Sweat broke out across Chloe’s back, and the hair lifted on her arms as she jumped back in time twenty years to her own kitchen, her back to a corner, her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach, trying to make herself as small as possible as she waited for her father to walk in the door after a night out with his pals.
But she’d been alone, no nice neighbor lady, no mother to protect her. Her mother was already gone. Which was one of the items on the list of things her father blamed and punished her for.
She sucked in a shuddering breath. Stop it. This wasn’t her father standing on the curb. Her father was gone. And she was a grown woman and had a chance to do something, to help these kids, even though no one had ever helped her.
Jesse pushed himself up from the sofa, weaving as he tried to stand. “No way. I’m not leaving you here with him.”
“I’ll be fine. But you’ve got to go.” Tina pulled him tightly against her in a quick hug, then pushed him away, her voice trembling as she ordered him to go. “Run, Jesse. I mean it. If he finds you here, he’ll kill you.”
Even in his alcohol-induced state, the teenager knew fear. He stared into his mom’s eyes, then stumbled forward and sprinted for the back door.
“Call me later, and I’ll pick you up,” she called as the back door slammed.
Maddie’s head was buried in Chloe’s shoulder, the little girl’s body trembling as Chloe raced back into the kitchen where Charlie still stood frozen at the sink. “Come on, Charlie. We’ve got to go.” Her hand was shaking as she reached for the boy. “I need you to help me with your brother.”
The mention of his siblings must have broken his stupor because Charlie nodded and hurried into the living room. “Come on, Mom. We’ve gotta get out of here.”
Jake was stuck to his mother’s side, his eyes round and blinking like a trapped animal. Tina wrenched his arms away and pushed him toward Charlie. “Go with your brother, honey.”
Jake clung to her hands, his voice shaking as he begged. “Come with us. Please, Mom.”
A fist hammered at the front door, and Maddie whimpered again, pulling her hands free to press them tightly against her ears.
Tina pushed Jake toward Chloe. “Go!” she hissed. “Get them out of here. I’ll be fine. I can handle him.”
“Come on, Teeny. Open the door. I know you’re in there. I just want to talk to you. I heard Jesse’s been looking for me.”
Tina’s hands shook as she waved them toward the back door. Chloe grabbed Jake’s hand and ran through the house and out the back.
She heard Tina yelling as Charlie quietly eased the door shut behind them. “Go away, Rank! Or I’m calling the police. I mean it. Go home!”
“This is my home!” he roared back, his voice booming through the dark as Chloe and the kids snuck across the yards.
Thankfully, Chloe hadn’t taken a purse tonight and had shoved her wallet, phone, and house keys into her jacket pocket instead. Closing her fist around the keys, she tried to pull them from her pocket without letting them jingle as she motioned for Charlie to carefully open her side door.
She knew the feel of her house key and shifted Maddie on her hip so she could slide the key into the lock and gently push the door open. The boys slipped through the door in front of her, and once they were all inside, she pushed it shut and turned the dead bolt.
Leaving the lights off, they crept toward the living room. She tried to set Maddie on the floor, but the little girl wouldn’t let go of her neck. The boys instinctively stayed low and huddled on the floor behind her recliner. She crouched next to them, then pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped 911.
Jake put his hand on her phone. “Don’t call the police. That’ll just make it worse.”
She glanced up at Charlie, not sure why she was looking for direction from a thirteen-year-old-kid. He nodded, his eyes wide with fear, but certain. She hit Send.
“Nine-one-one operator. What is your emergency?”
She quickly explained the situation and was told the police were on their way.
“Does the assailant have any weapons?” the operator asked.
Chloe glanced at Charlie. She kept her voice low, barely above a whisper. “Do you think your dad has a weapon?”
“He doesn’t need one,” he said, then raised his fisted hands in front of his chest in a mock fighter’s stance.
Bile rose in Chloe’s throat, and she swallowed it back. This wasn’t her dad, wasn’t her life. “We don’t know for sure, but he has been known to be abusive to his wife.” She gazed at the circle of kids around her, their eyes all wide and frightened. Tina’s words came back to her, telling Jesse to run or Rank would kill him. “And his kids.”
Charlie lowered his eyes, shame surrounding him like a dark aura. She wanted to pull him close and take away his pain. Take away all their pain. “This isn’t your fault,” she told them. “No matter what he says. This has never been any of your faults. He’s the one to blame. Dads aren’t supposed to hurt their kids.”
She prayed her words sank in. Would it have made a difference if someone had said them to her? Or would the constant barrage of blame her father drilled into her have overridden any words of comfort from someone who wasn’t there? Who didn’t know the truth—that her mom had left because she didn’t want to be a mom anymore.
As an adult, and after years of therapy, Chloe could see now she wasn’t to blame. Her mom had made the choice to leave, whatever her reasons were. But as a frightened child, Chloe hadn’t seen it that way. And neither had her dad.
The operator asked her to stay on the line, but she declined and hung up. She’d rather support the kids than wait on the phone. “The police are coming. It’s going to be okay.”
“Will they take my daddy away again?” Madison asked in a tiny voice.
“Probably.”
“He’s not supposed to come to the house or near my mom or us kids,” Charlie explained. “So, if he’s here, he’s probably drunk.”
Chloe could imagine that Rank Johnson was a mean drunk. She’d never met him. He’d already been gone when Tina and the kids had rented the house next door. But even in the shadows of the front yard, she could tell he was a big guy, and the anger in his voice when he’d pounded on the door struck terror in her bones.
Her back ached from carrying Maddie, so Chloe sat on the floor and shifted the girl into her lap. She hadn’t seemed that heavy when Chloe’s adrenaline had spiked and she’d lifted her onto her hip, but now she could feel the strain on her muscles. Maddie laid her head on Chloe’s chest, and her thumb had snuck into her mouth. That had to be some kind of trauma trigger, because she’d never seen the girl suck her thumb before.
Relaxing her shoulders, Chloe tried to calm her breathing while she prayed for Tina and for the police to get here quickly.
She let out a shriek as a fist hammered her door, and Rank’s voice came through the wood. “Open up. I know you’ve got my kids in there. Open the door, lady, or I’ll break it down.”
A tremor ran through Chloe’s whole body, and every one of her muscles tensed as panic flooded through her. The kids huddled closer to her, and Maddie squeezed her neck so tightly that she could barely breathe.
Not that she could breathe that well anyway. Her chest was so tight that each shuddering breath she tried to pull in felt like she was trying to suck air through one of the thick wool scarves she knitted.
“Open this damn door!” Rank roared again. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Maddie screamed as a hard slam rammed into the door. A loud crack sounded as the wooden frame split around the dead bolt.
Chloe’s gaze frantically searched the room for a weapon—anything she could use to protect the kids. She wasn’t a child anymore. This wasn’t her dad. She didn’t have to take this abuse. She could fight. She could stand up for herself and for these kids.
Another loud crack as he slammed into the door. But the frame held. For now.
Chloe’s knitting project lay wadded up on the sofa where she’d tossed it earlier, and she leaned forward and grabbed one of the knitting needles. She buried her mouth in Maddie’s hair and whispered in her ear, “Go to your brother. I won’t let your father hurt you.”
The little girl shook her head and pressed her face harder into Chloe’s neck.
Chloe pushed to her feet and pointed to the hallway. “Go hide. Get under the bed or hide in the closet. The police are coming.”
Charlie nodded, but before the kids could move, another blow hit the door, and the frame cracked and gave way as the door crashed open. It hit the wall with such force that a framed picture of a pansy fell from the wall, the glass shattering and spilling out onto the floor.
Chloe pushed the boys behind her, holding the knitting needle out in front of her as if it were a sword instead of a thin, pointy stick. She might not be brave when it came to herself, but she could be when it came to these kids. She could stand up for them. “Stay away,” she shouted.
Rank filled the doorway. He had long, dark hair that stuck out around his head, making him look like an eighties rocker who’d had a hard night. A heavy beard and mustache covered the lower part of his face, and a scar slashed through the edge of his right eye, causing it to droop just the slightest, as if his eyelid was in a permanent squint. He wore jeans, heavy black motorcycle boots, and a thick leather jacket adorned with patches. Tall and broad shouldered, he seemed as big and as mean as an angry grizzly bear.
“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” he demanded. “Who is this chick anyway?” he asked Tina, who tried to push past him to get inside.
Her right eye was swollen and red. She kept her tone even, but Chloe heard the slight quiver in her voice. “She’s nobody, Rank. She’s just the neighbor. I told the kids to come over here.”
He held out his arms. “Hey, kids. Daddy’s home. Why don’t you come over here and give me a hug?”
Madison’s whole body trembled against Chloe’s chest. One of the boys had the back of her jacket clenched in his fist. None of them moved.
Rank’s eyes narrowed as he searched the room. “Where’s Jesse?” He shouted toward the hallway. “Jesse! Get out here, boy! You’ve got some explainin’ to do.”
“He’s not here,” Chloe said, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. “And I already called the police. They’re on their way.”
“You what?” Rank’s head jerked from side to side, as if he were looking for the police inside her house. “Why’d you do that? You don’t even know me.” He took several menacing steps toward her, and Tina slipped inside behind him.
Chloe tried to push her shoulders back, but her every instinct was to curl up and hide. “I know men like you,” she stammered, taking a step back.
“You’ve never met anyone like me,” he sneered, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a snarl. He looked down at the knitting needle brandished in her hand and scoffed. “What are you planning to do with that? Knit me a scarf?” He reached out, his movement quick as a snake, and snatched the needle from her hand. He threw it across the room, and it bounced across the carpet.
He grabbed her arm, his fingers digging into her bicep as he dragged her against him. Spittle flew from his lips as he shouted into her face. “These are my kids. My family. And they are none of your damn business. You hear me, lady?”
She wanted to fight, to pull her arm away, to do anything. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t move. She was frozen with terror—her blood like ice in her veins—frozen with the memories of her father grabbing her the same way.
Rank’s eyes were cold and full of rage as he stared down at her. She couldn’t look away. Tears burned her eyes, but she refused to cry, to give him the satisfaction. They hadn’t turned on the lights, and her knees went weak as his features blurred and transformed in the dimness of the room. Instead of Rank’s snarled scowl and beady eyes, she saw the face of her father.
The slightest whimper escaped her lips, and she shrank back, her brave stance shriveling into the weak posture of a frightened child.
As she blinked her eyes, Rank’s face reversed back to his own, but something changed in his glare, the slightest movement, but enough to show that he knew he had her, that she was terrified and would submit to his demands.
He let go of her arm and snaked his hand around Madison’s stomach, yanking the girl toward him. “Come on, Maddie. Come to Daddy.”
Maddie hugged Chloe’s neck, the skin of her arm rubbing against Chloe’s throat as Rank pulled her away. The little girl teetered between them like a human tug-of-war battle, except that Chloe was no match for his strength.
Tina reached up, trying to get her arms around her daughter, and Madison let go of Chloe and grabbed for her mom.
The scream of a siren filled the air, and Rank lifted his head like a dog sniffing the air. He let go of Maddie, and Tina stumbled back against the sofa, her daughter clinging to her chest.
The scent of stale tobacco filled Chloe’s nostrils as Rank leaned toward her, his face an inch from hers, his eyes narrowed and mean. “Don’t go causing trouble for me, lady, or I’ll be back. And you’ll never see me coming.” He planted his thick palm on her chest and shoved her toward the floor. Chloe went down—hard—her teeth clacking against each other as her body hit the floor. She scuttled backward, away from him.
He turned to Tina. “I’ll be back. And tell Jesse I’m looking for him. He’s got some shit to answer for.” As the sound of the siren drew nearer, Rank took off, running out the door and across the yard, away from the approaching police car.
Jake and Charlie scrambled to their feet and threw themselves against their mother. She wrapped her arms around them, pulling them to her in a tight hug. Maddie cried softly against Tina’s neck.
Red and blue flashing lights reflected off the walls as the police car pulled up in front of the house next door. They heard two car doors slam as the officers exited their car.
Tina held the kids to her for another second, then pushed up from the sofa. “Come on, we need to tell the police we’re here.” She glanced down at Chloe. “Thank you for calling them. Are you okay?”
Chloe nodded but kept her arms wrapped around herself, afraid she might break apart if she let go. She tried to arrange her features into what she hoped was a brave face and forced her lips into a tight smile. “I’m fine. You go. They’ll be looking for you.”
The boys circled their mother, both of them touching either her arm or her hip, while Maddie still clung to her neck. Envy rose in her throat as Chloe wondered what it would have been like for her if she’d only had one other person to cling to, to hold their hand, to ride through the trauma with. Splintered fragments of the doorframe were scattered across the floor, and the Johnsons tried to pull what was left of the door closed behind them as they left.
Chloe drew her knees up and pressed herself against the wall, not realizing she was crying until the tears dripped off her chin.
She let out a terrified whimper and buried her head in her knees as the door burst open again and a tall man filled the frame. All pretense of putting up a brave front vanished, replaced by the terror of the past and present colliding and flooding her body with the anticipation of pain.