Hide And Seek (Liam Payne)

Prologue

Prologue - Amethyst

"Sometimes we have so much to say, we cannot say it. Sometimes it's best we don't say goodbye." -Susan Fletcher

I stroke Tony's hair softly. In the moonlight, his auburn hair coruscates softly, shadows highlight his contoured, childlike features. He looks innocent - as though no one had tried to murder him, as though he had never witnessed his own mother getting beat up every night when his father returns, drunk and angry.

A scream pierces the darkness.

Trembling, I creep out of the filthy bed sheets I call the bed me and my brother share and cross the squalid bedroom. I stare at the door, uncertain if I want to know what horrors it shrouds. I open the door and take in my staggering, intoxicated father glaring at my wretched mother curled up on the ground.

"Bitch," he states in a calm tone. The calmness is as terrifying as it is capricious, and my father pulls my mom by her collar and slams her against the wall.

"Stop!" I cry, darting forward to shield her.

"Oh, if it isn't the little whore." Even as his stentorian voice slurs and his usually dignified gait clumsy by drunkenness, my father is still imposing. I flinch as he lifts my chin up.

"I'm sure you'll take after your mother someday," he continues. "Did you know that she brought two men to her bed last night?"

Through gritted teeth, I retort vindictively, "Even if she did, I'm sure that it was a pleasure for her to spend the night with two obviously better men than you."

His face pales with fury, but I carry on relentlessly. "My mom is hardly a bitch for tolerating you even though you beat her, broke her in the financial, physical and mental state. In fact, I think she's strong for doing that. You're the bitch, Papa." I spit out the word like it was poison.

He unsheathes a wicked kitchen knife. He puts it at my throat. He looks down at me savagely. His face is not a face, but a plateau. Ravines of anger slashes across it, and his eyes are amaranthine black pits. "Now, we wouldn't want you to die without anything to say in your name, would we?" He opens the first cut at the bottom of my neck.

I work up some blood and spew it at his face. "I read very angry smut on my friend's phone yesterday. See you in hell," I say without inflection.

He raises the blade above my head and brings it down. I close my eyes, terror overcoming my senses. I await the unfathomable agony and the feeling of viscous liquid running down my head.

Instead, I get a push to the side.

Horrified, I see my father thrust the knife down. I see the blade dig into my mother's head. I see blood spurt out from the place where the cut was made. I see the indomitable spark in my mother's eyes flicker and disappear. I see my mother die, right in front of me. I see my mother die, because of me.

Disoriented, I make a beeline for the front door. My own pride killed my mother. If I hadn't been so acrimonious... I could have shielded my mom...

"Now hold on a moment, missy." I feel a hand clasp my arm tenaciously. I swing around.

"You shouldn't leave without saying goodbye." My father's tone is mild, but I sense the mendacity that shrouds its malice. "It's basic etiquette."

"Let go of me," I hiss.

"I thought that you would be more pragmatic and be more..." He brushes a hand over my skin, with such a close proximity to my private parts I feel uncomfortable. "Cooperative."

I feel a sudden surge of anger. "You killed your wife. You almost murdered your own son." I stare at him recalcitrantly. "The least scum like you can do is leave your daughter alone."