Megan's composure finally broke entirely, tears streaming freely down her face as she reached for Jacob, pulling herself into his arms with a desperate urgency that spoke to weeks of carefully suppressed fear and pain. Her bruised face — details Jacob was only now fully registering beneath weeks of makeup she'd apparently been using to conceal the extent of the damage — pressed against his shoulder as her sobs finally broke free.
"She didn't just do this to me," Megan managed between broken sobs, gesturing urgently toward the hallway leading to Noah's bedroom. "Look at your son's arms!"
Jacob felt the blood drain from his face entirely, a cold, visceral horror building rapidly as the full implication of Megan's words settled over him. He'd left his six-year-old son in the care of his own mother for three weeks, trusting implicitly that whatever discipline she employed would remain within reasonable, ordinary bounds.