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“Mrs. Jenkins.” I whimpered.
He paused, stiffening. “You killed Mr. Jenkins' wife? You stupid, useless, pathetic creature,” he roared and pushed backward so I landed painfully against the stairs.
I didn’t understand why he cared about Mr. or Mrs. Jenkins, but I couldn’t decipher anything with the ringing in my ears and the pain echoing across my body.
Shock set into me like frost on an autumn bloom. Before tonight, my father had never laid a hand on me in violence. I didn’t expect him to actually hurt me, despite all the previous insults and threats. Some part of me hoped that deep down, he still loved me enough not to cross that boundary, but that hope was now squashed.
“You don’t know what you’ve done,” he ranted. “Punishment. You need to be punished for this. You can’t get away with this.”
“P-punished? But I didn’t—” I whimpered and cowered as he stormed closer to me. Gripping my hair again, he stomped past me on the staircase, dragging me up behind him. “Father, I didn’t kill her. I s-stayed with her—” I gripped the base of my hair so I couldn’t feel the tug so much and kept close to him as I protested my innocence.
Outside of my bedroom, he suddenly stopped and turned to face me. He let go of my hair and slapped me, hard, across the face.
It seemed to echo in the following silence, and my eyes swam with tears as, like lightning, the pain quickly followed.
I cupped my face and stumbled back in shock. He grabbed my arm, wrenching it from my face, and growled, “Don’t you dare talk back to me. I know what you are. You’re a murderer. And this is your retribution.”
He pulled me and shoved me backward into my room, where I landed on the rug on my back. He slammed the door closed, the shock rattling my mirror, and I heard a lock sliding across my door.
There wasn’t a lock on the outside of my door this morning before I left for work. Was this premeditated? Was Mrs. Jenkins just an excuse to hurt me?
I jumped up and raced to the door. I twisted the knob only to find exactly as I thought. Locked.
My jaw ached, my head hurt, and I was so confused and frightened and upset that I thought I could scream with all the emotions crowding my head.
I undressed slowly and saw Duchess from my window, roaming the garden, her tail curling from side to side as she lazily walked through the grass. At that moment, I was so envious of her. She had my father’s love, her freedom, and the carelessness of all human emotions and problems.
Being human was particularly difficult on bad days.
I curled up in my bed, tears leaking from my closed eyes and dampening my pillow, and prayed to God that this punishment ended soon.
Little did I know, I would only leave this house once more before I died.
CHAPTER11
CLAWDIA
Oh lord above, I ache. What happened?
The last thing I remembered was an excruciating pain shocking every inch of my body. From my nose to my tail.
Behind my eyelids, I could glimpse the sunlight beaming, and I clenched my eyes tighter to block out the light.
It’s so bright. Where am I?
My eyes blinked open, wide and bewildered. When I saw two big purple eyes staring back at me, I panicked. I heard a human scream and was shocked to feel it come from me, vibrations echoing through my throat and out of very human lips, which I covered with very human hands.
No. No. No. This cannot be happening.
I scrambled back from the edge of the bed, long, furless arms and legs flailing. The feel of the material against my skin scratched me like the graze of a thousand needles, and I whimpered as I tried to untangle myself from the bedsheets.
I fell. My body hit the carpeted floor, which scratched even more than the bedsheets, and I let out a huff of pain.
Please, Lord, I don’t want to be human again. Please let this be a vivid nightmare. I can’t go back to that life.
Everything had a bright white aura around it, and my head throbbed in time with my racing heart. Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm myself and focus.
From this angle, I recognized where I was. I knew this carpet because I often rolled around on it. I knew that ceiling because there was a water stain on it. The space under the bed I lay next to was my hiding space when Charlie was cross with me. This was his room.
