“How in the world did I manage to raise such a fucking disobedient brat? Did I not hit you enough?” I can feel my father’s steamy breath against my face as he leans over me. The hand around my neck tightens, as I feel his stubbly beard brush against my face. “Did I not teach you to fear me?” he demands.

 

I want to cry out. I want to fight back. I want to do something—anything. But I can just barely get my hands up around the large fingers holding me in place, to say nothing of making them move. My eyes flash up to his, as they beg him to have mercy on me. I don’t know much about my father, but I do know that there’s love deep down in that blackened pit of hatred.

 

Somewhere.

 

His wide nose curls and flares; I can tell he’s beginning to break. He has never been violent with me—ever. Not once. I was always his little princess, the little girl he would always love and cherish. As I go in and out of consciousness, my mind even flashes back to the man tossing me a softball as I swing at it from a distance with a red plastic whiffle bat. And then there’s the time he was too drunk to protest me painting his fingernails with my mom’s nail polish.

 

Surely, he was seeing those memories, too, even while doing his best to choke the life out of me. Something softens within him. A finger lets up, and then another one. My feet that were previously dangling over the mustard-yellow bathroom tiles slowly fall back to the ground. And then there’s the final release, as he pushes me into the wall one last time before looking at me with complete and utter disgust.

 

When he turns his back, his hands running over his forehead, I finally take in a long, deep breath. It’s jagged and painful, feeling like glass in my lungs. I take in a few more deep sucks, which lead to hard, gritty coughs. My mouth tastes like sand, and that combined with the echo of his hands around my throat makes swallowing an almost impossible task. As I feel the color come back to my face and the pins and needles disappear from my hands and wrists, I place my palms on my knees as I continue to grasp at the foul bathroom air.

 

I only get a moment to relax before he comes back for more. This time, he grabs a hold of my hair in a rough ponytail and drags me to the ground. My hands instinctively cover my head as I cry out, “Daddy! Please! I’m sorry! Just don’t hurt me!”

 

“You did this to yourself, Vanessa!” There’s a large thud as he kicks my arm out from under me and I slam down into the tile so that I am looking up at him. He kneels over me, his hands curled at his side. “What makes you think that you could get away with disobeying my orders? You think you’re better than us because you’re in a fancy school? You think you can just sneak out of the house I pay for like a little whore just asking for it? I won’t have it!”

 

I don’t see his hand hit me. I feel it. It’s white hot and pulsing like a hornet sting on a sunburn. I turn my head away from him, not daring to let him see my eyes watering from the pain. I would not let him see me cry. My mother did that, not me. I would take this.

 

There’s a long pause, as if he can’t believe that he laid a hand on me -- let alone that he’s done as much damage as he has. He stands up slowly and walks towards the door. My dad opens it just a crack before letting it close behind him. His face has warped back to normal from the monster that was just before me, dishing out punishments. Quietly, almost calmly, he asks, “Did you see him?”

 

“Who?” I hate to admit it, but in this moment, I can’t even remember why I’m here in this bathroom. My mind has gone blank. All I want to focus on is surviving my dad’s wrath.

 

“Don’t be stupid, Vanessa! You know who I’m fucking talking about. Did you see Gavin Wren or not?”

 

The name is another slap as I am back to reality. Gavin. This is all about Gavin. Those colorful tattoos, the strong bruised hands, the bulging cock, the pursed lips…. Gavin. I am here on this floor for him. But my father didn’t know that. To my surprise, this isn’t about the sin we just committed in the back room. He’s oblivious to that. This is about my defying him by even daring to sneak out to one of Gavin’s parties. I can save this! I can!

 

I lower my voice to an almost girlish whisper, as I say sadly, “No. I-I-I don’t know where he is.” I look up at him with my watery eyes blinking at him blankly and add, “I just wanted to say sorry about what happened at lunch. I didn’t mean—”

 

He cuts me off as he shouts, “Shut the fuck up, Vanessa! You know what you were fucking doing.”

 

“I’m sorry, sir. I’m sorry. I thought I’d only be here for a few minutes and then go home. I didn’t think you’d be here.”

 

“Well, you were goddamn wrong on that one. And that will teach you to test my authority. If I so much as get a whiff that you were even on the same fucking street as Gavin, I swear to Christ, you won’t be the only body on the floor. Do you hear me?”

 

I swallow, a jagged stream of air sticking in my throat as I nod. Grimacing, I answer nervously, “Yes, Daddy.”

 

There’s no more discussion between the two of us. There’s just an arm around mine that pulls me harshly up to my feet. He stands behind me and grabs my wrists, crossing and then pushing them together like a handcuff. With my arms bound, he pushes me from behind towards the bathroom door before kicking it open with his boot.

 

From the noise of the jukebox blasting old ‘80s rock songs and the men screaming and clinking glasses, I know that what just happened in that bathroom between Jonah Barber and his daughter isn’t even registering for any of the rest of the club, let alone Alice who is sitting on some guy’s lap just out of view. She doesn’t even turn to watch me be marched down the hallway and towards the back door.

 

As we push out into the night from the bar, I glance back over my shoulder and past my father’s hulking body towards the back room where I should be, where Gavin is most likely still waiting for me. A part of me wants to twist my arms and break free to run back there, lock the doors, and hope that we could find a way out. But I know the realities of the situation. Gavin and I would never be, not as long as my father and brother lived. What we just experienced together was our one moment in time when we were allowed to let this all go. And that moment would have to stay there, wanting and waiting.

 

I turned back around towards the parking lot now filled with motorcycles and cars. The few headlights glittered in my eyes as tears began to swell. I shake my head rapidly, pushing them away before they can fall and give me away to my father. He marches me past a line of men smoking -- all whom put out their smokes and gesture to him like the king he is. No one asks about me. I’m just one of the others.

 

The ride home on the back of his bike seems to me to last an eternity. We hit every stop light, which is usually not a concern for my father. But tonight, he seems to know that the longer we wait to get back to the house, the longer he can drag out the unknown. Would there be more beatings waiting for me? Would he find some new and demented way of punishing me further? I didn’t want to know. I just wanted it to be over.

 

As we pulled up to the driveway, I hopped off before he could even turn his engine off. However, his arms grabbed me before I could get a step in the door. He spins me around quickly to face him with a hand gripped around my arm. My father’s dirty nails dig into my skin through the layers of clothes. His low voice grumbles, “From now on, you wait for me. For everything. You don’t breathe unless I tell you to. You don’t speak. You don’t think. You don’t even piss. That freedom you thought you had in this house is over.”

 

I nod and purposefully lower my gaze down to the slate gray cement driveway, unsure if I am allowed to speak here. Satisfied, he pulls me past my mother’s garden, through the patio, and into the darkened home. He lets go suddenly, causing me to trip on the hardwood floor and cheerful welcome mat.

 

The tired, startled voice of my mother calls out in the distance, “Jonah! Is that you?”

 

“Olivia! Get the fuck in here! NOW!” The contents of my stomach do somersaults, as I hear the muffled scuffed footsteps of my mother and her little slippers walk through her bedroom and down the hallway. I knew my father well. When something was wrong, she was the one easy target he could take it out on. This time, I was what was wrong, and I knew she would not escape this either.

 

The hallway lights flicker on, painting a strange family portrait as everyone remains perfectly still. My mother’s eyes adjust to the light before falling on me in a sort of shock. I was the last person she expected to see down here, let alone laying helplessly on the floor to her entryway. The last she knew, I was in bed sleeping a bad day away. I was that one constant she could count on, and I had broken that facade.

 

She whispers cautiously, “Vanessa…? What are you—?”

 

“Don’t fucking coddle her, Olivia! Don’t you coddle her, you hear me? This little bitch snuck out while you were supposed to be watching her.” He points at her accusingly, as she backs up a few steps towards the hallway. “I can’t trust either of you cunts, can I?”

 

“Hold on a sec there, Jonah,” she says, a mixture of menace and fear in her eyes. “Come on. You know that I had nothing to do with this. I’d never let this shit go down.” She stiffens herself like the good soldier she is. She’s experienced this kind of rage tons of times, but never with her own daughter playing witness and executioner. Still, she looks almost powerful, as she looks down at me with stern eyes and says assuredly, “I’m sure Vanessa had a good reason for going out.”

 

My dad’s feet pound on the floor as he walks quickly over to her. With one large push of his hands, he slams her into the blue painted wall with such force that a family photo of us on vacation in Seattle falls and shatters near her, as she sinks to the ground. He looks over her as he yells, “Don’t you dare stand up for her! You raised a fucking slut. Same as you were. I should have known better! Goddamn fucking whores!”

 

She only has moments to curl into a ball before his steel-toed boot slams into the side of her tiny torso. Air escapes her closed lips, and she lets out a sound I’ve only heard once from a family dog run over by a car. My mother falls in slow motion to the ground, her arms still wrapped around her legs.

 

This was something I always knew happened between them, though I’d never seen it up close. For all of my life, I have been pretending not to hear her body fall and crash against the wall, slam into tables and chairs, slump on the floor. I can’t remember when I first started praying that it wasn’t as bad as what my imagination could have made it seem. However, seeing it in person and up close was like replaying all of those nights with a pillow over my head to dampen the sound of her cries and whimpers all over again. I have never felt more helpless in my entire life.

 

But I don’t move. I don’t make a sound. I can’t; I’m absolutely paralyzed in both fear and shame. Trying to help her would mean more punishment for the both of us. All I can do is hope and pray that my father tires himself out, like a boxer.

 

As he breathes heavily over both of us lying in repose over the floor, he does the one thing I had been hoping for over an hour he would do: he turns and walks towards the door, finally leaving us there. With a parting, “Get to bed!” he goes through the entryway and back outside.

 

We wait in our protective shells for the sound of his bike to roar to start and then take off past the neighborhood of darkened houses, each blind to what has always been going on in the Barber home. With that bastard safely gone, I crawl on my hand and knees towards my mother. To my surprise, she lifts her hand up and out towards me and wraps it around the back of my neck. I lower myself down to her and curl my body around hers with an arm placed high around her waist to avoid the tender spot.

 

Despite everything, her body is still warm, still as comforting and as peaceful as I remember it being when I was a child. They say there’s nothing like a mother’s arms, and I know that to be true even when the mother can’t hold her baby any longer. Her voice shakily asks me, “Why Vanessa? Where were you?”

 

I don’t bother lying to her. I owe her that much. “I went to go see Gavin. I admit I had to go see him, Mom. I know I shouldn’t have, but I had to. I wish you could understand.”

 

Slowly she turns around to face me, our foreheads touching softly as she takes my hand in hers, “I do, Vanessa. Believe it or not, I was once you. Grandpa Aaron was the vice president just like Martin. He ran the Bloody Pagans with an iron fist, too, and he wanted me to have nothing to do with the club. But when I saw your daddy at a cookout for new recruits, I knew I had to have him. And just like you, I ran off with him. Grandpa Aaron tracked us down in a motel room just outside Reno, but by then I was already pregnant with your brother and there was nothing he could do but accept it.”

 

I had never heard this story before. I hadn’t even bothered to ask. I knew my mom grew up in the Bloody Pagans--her own daddy was a Vietnam vet and the founding father. But I just thought she got married off to the first MC man my Grandpa approved of. Knowing she picked that man was unbelievable to me.

 

“Why him? Did you know he was like this, Mom?” I stare into her deep brown eyes, a mirror reflection of mine as she struggles to answer me back.

 

“I didn’t know. Power does strange things to a man, even a good one.” A lifetime of pain washes over her, and I can tell that the word “regret” is on the tip of her tongue. But she could never say it. She is too much of an indoctrinated lady to say it out loud, let alone to her daughter. Still, she adds, “But you, Vanessa, you’re smarter than me. You’re smarter than all of us. And if this guy Gavin is what you think he is, then I trust you, and I’ll take whatever comes from it.”

 

“Mom, I can’t ju—”

 

“Vanessa Barber, I won’t let you give up on this so easily. If this is what you want, then you go get it. I’m your mama, and it’s my job to protect you no matter what. And I promise you that I will have your back.” Her voice cracks as she stammers, “Someone in this house deserves that happier ending. Just promise me something.”

 

“What?” I ask timidly.

 

“Promise me that this is the right decision for you, and that you’re not doing it just because of your father. Promise me that you’re picking Gavin because you care for him and he cares for you. I can’t bear to see you get hurt over a guy who you just leapt at because we sheltered you for too long.”

 

I pull her in closer to me, my arms wrapping around the shell of my mother, as I whisper the only words I can think to say, “Thank you.”