Page 1 of Hunter's Trial

CHAPTER ONE

KATE

6 months ago

I take just a moment longer to pull my hair from the bun that I’ve had it in all day. Billy likes my hair down. Long bright blonde ringlets fall past my shoulders in waves and curl prettily around my face as I fluff up my hair just a little. I re-button the top few buttons of my blouse that I had undone and adjust things to be a touch more modest. I reapply a thin coat of lip gloss on my full lips and rub some of the blush from my cheeks before grabbing the bag of takeout food that I’ve brought home. Billy will be happy that I came home early. I’ve been busting my ass to get this case closed early. The higher ups were so thrilled with my work that they are even giving me a bonus. Billy will be thrilled! I can just see the look on his face now when I tell him that we can expect a hefty sum to be deposited into our joint accounts in the next couple weeks. Maybe I can even convince him to spend a little bit to take Liz to the zoo this weekend. I could make a picnic and we could make a whole day out of it!

Now we can watch that streaming movie that everybody is talking about, have a family night and have a good dinner that I don’t have to cook. It’s shaping up to be a pretty damned good evening. We need a good evening. It’s been far too long since it’s just been… easy.

I balance everything carefully in my arms as I kick the car door shut with my foot and start to head inside of our ranch style three bedroom. There have been times where I felt that maybe our starter home was a touch too modest, but not today. I don’t think that there’s much that could dampen my spirits today.

At least, not until I hear the crying.

My heart drops into my ass instantly. My keys nearly fall out of my trembling hands as I hurry to open the door, already fearing the absolute worst. It’s a strange sort of adrenaline that nearly knocks me off my feet. I drop the take-out food to the ground and hear it squelch on the ground as it falls, but I can’t bring myself to care. I use my other hand to brace my trembling one. I’m only two seconds from kicking the damned door in when the lock opens and I shoulder my way inside.

“Liz?!” I scream instantly, but my voice cuts off mid-sound.

The source of the crying is abundantly obvious. For one second, just one sharp inhale of breath, I register just what it is that I’m seeing in front of me. Billy is standing up beside the dinner table. The warm yellow light of our outdated fixture creates a sort of circular spotlight on the perverse spectacle in front of me.

Billy’s hand - he always had such large hands, he played just about every sport under the sun in college - is on the back of our young daughter’s head. He’s bowed over close enough to snarl spit into her ear as he screams at her. The raspy voice of his that I had until this very moment always found so endearing is now a deadly venom that will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

“I don’t get what is so fucking difficult for your tiny little brain to fucking comprehend” Billy shouts as he shoves Elizabeth’s head toward the workbook. He shoves her forward and her forehead hits the workbook and table hard enough that it makes an audible thump. She’s going to have a bruise. He’s hurting her. My husband is hurting my daughter. She’s crying. My mind refuses to put those pieces of information together.

Elizabeth’s tiny hands are braced against the lip of the table so tightly that her skin is white from the pressure of forcing herself away from the table and the splayed open workbook in front of her. It looks like homework. She must have asked for help. She’s found most of her second-grade homework simple, so it must have been her math work. She’s bright, nearly two whole grade levels ahead. Yet, for some reason Billy is mad enough at her that her tears have formed a circle across the workbook that I can see all the way from across the room.

He hasn’t heard me.

He doesn’t know that I’m home yet.

“I’m sorry!” Liz yells through her tears. She doesn’t know why her Daddy is hurting her. She doesn’t understand why anybody would hurt her. I don’t understand why anybody would hurt her.

“I don’t want to hear your bullshit lies! I want you to fucking do better! Always whining! Always complaining! It’s not my fault that you’re stupid!” Billy seethes.

Something in his face chills me to my very marrow.

Something more than rage, more than anger or a fit of his alcoholic rage, there’s pleasure there. He’s enjoying scaring her.

I snap.

One breath, I’m frozen, the next I’m across the living room and tackling my husband. My six foot three, two hundred and something pound husband built like a damned linebacker while I’m only five foot three.

My body colliding into his doesn’t do much more than sway him. But at least it gets his hand off my daughter. “Go to your room!” I snarl at her. I will apologize later. Liz is up from the table a second later, and Billy reaches for her.

“Don’t you fucking leave this table, bitch!” Billy snarls at her as she dodges him and runs as far as she can, howling her whole way down the narrow hallway to her room. I hear the door slam shut and something in my chest loosens only a smidge. Billy rounds on me - something that I expected - those same large hands hitting me in the middle and knocking me back hard enough to lose my breath as I collide with the half wall separating the kitchen and the small dining room space. “Who do you think you are, interrupting me?!”

How many times did her head hit that table?

How long has he been screaming filth at her?

I start to stagger to my feet, and he hits me again - backhands me hard enough that I collapse. My whole body folds around my face as I cradle the injured skin with both hands. It feels like my eye is about to pop out of my skull. My teeth feel rattled.

“Those little shits these days, that’s the only teaching that they know! Their teachers are too soft on them, everybody is too soft on them! She needs to learn!” Billy snarls, spit falling from his mouth and landing in a glob on the carpet between us.

“She’s only six! Billy! Nothing can justify what you were just doing to her!”

“A smack is the only thing that teaches! A good dose of fear will have her acting right!” Billy reasons. I can see in his face that he believes his words. He truly doesn’t think that he’s done anything wrong.

“You want to keep talking back to me?” He sneers at me, and normally when this sort of thing happens, I know better than to get up off the ground. He will go back to his chair and calm down. I’ll bring him another beer and everything will be okay. Tomorrow he will be sober and apologize.

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