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“Please,” Joey snapped, running a hand through his blond hair and streaking the tendrils red. “Go upstairs and pack your bags, kid.”
Tadhg gave Joey a hard look before finally nodding and stalking out of the room.
Turning his attention to me, Joey walked right over to where I was slumped on the floor and dropped to his knees beside me.
“You’re okay,” he whispered in my ear, pulling me into his arms. “I’m here… I’m here, Shan.”
Numb to the bone, I just sat there, slumped against his big body, my hands hanging limply at my sides, while my brother tried to comfort me.
My entire focus was on our parents.
“You’re bleeding,” Mam choked out as she dabbed at Dad’s face with the sleeve of her jumper. “Oh god, Teddy.”
Her words caused Joey’s entire frame to tense.
“Are you fucking blind?” he roared.
Swinging around to face them, he gently brushed my hair off my face and pointed to me.
“She is bleeding,” Joey snarled, pointing to my face. “Shannon. Your daughter!”
“Shannon,” Mam wept as she cringed in horror. “Oh, baby, your face.”
I didn’t care what I looked like anymore. It didn’t matter. Because my mother had just ended my world.
She went to him.
He beat us. Terrorized us. Tortured us.
And she went to him. She chose him.
Our own mother.
“Don’t you dare ‘oh, baby’ her,” Joey snarled as he climbed to his feet and helped me up. With his arm wrapped around my shoulders, he walked me over to the table and lowered me onto a chair. “You’re okay,” he kept whispering, and I wasn’t sure if he was telling me this or himself. “You’re okay. I’m here. I’m right here, Shan.”
Grabbing a tea towel off the draining board, Joey returned to me and pressed it to the side of my face while I just sat there, staring across the room at the people who had brought us into the world.
“Shannon,” Dad slurred, shaking his head as if he was waking up from a deep sleep. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t fucking speak to her, creep!” Joey roared, taking a menacing step toward him. “I will kill you,” he seethed, tone deathly cold and terrifyingly sincere. “Do you hear me? I will slit your fucking throat if you so much as look at my sister again.”
Ollie, Tadhg, and Sean all hurried into the kitchen then with backpacks on their backs. All three of them went straight to Joey. Because he was our protector. He was the reason we were all in one piece. He was our hero.
“Now, here’s how this is going to go,” Joey growled, standing in front of the four us, shielding us from our parents. “Either you”—he pointed to our mother—“find some maternal instinct deep inside that cold fucking heart of yours and put that bastard out for good, or I’m taking these kids out of this house and they are never coming back.”
“Joey,” Mam sobbed. “I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t apologize,” my brother spat out. “Protect your children and put him out.”
“Joey, I—”
“Make a choice, Mam,” Joey snarled as he glared down at our mother. “Him or us?”
