“Keep your fucking hands off my mother,” I heard myself roar, reacting on a lifetime of instinct as I shoved him away from my mother’s broken body and moved straight for her. “Mam.” I could feel myself breaking, my voice, my self-control, my heart. All of it was just shattering into a million pieces. I knelt down beside her, hating that she feared my touch almost as much as his when all I ever tried to do was shield her.
