David sneers and prods her in the chest with a finger, pressing deep until he hits bone. “She would be proud. I’m a good provider. Every problem we have is because of you. I do what I’m s’posed to.” When Chelsea snorts her objection, he grabs her, hard, pinning her arms to her sides and holding her in place. His face doesn’t look angry and animal now; it just looks cruel and smug.
David leans in close, his lips near her ear. “Remember that trip to Reno? I slept with a waitress. Best tits I’ve ever seen. She came twice. Howled like a fucking cat. So you call me whatever you want, but know that you’re not the one I think about all day. Not even close.”
He pulls back to watch her face, like he’s hoping for tears, but she hasn’t cried yet tonight and that admission won’t be what wounds her. Her head drops, and he reaches for her chin, probably to force her head up and make her look at him.
But then she starts shaking, and she looks up at him of her own accord. She’s laughing now. Laughing so hard that she’s crying. The fact that David is so confused only makes her laugh all the harder.
“What the fuck’s so funny?”
“You are,” she replies. “You’re a fucking joke.”
And like a dam breaking, he’s done being gentle with her, done being careful. He rears back and punches her as hard as he can, right in the mouth. It hurts like hell, but this is what she wanted, this is what she committed herself to. When he holds up his hand, it’s smeared with blood as red as his favorite lipstick.
“Say that again, bitch.”
She’s not laughing now, but she knows her grin must be a feral thing.
“Thank you,” she says through bloodied teeth.
And then she sprints for the bathroom. Before his numb feet and drunk brain can catch up, she’s slammed the door and locked it. He yanks on the knob and pounds on the wood, but it doesn’t budge.
With trembling hands, Chelsea pulls her cellphone from the pocket of her pajama pants and dials the number that every American knows by heart now.
1-555-ALERT-US.
“Help me,” she says, voice shaking as David beats his fists on the other side of the door. “My husband went crazy. He attacked me. I’m bleeding. I barely got away. I’m scared for our children.”
She pauses and takes a deep breath.
“I think…it’s the Violence.”
9.
Ella’s thumb hovers over the 1 on her phone again, her other hand lost in Brooklyn’s full-body hug. Dad is usually quiet when he gets angry, but tonight, there’s no way she could keep Brooklyn upstairs with a bedtime story and a closed door. The shouting, the crashing bottle, the slamming door. It’s the loudest it’s ever been—different, somehow. They’re huddled together on the stairs, shaking, Brooklyn’s face smashed against her, and Ella remembers what it felt like to be small, afraid to go downstairs after dark because then she’d have to run back upstairs feeling like something was going to grab her ankle. Her fears were so different then.
She can’t hear what her mom says in the bathroom, but she must’ve said something unforgivable, as her father smashes his fists against the door and screams, “Chelsea, you bitch, that’s a fucking lie and you know it!”
He yanks at the knob and looks frantically around the room, running his hand through his sweaty hair. Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t find it. But he does find her.
His eyes move to the stairs, flying wide and then narrowing like a killer robot locking in on a target. Ella stands and shoves Brooklyn up the steps without taking her eyes off her dad.
“Hurry, Brookie. My room.”
Brooklyn whimpers but obeys, scrambling up the carpeted stairs on hands and feet like a dog. Ella follows, herding her, making sure she doesn’t stop to look behind them, doesn’t make some crucial, babyish error. They skid through the door, and Ella slams and locks it, sliding the chair under the doorknob like Mom taught her. Brooklyn crouches on the bed, hunched down in the farthest corner, as their father’s footsteps pound up the stairs. He says nothing, which is scarier than saying something. The door jumps as he yanks on the knob.
“Ella, honey? Can we talk?”
She’s seen enough Lifetime specials and horror movies to know that this is a ploy. She triple-checks the chair under the doorknob and hurries to the bed with Brooklyn, tucking her sister against her side. There’s a big knife under her pillow, one her mom threw away because it wasn’t sharp enough, but Ella’s not ready to reach for it. She turns her phone back on, finally presses that last 1 for the first time, then hits CALL. The phone shakes in her hand, and she hates how she questions whether this is a good enough reason to call 9-1-1, like someone might be mad that she bothered them.
The door quivers like a toy prodded by a curious cat. Either her dad doesn’t know how to unlock it with something as simple and common as a nail or a bobby pin, or he’s so drunk or angry that it’s made him forget.
“Nine one one, what’s your emergency?” The woman’s voice is a weird mix of kindness and exasperation.
“My dad hit my mom, and now he’s trying—” Ella’s throat has gone bone-dry, and she clears it. “He’s trying to get in my room.”
The woman’s voice changes, all business now. “Address.”
Ella recites it, whispering, barely stumbling. The woman confirms that her phone is a good callback number, asks for her dad’s full name and her mom’s full name, and asks if the front door is unlocked.
“I don’t think so. I brought my little sister upstairs, to my room. There’s a chair under the door, but he’s trying—” She looks at the door. It’s not moving anymore. She doesn’t see a shadow underneath it. “He was trying to get in. I don’t know where he is now. He’s drunk.” When the woman takes too long to respond, she uses the magic word, the one she’s been taught since she was three, the one that will get her whatever she needs. “Please. Please.”
In the background, she hears the woman speaking to someone else, urgent, her voice muted. Then she’s back. “What’s your name, honey?”
Ella usually hates it when people call her honey, that saccharine old man’s reward for being young and female, usually employed around the time someone tells her she should smile more. But now, she doesn’t mind it. It softens her, reminds her of…well, not her grandmother. But the grandmothers in movies and books, the ones with warm kitchens who make biscuits with jelly jars and care about their families.
“My name is Ella.”
“Ella, you’re doing real good, okay? Just stay with me. I’ve got people coming to help you. But you need to stay with me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“What’s going on?” Brooklyn asks. She’s got a death grip on Ella’s other arm but is otherwise burrowed under Ella’s covers.
“Someone’s coming to help us.”
“Are we in trouble?”
“Of course not. Just be quiet.”
“Can you hear anything else going on?” the woman asks.
Ella eyes the door but isn’t willing to go anywhere near it in case her father is finding a nail or preparing to bust through it like a rhino.
“No. There was a lot of shouting and banging—”
“Is there a gun involved?” the woman asks sharply.
Ella gasps.
What if he’s getting a gun?
“I haven’t heard any shots, but…we have guns. In the safe. In his room.”