Prologue (2)

After Mitchel had finished "punishing" both Evelyn and Mason, he sat back down on the couch and popped open another beer.

He guzzled it down fast, not wanting to regain any form of sobriety and continued drinking the night away.

Both Evelyn and Mason quickly scurried off to their rooms. Crying for hours from the physical and emotional pain that had just been inflicted on them.

Waking up the next day after crying herself to sleep again, Evelyn felt sore all over, the sting of the metal end of the belt still lingering on her back, thighs, and butt.

In just these two days she had already experienced more physical pain than she had in her entire life, and it showed no signs of stopping.

Evelyn nearly did not even come out of her room to go to school that day, scared of her father's wrath. But unfortunately, the bus she took came before her father left for work, and when it was getting close to the departure time her father burst into her room.

He went over and yanked her out of her bed and said, "I am not raising a delinquent, get your ass to school, or when I get home, you will be in for a world of hurt."

Evelyn's father then threw her onto the ground and stormed out of her room.

She laid there crying for a few minutes before getting up and preparing for her day of school.

When she arrived at the bus stop, she could see her bus had already arrived and the last student was just getting on.

Evelyn made a mad dash to catch the bus fearing what her father would do to her if he found out she did not make it to school.

Luckily by some miracle she managed to make it onto the bus before it left and found a seat.

However, when she sat down, she could feel the pain radiate from her back and bottom and in the end, she sat on her knees in order to lessen the pain.

Her day at school was no better, as she had a hard time paying attention during class, and at lunch she had little appetite.

The couple remaining friends she had left tried to ask her what was wrong, but she simply told them that she could not talk about it.

When the school day ended, she returned home and went to her room to cower in terror of what horrible things her father might do to her tonight.

….

The next few months went by with both Evelyn and Mason did their best to find any way to be home as little as possible, either by joining extra circular activities or camping out at a friend's house on the weekends.

However, just a few days after Evelyn had turned ten. Her father came home and started yelling that no one had cooked him a good meal in over a year, and that it was time she got off her lazy ass.

He then dragged her to the kitchen, pulled out an old recipe book, and told her to get cooking.

At this point Evelyn had grown far too scared of her father and learned that if she acted meekly and did her best to not annoy him, she received less beatings.

Sadly, less did not mean none, and at least once a week he made sure to "discipline" each of his kids. And with over a year of experience, Mitchel had gotten better at causing pain without leaving a noticeable mark. Smacking them around with his hand or belt, and if he was really angry, he would use a wooden rod.

Going through the fridge and pantry, Evelyn did her best to find ingredients that could be used to make a suitable meal and began following the instructions she had found in the cookbook.

Of course, for a ten-year-old girl who was cooking for the first time, it was certainly no easy task.

Luckily when her brother returned home from his after-school basketball practice, he immediately went to help Evelyn.

The two of them had suffered a lot together and it had brought them very close. And Mason being the older sibling did his best to help out his little sister.

Both of them worked in tandem, and as the meal was nearing completion, Evelyn began setting the table.

Unfortunately, her relatively peaceful day came to an end right then and there. As she was bringing the plates to the table, she tripped on a bear bottle that had been left on the floor and fell down with the plates flying out of her hands.

CRASH!

Smashing into dozens of pieces. The three plates created a loud resounding noise throughout the house, and left shards all over the kitchen floor.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THERE." Mitchel roared form the living room.

Storming into the room he saw Evelyn sprawled out on the floor, and the three shattered plates not far from her.

He ran right up to her and grabbed her by her left wrist, before yanking her into the air.

"Are these the clumsy hands that broke my expensive plates? Your mother never broke a single dish, so why are you? If you cannot use your hand's properly, maybe you need another lesson?"

CRACK!

A sharp cracking sound could be heard from Evelyn's wrist as her father tightened his grip and shook her arm.

She let out a death curdling cry as he broke her wrist and then dropped her on the floor.

When she hit the floor, Evelyn started gasping for air, the pain so intense she could not even cry.

Mitchel seeing this, even as much of a bastard that he was, still realized he had gone a bit too far.

However, all he did was put some ice in a bag and drop it in front of Evelyn, and say, "Go to your room and put some ice on that, I do not need another call from your school."

Seeing the bag of ice in front of her, Evelyn reached out to it and put it on her wrist hoping for any release from the searing pain she was feeling.

With his sister groaning and crying in pain, Mason ran over to her and helped her get up while glaring at his father.

"What are you looking at, get your sister to her room and then clean up this mess. I work too hard for the two of you to just laze around all day."

Evelyn was then helped to her room by her brother, letting out loud sobs and crying from the immense pain.

All the while Mitchel had begun eating the food they had worked so hard to prepare.

Mason did what he could to help Evelyn get comfortable and take the pressure off her wrist, but soon Mitchel was yelling at him to come clean up the mess Evelyn had made.

He reluctantly left Evelyn as she wallowed in pain from her broken wrist.

The next morning when she woke up from the disjointed and small amount of sleep she had managed to get, her wrist was really swollen and not looking right.

It hurt extremely bad, and just trying to move her arm gave her waves of excruciating pain.

However, she used a scarf she had and tied her arm up the best she could and got ready for school despite the pain.

She was too afraid of what her dad might do if he found her lying in bed not getting ready for school, and that fear was an even greater motivator than the pain she was feeling.

Exiting her room, Evelyn was breathing heavily just from the exertion it took her to just get ready for school.

Nevertheless, she dragged herself towards the front door, gritting her teeth through the pain.

Yet right before she opened the door to leave, her father came out of his room and saw the sorry shape she was in.

He let out a long sigh before saying, "Evelyn you are not going to school today. Come with me, we are going to see a doctor."

Evelyn was quite surprised to hear her father say this, since she though he was maybe showing a bit of care for her wellbeing. But it was in all actuality just him trying to stay out of trouble.

The two of them then got into Mitchel's car and he drove them to a family practice doctor he knew that had an office nearby.

When they arrived, he went up to the receptionist and said that Evelyn had fallen down some stairs and hurt her wrist.

Of course, he did not have an appointment, but he knew the doctor and they were not busy right now.

Naturally when the doctor saw Evelyn, he could tell pretty quickly that her injury was not sustained by falling down the stairs due to the hand shaped bruise she had.

Still, he and Mitchel were friends, so he gave him a pass just this once and told him to keep Evelyn away from any "stairs" in the future.

After that he fixed Evelyn's wrist up and gave her a splint along with a prescription for pain killers, before sending the two of them on their way.