A Dangerous Woman

Blaise Taylor I was seven when I witnessed a young boy being helplessly dragged by his arms along the bottom floor of my house. His legs trailed along the floor behind him, looking as dead as his spirit. His captor could be easily recognised as my father. A man that was infamously known to be malicious and morally corrupt. He was taking the boy to the stairs that lead down into the basement, as he had done before with many other people. My small hands clenched around the pristine banister that ran across the top floor, enabling a person to look out below. This was an architectural design that I often took advantage of, being an overly curious child.  Still watching the scene unfold before me, I attempted to smile at the boy, whose eyes had suddenly found mine. It was a sheepish grin but its intentions were recognised. A smile that was not reciprocated. Yet, my eyes remained trained upon the boy as my mind was submerged in deep thought. Who was he? Instantly, I began to notice my father was turning to look up to the banister. I shook myself free from the thoughts that I had previously lost myself in and scrambled back to my room. I gently shut my door behind me to avoid making a sound but ended up abruptly closing off the only source of light. As room was plunged into an inky darkness, it instantly surrounded me, dulling my senses and forcing my mind to run wild with the childish nightmares of the monsters that resided in the dark. However, the footsteps that loudly descended the basement stairs reminded me that the monsters did not hide in the dark with me, but instead could be found in the basement, down below.  The basement door slammed shut and the house became silent, a silence that no one found comfort in. I was never able to understand why occasions such as these happened, but as a bright child, I was able to work out that the majority of people that entered the basement by the hand of my father, often did not return. Not to mention, whenever the large black basement door would open, harrowing screams would usually escape. In an act of protection, my brother would always tell me that they were screams of joy. I knew this was a lie. I knew how fear sounded. As I child, I saw many men and woman enter the basement but I had never seen a boy as young as me, fall victim to my father. I had convinced myself that this must have been the reason I was so intrigued by him, but deep down, I knew that it was his peculiarity that piqued my interest. The way his brown hair that was dusted with blonde, gracefully swooped across his forehead, and the way his deep brown eyes loudly sparkled with a desire to cause mischief. Realising that my head was filled with too many thoughts to hear my own heartbeat, all I could clearly believe was that I had to help him. But there was so little that I could have done. If my brother had known what I wanted to do, he would have prohibited me from involving myself in a dangerous situation such as this one. And if my father had found out, he would mercilessly punish me. His punishments although not rare for me to receive, I spent every moment of my existence fearing them. They ranged from simply spitting on me, to snapping my radius in half as he did when I was five, on the account that my brother had broken his own arm by accidentally running into me. My mother had raised my brother and I to see the best in everyone, including my father but every day that passed, the chances of any redeemable qualities being seen in my father, increasingly slimmed. He was an evil man and I was under the impression that he was attempting to turn my brother into the same. As after my mum died a year ago, my father began waking my brother up at the crack of dawn and I wouldn't see either of them until dinner time.  Dinner was always formal, we would all sit on a large table, in complete silence. It was my father, my mother, my brother and I until after she died. Then we were joined by six other men. The men I learnt to be: my uncle, my two cousins, two men that I never learnt the names of and one of the men's sons, Hunter. I only ever spoke to Hunter out of those six, the rest all eventually went missing one by one until it was just my father, my brother, Hunter and I.  During the day, I was luckily never alone despite not having my brother, as I had Hunter to play with. He always acted in a gracious manner, unfamiliar to boys of his age, and would do anything I wanted for hours, without complaining. He was a good guy, who only left my side when I had to spend time with my tutors. Tutors that were hired as I was banned from going to a school for reasons unbeknownst to be at the time, leaving me very smart but very lonely.  Whenever my brother would finally come home, he would always have a new bruise or cut on him, but he would never tell me where he got them from or what he had spent the day doing. Showing that despite everything, despite the unimaginable horrors that I assumed Jordan faced daily, he never lost his kindness even if I was unable to recognise it at the time.  Jordan's kind nature, was a factor that my father hated, as it meant that he could not control Jordan fully. This hate only fuelled his viciousness towards me but I never held this against Jordan.  The secrecy of his life however, was something that I used to greatly hold against him. The secrets I had to unravel. The secrets that gave me the finally push I needed to save the mysterious boy from inhumane ways of my father.