Marcus was always gentle when he brushed Lily’s hair. It was their nightly routine—a quiet, grounding moment they shared before bed. So when I heard his voice falter from down the hall, a tight knot of unease formed in my chest.
“Come here… now.”
His voice wasn’t loud or frantic, just… off.
I rushed to the bathroom and found Marcus frozen, brush in one hand, the other gently lifting a small section of Lily’s hair. His face had lost its color, the same pale shade I hadn’t seen since his father’s heart attack three years ago.
“What is it?” I asked, already bracing myself for bad news.
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he carefully turned Lily’s face away from the mirror so she wouldn’t see his expression, then used his thumb to part her golden hair. That’s when I saw it—a small, reddish mark on her scalp, almost perfectly round, surrounded by irritated skin. But it wasn’t just the mark. It was the clean, defined outline around it, as if something had been pressed there deliberately.
“I found this,” he whispered. “But look closer.”
I knelt down beside them, my stomach sinking as I noticed faint bruising along her hairline. It wasn’t random or scattered; it was linear, even—bruising from pressure. Not a fall. Not from playing. Something intentional.
