Chapter 28 #3
“Woodrow. . .” Jolie's hobble was moving back towards me.
My hands thrashed, shooing her away, but she wouldn't go.
I kicked at my father's stomach. I scratched at his arms, doing all I could to free myself from his grip, so he wouldn't get to Jolie and kill her to teach me a lesson.
It was like he saw all my fears and wanted to bring them to life.
He threw me across the room. My body hit the high cabinets, and the glass shattered, sprinkling down onto me as I fell to the floor. I couldn't get up quickly enough. My energy was still in my father's hands and his fists were shut.
His feet pounded down the hall, the boards groaning. Jolie edged back, her good leg failing to get her away from the man charging closer.
Her fingers searched for the door handle, finding nothing, as my father's fingers curled through her hair, dragging her back as she kicked and screamed. Her nails dug into the walls—scraping off paper and plaster—snapping at the free edge of her finger.
Another of her screams pulled me to my feet, and I wobbled in the direction of her cry. I stood up in time to see my father's giant fist drive into Jolie's stomach.
“No!” I screamed, watching her fight back, failing to protect herself as he hit her again. His balled fist punched at her repeatedly, his force blasting into her scarred face and naked body.
My mother jumped into my path, her flailing arms fighting me as I tried to get to Jolie. All I could see was her fuzzy blonde hair weaving in and out of my view.
And I fucking lost it.
My hand came up and the force I threw into my mother's face knocked her to the ground with a thud. Her nose sprouted blood, and it splashed the floor, mingling with Nessie’s much purer essence.
My father dragged Jolie back into the kitchen, and with my mother out of the way, I could get to her. But my father anticipated that. Anticipated my approach wouldn't be slow and steady, because I had no time to waste.
He let Jolie go, tossing her to the ground, making sure she’d land on her broken knee. He grasped my throat, and I noticed he had two fingers missing from his calloused hand. But that didn’t impact his grip.
“Don't hurt her,” I pleaded, with my mouth and my eyes. He squeezed until my vision blurred, until I only stayed conscious by listening to Jolie as she repeated my name in panic. Then she faded out.
Her voice became distant. The world around me, too. I blinked, trying to focus on the blur that was my father. But everything turned black. . .
“Daddy. . .” I begged as I became someone else.
Jolie
I still had the keys wrapped in my trembling fingers, the keyrings jingling as they hung from my palm. I fought to get back to my feet, and it took all I had as I nursed the pain in my stomach. I wedged the key into Ville’s skin, losing the teeth in his flesh.
Woodrow's knees cracked as he hit the floor. He buckled as Ville removed his grip. Woody had taken over now; the tone of his voice told me that much. Lower and more delicate.
The child pleaded to his father's deaf ears, seeking comfort as he panicked over the realization he couldn't breathe.
His fingers were at his throat, trying hard to massage the swelling, to shrink it, move it, anything. His tears splashed the ground, adding to the milk and blood.
I moved to him, but I didn't get close. One hand on my stomach, a strange twinge left me as quickly as it came.
Ville yanked me back again. His anger was tangible, leaving an ominous promise of retaliation.
My head screamed out in pain as his fingers knotted in my hair.
My teeth clamped down, grinding my molars to dust, refusing to give him a verbal scream this time as he tossed me to the ground.
Sacks filled with household waste softened my landing.
I still didn’t scream as Ville delivered a kick to my leg, but a strange, lowly sound slipped out of my locked lips.
I didn't want to scare Woody, and a scream would have done that. High stress wasn't something that invited Woodrow back to the surface.
I needed him back at the front, back in control.
Ville noticed the switch, as I did. But he wanted someone else. I couldn’t understand why, as things hadn’t gone so well last time. “Not the one I wanted, but this could work.”
“Daddy,” Woody said again.
“Hey, little buddy. Your throat a little tight?”
His sad eyes blinked twice, his hand reaching for his father's.
“No, don't you touch him!” I fumed over Ville’s manipulation. Woody—being a neglected child—craved love, and that was the only reason Ville gave it.
A toxic love that wasn't fucking real.
“Hush, Jolie!” Ville's sterner voice tried to set me in my place, but as he'd already shown me, my place wasn't here. “Do me a favor, go check on my wife.”
I looked over to Wynter, wanting to give her none of my help as she stirred on the ground. My hand was again on my stomach, comforting my unborn through the pangs Ville caused.
“I can't walk.” I turned my head away, ignoring her. Ignoring them both.
“Let me take a look, buddy.” Ville ignored me, too. He adjusted Woody's position so he could check over his throat. He smiled at the bruises he caused while he falsified a comfort for the boy who couldn’t face how little his father cared.
It made me sick.
I tasted the vomit on my tongue, and I had to swallow it before speaking.
“Is Momma okay?” Woody asked, getting his quiet words out first.
“It looks like one of your inside friends acted up again. She'll be fine.” Ville rubbed his son's dark hair with cigar-stained fingertips.
Woody stretched his fingers, his eyes drifting to his knuckles and the red marks settled on each joint.
“He didn't mean it, I don't think.”
“No. . . he didn't. But sometimes people must be punished. Do you understand?”
Woody blinked twice.
“I don't want to hurt you, buddy, but Woodrow was out of line, and Jolie has been out of line.”
My eyes became slits, narrowing on Ville and whatever bullshit he'd sprout next. A stronger twinge kicked me in the stomach, and my hand circled the area as I altered my breathing to brave the pain.
“I can't hurt my favorite little guy, can I? So, today, it'll just be Jolie.”
“What did she do?” Woody choked out the words.
But Ville didn't answer.
“Why does she never have clothes on?” This question was silent, the sound trapped below the swelling in Woody’s throat.
Ville didn't answer, having already left his side, his attention was elsewhere.
On me.
“I don’t want to see her get hurt.”
“Then close your eyes.”
My back straightened, and I shifted around the bags of trash. The badly-plastered wall prevented my escape as I tried to push myself farther away.
Ville and his hateful expression pinned me in place before his hands. He didn't even give a second glance to the wife he cared so much about.
She was alert now, climbing from her skinny ass up onto her feet.
His hand struck my face, giving me a better look at Wynter as my head soared in her direction.
Her expression was almost apologetic, the work of a great actress. Her poetic performance kept me distracted from her husband.
Pain ricocheted through my body, as Ville’s foot made contact with my stomach.
I couldn’t stop this scream. His boot bruised and bent three of my knuckles as they uselessly tried to protect my bump.
Woody was panicking, shaking, and trying to talk, but his sound was warped. He shook his head causing himself more pain and further injuries.
Ville’s boot hit me again and again and again. My arms went wild, pushing his feet away to defend my baby and the body it lived inside.
I tucked up my good leg, creating a barrier, and I even pulled a trash bag in front of me.
The bag exploded on the next impact, the dirty waste covering my already filthy body.
My stomach cramped when my defenses failed against another kick. I tried again to stop the next one, but I only slowed him down. He hit my thumb, causing pain to the joint before his steel toe blasted my stomach.
I stared down at the fluid appearing between my legs. I blinked a few times, taking in what I was seeing—red-tinged water spilling from me.
My breath caught in my throat, and like the boy on the floor, staring at me with a tearstained face, I couldn’t breathe.
My hands covered my stomach completely, but it was too late to protect my baby. My stomach cramped, and I could feel it getting harder beneath my spread fingers.
The tears I held back flooded from my eyes. I tried to control my breathing as my panic took over.
Woody couldn't help me. He had no idea how. But he wanted to. He was reaching for me, rubbing my toes with one hand and his throat with the other.
Ville stepped back, but only enough to give Wynter room to see his giant boot deliver what was probably the one-hundredth blow to my hands and stomach.
I screamed, and I didn't stop screaming as the tightening feeling came again.
“She's in labor.” Wynter's expression was blank. Her words cold.
I looked across to her, searching in all the wrong places for sympathy. “It's too early, and I'm bleeding. I need a doctor.” I didn’t know who to look at.
No one responded.
Ville moved to the cupboard, pulling out the remains of alcohol that he hadn’t finished last night. He swigged the clear liquid from the slender bottle. His ass, flattened against cupboard doors, caused them to groan in pain.
And I groaned, too.
I calmed my breathing, or at least, I tried to, focusing on Woody, and he followed my approach.
“Your grandchild needs a doctor!” I screamed at Wynter through my pain.
But she said nothing, did nothing for me. She moved to a different part of the kitchen, where her bony fingers pulled at some kitchen roll to wipe her bleeding nose.
I twinged again.
I thought labor was a slow process, but this was fast and terrifying.
My stomach tightened. My head reared back, crashing into the wall.
I opened my legs wider, feeling pressure move down my stomach. A force in the front and back of my body.