What the hell is he planning?
He turns back to me and grins. “Take those fucking bandages off and put your hands on the floor—palms up,” he adds. More bleach? Is he going to show them what happens when you get punished?
I unwrap my hands. The skin feels like it’s still on fire, and the sensation only worsens when the cool air touches them. I lay them on the ground. The action forces me to bend over slightly, making me even more vulnerable. It’s a submissive posture, almost begging. Everything in me screams to sit up…get up…get out. He can’t use the kids against me if I’m not here. But he might hurt them in my place, and I can’t ever let that happen.
“Does it hurt?” he asks, but there’s only a sick pleasure in his voice.
“Nah. Had worse,” I sass, though more for the kids’ sake than his.
He laughs like I’m telling a joke and mumbles, “Good…good. Let’s see what we can do about that.” He grabs the boy’s shoes from the rack by the front door and makes them put them on. When they’re both ready, he drags AJ to my left side and TJ to my right.
“Juliet’s been a bad girl. She tried to take something from Daddy that wasn’t hers to take,” he begins, faux sweetness in his voice, the kind that often comes before a smack. I brace for the hit, but it’s so much worse than I expect.
“She’s gotta be punished. We’re going to stomp on Juliet’s hands until she says sorry.”
What? What does he mean by we? Don’t tell me—
“Stomp as hard as you can. If you don’t stomp hard enough, I’ll make you do it again and again until every one of her fingers breaks. Ready?”
“You can’t…you can’t make them do this.” Tears stream from AJ’s eyes, his chin jerks with silent sobs. TJ shakes his head, refusing to do it, but Dad just glares at me. “They’ll hurt you or I’ll hurt all of you for disobeying. Which will it be?”
I smile sadly at both my brothers. They’re four years old. They should be watching cartoons or playing with other kids at pre-school. “You’ve got to do what Daddy says. It’s my fault.” I can’t tell them it’s okay or that it’s not their fault because Dad will only make this worse for all of us. I’m not an idiot. He’s punishing them too. In his head, this is his way of making sure they grow up to hate me. They’ll blame me for always getting into trouble, until they’re so desensitised, they’ll do it because they think it’s the right thing to do.
“Stamp hard, you hear me?” he reminds them. “Or we do it again.”
I can’t stop the tears. Not mine, nor the boys’.
“Three.” He sneers at me when my hate-filled eyes meet his.
“Two.” AJ’s entire body shakes.
“One.”
I close my eyes. TJ stomps hard; ever the practical one, he wants this over with fast. But AJ can’t bring himself to do it. The sole of his shoe barely touches my skin.
“Again!” Dad shouts. AJ’s sobs fill the room.
“You can do this, kiddo. Like splatting a spider,” I whisper, but Dad hears anyway and finds it hilarious that I’m encouraging my baby brother to hurt me. “One big stomp and it’s done.”
He nods. TJ grabs AJ’s hand. Then together they stomp again. They aim for the meat of my hand. There are dozens of bones in the palm and I’ve no doubt some of them are broken, but it’s the skin that sings high notes in my brain and vibrates with the heat of a mini supernova. The agony sucks my breath from my lungs.
“One more,” Dad grunts, glaring now. Has he even realised that this backfired? That they didn’t do this for him, but for me?
They stomp again, a little less power in the pressure this time, but I’m already hurting so it pulls an involuntary hiss from my lips.
I won’t give Dad the opportunity to demand another. I get up and nudge each boy with the back of my hand, pretending with all my might that I’m okay. “Go to your room,” I tell them softly.
I’m not okay. Nothing about this is okay.
“We’re done. You say you want an apology and yet you’re supposedly sick of hearing me say sorry. What you really want is for me never to have been born, but I can’t apologise for that, Dad. That was never a choice I got to make.”
“Get out of my house!”
“Gladly!”
Something in my tone must make it sound like I’ve won because he shifts his demand slightly. “Sit outside the door and don’t budge from that spot until I tell you to.”
I roll my eyes.
