Page 1 of Collateral Damage

Play ‘Mansion – NF’

PR O L O G UE

My blood is stinging as it throttles through my veins. Her cries are haunting me from the hallway and I can't take this anymore. The abuse, the pain. The damage this is doing to the both of us. He needs to begone.

His voice is jarring in my ears, bouncing off the walls of our prison cell.

“I WILL KILL YOU! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!?” I can't see, but glass and china chime in symphony as they collide against one another, bringing me closer to the bedroom door.

“I'm sorry! Please! I won't say a word! Just-” I turn the knob slowly, careful not to make much noise over the riot in the kitchen but my blood runs cold as I step out into the hallway just as his fist hits her across her cheek, knocking her into the TV unit.

“No! you won't!” Years of Abuse. Years of submission to the worst kind of torture fuels my rage. My feet take me, storming into the conflict, crashing into his chest as he smashes into the wall.

“Leave her the FUCK alone or so help me GOD.” My fingers are tingling, using myself as a human shield as I lift her up off the floor brushing her matted midnight hair out of her damp face.

“Please, baby, go back to your room.” Welling pleads are burrowed in her eyes as she squeezes my fingers tightly.

“Babygirl. You know better than to pick a fight with Daddy. Sit down and do as Mommy says.” He taunts, cracking his neck, hoisting himself up off the wall, rubbing his shoulder where it hit with hard impact and I feel sick to my stomach hearing him call me a name that signifiesprotectionandlovewhen all he knows isviolenceandhate.

“Over my dead fucking body.”One of us is not getting out of this alive and he smiles with callous intent, making my spine shudder before he knocks my sight momentarily, seeing the coffee table as I grab for it, trying to gain stability. My jaw throbbing with raw heat.

“RICK!”

“Little girl. Do I need to remind you what happens when you disobey me.”

“You can try. But you won't be alive long enough to see that through.” I wipe the blood oozing from my mouth, clinging to that familiar taste of metal in my gums I've grown to enjoy.

“Was that a threat?Freak.” My hair is pulled tightly, fighting to mute the dull pain as he pulls me up by my scalp but this infliction is painless compared to the suffering I've endured below me and I smile through it, only winding him up further. His attempts to break me are a waste of time. I'm alreadybroken. I'm already accustomed to this abominable hate.

“Yeah. It was.” All I have done is train. Train for this exact moment and he has no idea of the strength I have behind me now, but years of child abuse can do that to someone.

My forehead meets his and the sound of bones crunching causes her to yelp in fear from behind me, trying to grab for my hand.

“STOP IT! BOTH OF YOU!” I drown out her voice. I drown out everything as his grip loosens, cradling his nose leaving mewide open to uppercut him under the chin where his teeth crack, throwing him into the coffee table. His weight submerges the wood and centre glass to shatter beneath him and a sickening laugh bellows from his stomach.

“Hays please, please stop!” Her voice is a distant echo as my vision tunnels to hallways of red.

“Is that all you got?Faggot.” I pay no mind to the insult, more drawn to the fact that he thinks that was all the rage I have held inside me. I let him stand. Finding his heavy feet, wiping his sweaty arms underneath his nose to stop the bleeding before knocking him down again as I let his demons take a hold of me by the throat. I search for that glimmer of peace and freedom as my fists pummel his face.Again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

“Hays! I’m serious! Please!” He gurgles through his broken chords, his face like papier-mâshé smothered in red paint as his blood covers my skin, paying no mind to the murder welded by my hand, so close I can almost smell death in the air.

“You will never be a man. You will never be anything butweak. And you're cert-ainly no daught-er of mi-ne.” Shortness in my breath leads my hands to wrap around his throat like his noose that's been holding mine since the day I was born, clawing at me with little life as I suffocate him of his pathetic existence.

“HAYLEY!Baby! You're going to kill him! Stop it!!” Her voice is a distant hum, fighting the angel on my shoulder to make me let go but I don't. I squeeze tighter, his hands wriggling in the shards of glass scattered across the floor, digging into my knees, both of us bleeding all over the tattered carpet but I'm numb. Witnessing the life drain from his dead eyes, watching my imagination finally come to light, all those years of praying he'd die, now I can finally take his waste of existence myself. I’m doing the world a fucking favour. I squeeze until he's limp but I can't fight this instinct to kill and my fist finds the carpetthrough his skull, able to hear my heart in my ears, pounding with such force, white noise breaking my sound barrier. I grab a shard of broken glass from the coffee table, stabbing it into his chest until the glass is imbedded in my palm, using his unconscious state to paint a pretty picture across his wrinkly old fucking face, gliding it across his mouth the way he did mine. The way it brings me so much sick joy is only making me push deeper. I was hisPuppet, but now, I’m his bloodyPuppeteer.

“Please. Hays, let go. I can’t lose you too!” She whispers with aggression as her grip finds my shoulders, eventually sucking me from drowning further as her cries suddenly invade my hearing. I collapse against her chest as we stagger back, her grip tight on me as she sobs into my shoulder blade. I glare at his lifeless entity feeling nothing but accomplishment. This was needed, but suddenly we are both consumed with the realisation as I turn slowly to face her already peering at me in horror. She reaches to caress my blooded cheeks in her palms, shaking her head in fear. Fear that I’ve just made the worst mistake of my life.

“Ohbabygirl…” She embraces me into a tight cradle, aiding my pain, coaxing me back to shore as she grips the back of my head.

But in this moment,

His death is my only salvation.

It's my only purpose.

It's my Freedom.

C H A P T E R 1

---