The Vampire Mate

Chapter 05

“Mum is going to be really strong,” Mia, my four year old sister, told me as I chose a movie for us. I cringed at her words. “I’ve been hearing her work out for ages; do you think she’ll be as strong as dad?”

“Mum had been working out with you in the house?” I asked her.

Mia nodded. “She tried to be quiet, but I heard her when I walked past her bedroom.”

I held up two movies and let Mia pick which one she wanted to watch. I’d watch anything to escape this conversation. She picked the better of the two, thankfully, and we sat against a cluster of pillows and her stuffed animals who she had positioned to be facing the TV so they could watch too.

A knock at the door made me pause the movie. Our mum popped her in and smiled. “Your father is home, girls.” I supressed the urge to glare at her. At the woman who was having s*x with another man when he was at work and her daughter was home. “We’d better go downstairs.”

Mia pouted and I gave her my best smile to tell her it will be okay. I held her hand tight as we walked down the stairs behind our mum and into the dining room where our father sat at the table.

“Girls,” he greeted us in a gruff voice. I gave him a smile and squeezed Mia’s hand so she was reminded to do the same. Then I pulled out a chair for my sister next to me and tucked her in. Dad watched my every move and his eyes lingered even after I had sat down. “You went to school today?” he asked me.

“Of course.”

“Don’t use that tone with me girl,” he shouted. Mia jumped and my mother stayed quiet in the kitchen. His eyes shifted to Mia.

“I’m sorry,” I said only to take his focus away from my sister.

***

When I came back from the school the next day, I held my breath in front of my door. I waited longer to open it. Squeezed my eyes shut. I pushed down on the handle and opened the door. When I strained my eyes open, my breath refused to leave me.

Glass glittered the floor from our photos that now laid in the remains. Dirt scattered across the ground from our tipped over plants. A new crack decorated our wall. I couldn’t hear shouting, I couldn’t figure out where he was and where I should avoid, but I heard wails of my mother coming from the kitchen. They quieted when the sound of the closing door echoed through the house.

Then I heard footsteps, loud and heavy and angry, as they made their way closer to me. I thought of Mia and how I shouldn’t antagonise my father for her sake. I thought of my mum and how I should scream and shout at my father for making her cry.

I met those footsteps with my own.

I met my father, face to face in the kitchen.

“This doesn’t concern you,” he told me, “go to your room and stay there.”

I moved closer to him.

He repeated his words, louder and louder every syllable. “Go. To. Your. Room.”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” I shouted back at him, equally as loud. “Where is mum?”

He answered with a swing of his hand to my face. Needles stung me from beneath my skin.

“Go to your room.”

I only looked at him as tears welled in my eyes.

Dad would never shout like this when I was younger. He was smile and laugh. He would hold me when I cried and tell me funny stories when I was hurt. He was there as a human with emotions and love and now he’s gone. I’m done waiting for my dad to come back, this man in front of me wasn’t my father anymore. He was a monster.

“Where is mum?” I asked again.

Another smack to the same cheek. When I didn’t move again, he slapped me again.

Mum appeared in the distance behind him. Her makeup ran down her face, parted by a river falling from each of her eyes. She cried more when she saw me. Then she nodded her head to the front door.

I wiped away the tears that threatened to spill. I looked him directly in the eyes. I punched him.

He faced me, deep red in his face and neck, and pulled his arm back. I stepped back because he could hit me, and I stepped back and back and back until I felt the door at my back.

“Get back here,” he roared. “Get back you, you are my daughter, you will do as I tell you.”

My fingers wrapped around the handle. “You are not my father, I am not your daughter.”

He stormed after me when I ran out of the door and grabbed my wrist before I had made it to my bike. He dragged me to the ground and shouted words at I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t feel the ground or if he was hitting me again, I couldn’t feel the anger or the despair, I couldn’t feel.

I screamed. Something awoke when the screech left me, a burning power flowed through me.

Then my father screamed. I watched him claw at hit chest, watched as he roared and pulled at his clothes. Black smoke wisped from his nose and ears. He fell to his knees.

“Dad?”

I raised my head fully, but a shock wave of dizziness knocked me back down. I tried to reach out to him, but I could only hear his screams as darkness took over my vision. I heard flames and a female scream before everything went out.