Merciless Love: A Dark Romance(3)

He threw the empty flask at me. Smelling the venom drops that blasted out and stained my white dress made me want to heave. Bouncing my knee, I let it tumble to the floor.

Was he just a monster because he missed mama, or was it the drink?

Whatever it was, I wouldn't let him lie, wouldn't let him call me a whore.

“I'm still a virgin,” I reminded him. “I wouldn't disgrace myself the way you think, Daddy. You're wrong.”

It was worse than that. If another year or two passed, I'd be the oldest virgin in the entire flock.

“Wrong?” He chuckled. “You've already disparaged me, girl. My mistake was thinking you'd get older and wiser. Ha! Something went wrong with you. Heather knows her place, and she's only a couple years behind you. She sits quietly and listens to the Prophet at sermon. She doesn't fidget and look like she's off in la-la land the way you do. If she hadn't stayed home sick today, maybe I'd have something to smile. Instead, I only have your disgrace.”

I tightened my hands. The rain picked up again, as if the world was mirroring my anger.

At least I wasn't full of fear anymore. I was tired of hearing about her, my perfect little sister, the girl he latched onto after Mom's cancer. If anything, my sis was brainwashed, drowning her grief in this ratty town and all its hypocrisy!

“I've got a better chance at landing a husband than Heather,” I said softly. “You made her too shy. She won't even mingle at sermon, and she kept to herself at school too. How's Miss Silent going to do a damned thing I can't?”

I knew I was testing the limits. Foolishly, perhaps, but I'd had it up to here with the myth he'd created, his blindness, his cruelty.

“You don't know a fucking thing, Cassie. You think you do, but you don't, and one day somebody's going to show you as much.” Daddy shook his head. I could practically hear the whiskey sloshing around inside him. “We're past talk. Now shut the fuck up and let me focus on the road.”

He pushed the truck back into motion and started down the road, slow and uncertain.

I pursed my lips. “You mean like you've been doing the whole way home?”

My voice dripped sarcasm. Normally, I knew when to keep my mouth shut and let him ride the drunken wave. Today...today, something was different.

When my father jerked the wheel, I screamed. We tipped harder than before, down into a small ditch. The whole vehicle died with a loud thunk!

The truck's right wheel sank deep into muddy water and stopped, leaning dangerously into a flooded ditch.

“Daddy?” I looked at him, and saw a bomb about to go off in human form.

“Told you I'm done talking, bitch. Get out.”

He can't be serious.

My father always went nuts during his drunken tantrums before, but never anything like this. I took one look out my passenger door. There was no way I'd be able to get out without landing waist deep in cold dirty water.

“Why? What're you–“

“Shut up! I'm only talking in the only damned language that gets through to you. Get. Out.” He stared at me with scary focus, rage blazing like pinpricks through his drunken haze.

I didn't move. A second later, Daddy did it for me. He slammed me against the passenger door, holding me there as I flailed with one arm. His hand reached out and unhooked my belt, then tore at the door's handle.

I was yelling, begging for him not to do it before I started to fall. It was no use.

Daddy's hands shoved hard, hurling me outside. I landed in the small pond with a deafening splash. The water was even colder than I expected, an early autumn iciness that shocked my whole system.

I grabbed at the edge of the truck, desperate to get out. It wasn't that easy. He'd closed the door, and now I grasped for some rusty part of the truck to pull myself up. I ended up digging my fingers into the dirty groves on the half-submerged tire.

Strong hands reached into the muck, grabbed me by the wrists, and yanked me up. Daddy pulled me out, but not because he regretted anything. His face was too hard, too murderous, too unforgiving. He threw me over his shoulder and carried me to the road. It was barely much drier back on ground with the rain smattering across my body, leaving us both soaked from head to toe.

My brain hardly recognized what was coming next, but my heart already knew, going ballistic in my chest. Oh, God. Not this. Please.

“Drop the dress or I'll fucking do it for you,” he growled.

My father stood me up on the wet pavement and then threw me against the driver's side door, keeping his arms around me so I couldn't bolt.

He hadn't beaten me for months. I hadn't given him much reason to, but his drunken stupors were getting worse. From where I was slumped, clawing at the truck in the rain, something had obviously snapped inside him.

The demon was in full control, the thing that had taken over since he brought us to this place after mama was buried. And once it came out, there was no putting it back until it fed on pain.