I began struggling frantically with the door, yanking the handle until my knuckles turned white, but it refused to give an inch.

"Shit! Damn you, Rosa!" I screamed, the rage exploding out of my chest.

I slammed my shoulder hard against the  paneling, but the door was built like a fortress wall. A person my size didn't stand a prayer of breaking it down.

Memories I had spent years burying came rushing back to the surface. Whenever I went against my father as a child, he’d lock me in my room for days at a time without a single crumb of food. The terrifying realization that history was repeating itself—that...