inside that marriage. She smiled less. She canceled plans. She brushed off bruises with awkward excuses. Mom always said the same thing: A woman needs to stop stirring up trouble in her own home. I hated hearing it, but Sarah always asked me to let it go.

Now she was in my house at two in the morning with a broken rib and fear written all over her face.

Then someone slammed a fist against my front door so hard the picture frames in the hallway rattled.