Every Chapter

Chapter Fourteen

Early the next morning when Quinn woke up, she heard shouting coming from downstairs and she made the mistake of investigating the reason. She tied a robe around herself and walked downstairs to her father's office. It was so early that the only light shining inside was the light of the lamps, the sun was still making its way over the horizon and even Ian was not here for his shift yet.

Quinn made the mistake of walking into her father's office to check on him. She knew if he was up this early it meant he did not sleep, which meant he had been drinking. When her father drank it meant that they fought. But he was yelling so loud she had to check and see. She had to make sure he was ok.

When she walked in he had been screaming at John, John had taken the worst of his yelling over the years and unless something was truly wrong it never seemed to phase him. So when she checked his face and saw him staring blankly with no expression of worry on his face she turned to leave.

"QUINN." Her father yelled at her before she could slip away.

She paused in the doorway and turned back around.

"Yes dad?"

He motioned for her to step inside and she did, he cleared the distance between them and now stood less than a foot from her. She knew what that meant, but she never knew how to prepare.

"What is this I hear about you going off with the same boy who attacked you?" His voice was raised, but even he couldn't manage a scream or else she knew he'd be.

"Dad, I thought he was being dropped off it wasn-"

He reared his hand back and back handed her across the mouth with as much force as he could muster. She clutched the area immediately as he began his explanation as to why he had the right to lay hands on her.

"IF YOU HAD ENOUGH SENSE, I WOULDN'T HAVE TO SMACK IT IN YOU!"

She knew better than to look to John for help, If she did it would only cause him to be a target as well and she didn't want that. He had interfered once before and lost his job until Quinn begged for it back. She needed John, even if they scarcely spoke he was like family to her.

She dropped her hand and lifted her head, tasting the familiar copper twang on her tongue.

"I'm sorry."

"Awh sweetheart." He reached out for her, and she flinched. Flinching was the worst thing to do in front of her father, but sometimes it was involuntary.

He reared his hand back and smacked her again, with equal force into her eye.

"I WILL GIVE YOU A REASON TO FLINCH."

She looked to the floor with one eye shut and the other with tears.

"GO."

She didn't wait for confirmation it was for her and she ran, she ran away from him, up the stairs and into her room.

In her bathroom she kept items for days just like this. Things to tend to any wounds and clean them up properly as well as conceal them.

"He's not a bad guy." She told herself as she looked to the mirror at her bleeding swollen lip and her equally swelling eye. She would need to conceal both marks well when they began to bruise.

Quinn didn't feel like she had it bad with her father, so she never complained about his violent spurts. She knew many others had it worse, he only hit her when he drank, and he only drank like this when he was reminded of her mother. So, she understood why he was angry, she was angry too.

Her father wasn't a bad man, no. He was a bad drunk.

Quinn treated the cut on her lip and cracked an instant ice pack for her eye, wrapping it in a clean washcloth, removing her robe and climbing back into her bed. She should have stayed in bed, she knew that and to her, it was her own fault.