Blue || Bucky Barnes

1. Leia Callahan

"Leia!" The door crashes against the wall from the force making my eyes shoot open. His loud voice bounces off every wall of the tiny room.
"Y-yes?" I tremble curled under the small blanket on the floor.
"For gods sake girl get the fuck up." His words slur as they roll off his tongue.
He's drunk. But then again, when isn't he.
I scramble to my feet quickly. The blanket falls from my body onto the hard cement of the floor.
"What in the fuck are you doing up here still!" He booms. My body retreats subconsciously.
"I- I lost track of time." I stumble over my words.
He launches at me grabbing the collar of my shirt.
"What did I tell you would happen next time you overslept!?" His words slice through my body.
"No, Mark, Dad, please no. I don't have a clock I didn't know what the time was." I try to explain while pulling away.
"So you're answering back now. Not smart." His strength knocks me off my feet as he pulls me out the room. My collar cuts into my neck from the weight of my body dragging along. I know better than to try and get up. I feel my eyes brimming with tears knowing what's to come. Mark throws me down the stairs of the small apartment. My body tumbles hitting each of the jagged steps. It's not until I crash down on the lower level that I let out a low groan. Curling into a ball on the hard concrete floor, I hear his heavy boots thudding down the wooden stairs.
"I told you not to talk back to me. And yet every time you don't listen." With my eyes closed I can feel his tall presence standing over me.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you girl!" He growls kicking my shoulder making me fall onto my back. I force my eyes open and look up at the man I used to call my father.

He wasn't always like this. When I was little and Mom was still around we were happy. I had a great upbringing. I had a little sister, Eveline, she was six years younger than me. The four of us used to lead a happy life. We went to school, played sports, celebrated birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. Until Mom died when I was eleven, heroine took her. Though my sister and I never knew it. To us Mom was this beautiful specimen of a human, the idea of perfection in our lives. But she had demons we never knew about, some I'll never know. When she passed away Eveline and I really struggled. Mark must've too because he turned to drinking and more recently other drugs. It was all downhill from there. When I was twelve and Eveline was six things really took a turn for the worse. Mark was becoming more of a monster day by day. Most days and nights Eveline and I would huddle in our cold, empty room together hoping and praying he'd be too shit face to make it up the stairs. Our prayers were most often unanswered. Eventually he grew a tolerance because he would just fly up those wooden stairs, we could hear his heavy boots inconsistently thudding as he came. The door would fly open and he would pick one of us to have his way with. Sometimes both of us. He would hit us, torture us, abuse us, everything you could possibly think of he did to us. One day Eveline had a friend come over. Mark was fine for the most part. Kept his temper under control. That was until the little girl left with her parents. Eveline tried to go with them. She tried so hard to go with them. But her friends Mom wasn't taking any of the hints and left without another word, all while Mark witnessed the whole thing. And that was the trigger. He killed my little sister that day. I witnessed it all. The screams, the cries for help. I did everything I could to stop him. But he shoved me and threatened I'd be next. So I retreated to my room, like a coward, while hearing Eveline's cries for me. Then it stopped and silence took over the house. I knew she was gone.
I heard the front door slam and the rickety 1910s Cadillac pull out the drive, how he found the money to buy it I'll never know. I remember laying on the cold concrete in our tiny bedroom, my body paralyzed with fear but mainly sorrow and sadness. Evelyn's little duckling carved from wood stares at me on the floor, a constant torment yet a beautiful reminder.
The car returned hours later and the front door slammed once more. The thud of Mark's boots on the stairs made me tremble in fear as I stash the toy in the small hole at the corner of our room. He crashed in and grabbed me off the floor.
"Listen up you little brat. You tell anyone about what just happened, then the same thing's gonna happen to you." The alcohol on his breath stunk.
"Yes." Is all I could muster.
"Good." He threw me on the ground and left the room.