CHAPTER 7
Within no time I heard the doorbell ring and I couldn't think of anybody else but Andy. I jumped up from the floor where I had been sitting. My heart leapt. "Oh! how fast, we just spoke a few minutes ago and he said he would be here in less than an hour. I didn't expect he would come that fast." I thought. Andrew was always fast when it came to me. He always kept his word. That was one thing about him, if he said one hour, he would come in thirty minutes.
I didn't even check the peephole. I didn't ask who it was. I was so desperate to see him, to tell him everything, to have someone take this heavy burden off my chest. I quickly opened the door with a small, hopeful smile already forming on my face, only to be met by a thunderous slap on my face. The force was so strong that my head snapped to the side. My cheek burned instantly. My ears rang. I stumbled back two steps, holding my face, completely disoriented. The smile vanished. The hope vanished.
It wasn't Andy.
It was Jim.
"Where are you hiding your sister?" Jim roared as he stormed into the living room burning with anger. He didn't even close the door behind him. He just barged in like he owned the place, like he had a right to be there. His eyes were red, bloodshot. He smelled of alcohol and sweat. His shirt was half tucked out.
Before I could even process what had just happened, before I could even understand that the man who had beaten my sister to near death was now in my house, he punched my stomach. Hard. So hard that all the air left my lungs. I doubled over, gasping, holding my stomach, standing there confused, irritated and disoriented. I couldn't breathe.
"Where is my daughter?" he asked pacing around the living room, like a mad bull, knocking a small stool over, kicking the coffee table. "I went to the house, no one is there! Where is Penny? Where is my daughter? You think you can hide them from me?"
I felt a stinging pain on my lower lip that brought me back to reality. I touched it. Blood. He had split my lip with that slap. I licked it and the taste of blood filled my mouth; salty, metallic, familiar. That taste. That taste was the last straw.
Before I could utter any word my hands were already fighting back. Something inside me...