The Mute || m.c. au ON HOLD

12.

//unedited//

It's still the same day that it was in the last chapter, just in case for further confusion I decided to mention that now.

   "Michael!" The voice boomed followed by heavy footsteps, he could tell that with each passing second the person he dreaded most was getting closer and closer.

Hiding the plate of pizza in the first place that came to mind he quickly ran over and shoved it in his back pack. Michael knew he couldn't let his dad see that he was eating something without his permission.

Naomi cried and crawled under the bed, she was just as scared of the towering six foot four guy as Michael was.

In one swift motion the door flung open, hitting the wall and creating an even bigger hole. A pair of dirty black boots stopped at the door frame, Michael was too scared to look up.

"You stopped talking again boy?" He questioned, looking down at the teen boy shaking in his clothes.

Michael shook his head "No sir".

"Then you obviously don't have manners!" He walked closer, stopping at the end of the bed opposite of Michael. "I don't get a hello?".

"Hello" Michael choked out.

There was a fake chuckle coming from the lips of his dad "Sarcasm killed the cat".

Before he could react Michael was being pulled across the ground by his shirt collar.

"Karen!" He yelled, picking the boy up and letting his feet hit harshly against the wooden steps.

She soon emerged from the corner sending Michael an apologetic smile.

Michael didn't want her apologetic smile, nor did he want her to ignore what was clearly happening in front of her. He wanted her to save him, protect from the man that beat him daily. The man that called him scum and blamed Michael for his past.

Ever since the drowning of Cassidy, Michaels father couldn't accept the fact that his son was a killer. He strongly believed murderers should be punished, and if the law wouldn't punish him- he would.

Everyone seemed to know that what happened as accidental. There were still a couple people who believed Michael purposely drowned his girlfriend of that time. Even when they settled the whole thing in court, Michaels father still thought that his own son killed a girl.

So when Michael went mute because of the accident his father flipped. He couldn't believe that a murderer would stop talking just to persuade people that he was sad and felt guilty over the whole thing. So outside of school, Michael was forced to talk. If he didn't, his punishments would be worse.

"Did you feed him?" He questioned his wife, who was distraught on what to say.

She sighed, "He took some of last nights leftovers".

Michael felt betrayed, his mother knew the pain he would go through just because he took a couple slices of pizza.

So he was carried to the basement.

And he was put in there for the rest of the week, without food or access to a restroom.
***
Lola walked into the usually quiet house, expecting to follow her usual routine of putting Dustin to sleep.

Except this time the sound of a distraught voice filled the narrow halls.

Lola inched slowly into the brightened master room, a mix of excitement and confusion washing off her as the middle-aged brunette came into view. Not wanting to interrupt the obvious stressful phone call, Lola slid down the wall, pulling her knees close to her chest and began watching her mother go on.

"Ye - Yes I understand but you have to see my side of it. I'm working 24/7 just to make up for the broken heater and now you're telling me I have less than 48 hours to come up with over ten grand".

She placed the cigarette between her lips, taking a sharp breath in before releasing a cloud of smoke into the air.

Lola made a disgusted expression at her mom. She hated everything about cigarette, the smell including.

"Does it look like I can get a loan!" She yelled into the phone "I'm bending over backwards just to please you people!".

With an eye roll, Lola pushed her self from off the ground. Her mother wasn't paying the slightest attention to her. She wondered if her mother even knew she was sitting there.

Twenty minutes later of constant yelling her mother was right back out the door.

Only giving a quick "I'm going out, food in the freezer and don't wait up" before catching a ride with her much younger friends.