Abused

"Gail! Gail! One more scream of your name, I will slit your neck, I freaking swear!"

It was early in the morning, Gail woke up from the violent sounds and 

With shaky hands and legs, Gail opened the door of her room, shivering in fear with just the thought of what she would be receiving once again. The slur voice of her father was a clear indication that she was in for another hellish night.

"Don't wait for me to drag you out of there by your hair," he said, clearly with annoyance.

Gail completely got out of her room with little steps and head low, avoiding the red and strange eyes of her father. "Is... Is there anything I can help you with, Dad?"

"What is this that I heard from Arnold that you're flirting with his son!?" 

The question made her look at her father. Arnold's son was Aldrin, and from what Gail could remember, she only had interaction with him once which was when she went out to buy her father's alcoholic drinks and he was there calling her names to irritate her. 

She hated that guy. How come would she flirt with him?

"I don't know what you're talking about. I did not flirt with-"

"Is that how badly you want to get out of this house? You have been clinging to every boy out there to get you out of here, huh? How dare you! After all the money I spent to feed you!?"

Her father pushed her by her shoulders, which still hurt from the previous bruise she got from him. She winced and moved back, but her father was just starting. 

He wasn't wrong about her wanting to get out of the house, she had been planning to escape, but every time she would realize how dangerous her father was and he could search for her anytime, he could kill her. It was enough reason to drop the thought of escaping. 

"I did not flirt with him, Dad," she said silently because whatever she would say to defend herself, her father just wouldn't listen, most especially when he was under influence of alcohol and probably drugs as well. 

He grabbed her hair and forced her to look at him. Gail winced in pain, holding her father's hand. "You better make sure of it, Gail. Do you really think there's someone in this world who will love you? No one, Gail. Everyone will just hurt you. Just like what your mother did to us."

After whispering that to her ear, he pushed her to the floor and started kicking her while cursing. Whenever he was reminded of her mother who left them for another man, he was always pouring his anger on her.

"You are just like your mother. Flirty, thirsty for men, cheaters! Screw your kind!" 

"Stop, please. It hurts!" she begged while covering herself with her arms and legs as her father continuously kicked her. 

This shouldn't hurt already. After all, this was the regular scenario in the house. Whenever her father would go home drunk, she already knew her fate for the night. Her wounds and bruises weren't even given enough time to heal before they were battered once again. 

Gail probably had multiple bones broken already but she couldn't have them checked up. She was not allowed to go out alone, but on top of that, she had no money to see a doctor. She was a prisoner in the house, a prisoner of a criminal that unfortunately she was the only daughter of.

Her father had no plan on stopping at all, if not for the call on his phone. He panted, glaring at her before pulling out his phone in his pocket. He didn't bother looking at the caller and just answered it.

"Hello?"

"Let's keep this call short. Do you want money?"

His angered face immediately turned to a huge smile as if he had just heard the best compliment from his most favorite person. "That's not even a question. How much? What do I have to do?"

"For one hundred thousand dollars, assassinate Michael James Aransas. Are you in?"

"That's it? Give me his whereabouts and consider it done. Transfer half of the money right away."

"Make sure of it. At ten o'clock later, he will be on the way to his meeting. I'll send you the details, don't mess this up."

"When did I ever? I got you, boss!"

The call ended, and the unkempt man grinned widely with the thought of having a huge amount of money in his possession once more. 

Gail peeked at him and saw him smiling. There was only one thing that could lift his mood aside from drinking and doing drugs with his friends, and it was getting an order from whomever that was asking him to kill someone in exchange for money. 

Her father was a criminal, and with how much of people he had already dispatched, Gail was wondering why until now that her father was still free. She was wondering why the police weren't diving deeper on the alibi that she was providing for her father. 

Or it was just because they didn't really want to arrest her father because he was covered by the people who hired him. Nonetheless, Gail wished nothing but karma to come to her father sooner. She was tired as well, tired from all the abuse she was experiencing from the hands of her own father.

"What a way to start the day!" he said happily, turning back and seeing his daughter still crawling on the floor.

He rolled his eyes. "Hey, you! I'll be going, make sure the house is clean once I come back if you don't want me to beat you up again."

Gail didn't answer. She felt like all of what would come out of her mouth would only trigger her father's anger. She gained a lot of trauma from the man who was supposed to protect her, and it seemed like there was no end anymore until either one of them would die.

Whenever she would go out, she was scared of the way people looked at her. She would come out with her whole face and body covered, her head hung low, and making sure that no one would see her face, nor be interested in touching her. She was often teased that she was weird, conservative, and even deaf, but they had no idea what hell she was experiencing in her own house.

Her father groaned and threw the nearest thing at her, which apparently was the remote control. Gail was hit on her forehead, making her flinch and cry in pain. The only thing she could do while she was living with her abusive father. 

"You're crazy and useless! You're nothing but a burden, really."

He marched away and started preparing, not wanting his good mood to be ruined by his useless daughter. If Gail wasn't just useful in being his alibi in all of his crimes, he would have thrown her away and let her wander off the street. 

"If anybody looks for me, tell them I'm sleeping and I don't want to be disturbed. Don't tell them I went out, I'm going to kill you if you do," her father threatened while putting the gun in his pocket.

The gun that she had been face to face with multiple times already with the times her father had threatened her with it. He was about to kill someone, again.

And she would once again be used as a witness for his alibi that he was just in the room, sleeping. If she would not cooperate, she would receive bruises after bruises. She was like a punching bag to her father. 

If she could only escape... but she couldn't, and the trauma when she tried once and she almost lost her legs when her father was able to stop her was still in her mind. 

Maybe the right time would come.

+++

It was past six in the evening when her father went back home. Gail just finished taking a bath and was now tending to her wounds. Her father was rushing inside, closing the door loudly behind his back and obviously vigilant of what could possibly be behind him. 

It was new. Usually, whenever he would come home from a call like that, he was all full of smiles, a bag of cash in hand, and his face screaming success. However, right now, he obviously looked agitated and kept on cursing. 

He received another call, and he answered it angrily, and it seemed like he failed with his plan of assassinating his target. For Gail, it wasn't a very promising personality for her father for today. She was having a very bad feeling that her day wouldn't end well. 

Her father looked at the window, and when he found no one following him behind, his shoulders relaxed. He turned around, meeting her eyes. His brows furrowed just upon seeing her, looking around and finding out that the house was already cleaned. He had nothing to blow up on her.

Or so Gail thought.

"What dinner did you prepare?"

"D-Dinner?" she repeated, dumbfounded. "I thought you would... you didn't tell me to-"

His relaxed face earlier turned to anger once again. "Do I really have to tell you everything? Is that how useless you are? I'm doing everything to earn, and here you are living like a princess? You are a pest! You don't even bring something useful to me! I should probably just tie you up, you have no use for me after all."

He angrily charged toward her and pushed her off the chair. Gail screamed and begged for him to stop, but he was like talking to a demon with deaf ears. He was angry and frustrated, and he was pouring everything to his punching bag, which was her.

"Dad, please no. No... Don't do this to me, please," she begged, crying as she tried to break free from his hold but it was futile. 

Her father dragged her to her bedroom, holding her two hands and tying her wrists on the metal headboard of her single bed with her blanket. She cried, tried to get away, but received a punch on her stomach instead which made her bend and stop moving. 

"Since you're no use, you'll stay there until I change my mind. You're not going to eat, you're not going to do anything at all, that's what you like, right? I better just spend my money on drinks than feed you."

"Please, Dad. I will do better. Don't leave me here," Gail begged, watching her father's retreating back. 

She had experienced a lot of punishment for every single thing that she did wrong. Sometimes she was just scared of doing anything because she knew her father would always find fault in something. 

Never in her life she felt the love from her parents. Her father was only keeping her to be the receiving end of his anger and frustrations, never because he was treating her like his daughter. 

When she couldn't see her father anymore, she gave up. She was just wasting her strength. However she tried to beg and scream to let her go, her father wouldn't listen. She just gave up, just like how she gave up long ago that there was no escape anymore from his father's hands.

After a while, Gail didn't realize that she had already fallen asleep. She only woke up by the loud scream and the continuous noise of things being thrown. She tried to stand, but realized that she was still tied so she was left with listening to whatever was happening. 

"Ahh! Please, no! I'm sorry! I beg you, don't kill me! Don't kill me!" 

It was only then when Gail realized that the one screaming was her father. There was another voice but she couldn't hear what he was saying, until the next thing she heard was the multiple bangs from the gun. 

Her father was dead, and she was next as men in black stood by the door of her room. holding up their guns.