WickedSeduction by Tina Donahue

focused on his wife.
    “Bitch,” he’d said, shoulders pushed to his ears like
an animal ready to attack. “Cunt. Can’t do anything right. This place is a
fucking sty.”
    Her mother kept backing away, hands raised to protect
herself as she’d apologized repeatedly, confessing she hadn’t folded the towels
the way he liked, hadn’t vacuumed enough, had failed to leave the magazines on
the cocktail table exactly as they should be.
    Lies. Everything had been perfect. Marnie had made notes of
her mother’s efforts, showing them to her, ticking off everything that could
possibly anger him.
    He’d slapped her mother’s face, shoved her into the wall and
lifted his fist.
    “Don’t,” Marnie had screamed, the first time she’d
interfered.
    Her father hadn’t heard or chose to ignore her cries.
    Worried he’d kill her mother this time, Marnie had grabbed
the skillet and hit him on his back.
    “I wanted him to stop,” she told Tor, her mind still
picturing what had happened. “I wasn’t strong but there was an awful thud when
I’d struck him. Mamá’s skillet was one of those heavy, cast-iron types. For a
minute, I thought I’d killed him he wavered so badly. And then he’d turned…”
    Marnie told Tor what being terrorized was truly like. How
her father had looked at her in surprise, confusion, then the same hatred he’d
shown her mother. Until then, he’d been indifferent to Marnie, his fury focused
solely on his wife.
    Not any longer.
    “I was too afraid to run,” she said. “Honestly, I couldn’t
move. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. He raised his fist. I
thought he was going to punch me in the face as he’d always done with Mamá. He
called me filthy names, told me I was as ugly as she was, as stupid, that I
never should have been born. He said after he got through with me, I’d wish I
was dead.”
    She shuddered in memory. Tor took her hand.
    Marnie wrapped her fingers tightly around his. “At one
point, I must have been backing away from him, though I don’t remember doing
so. Suddenly, he was at the counter where my mother had been slicing the
plantains. She kept her knives there. When he grabbed one of the biggest ones,
Mamá threw herself at him, hitting his shoulders and head. He rammed his body into
hers, sending Mamá into the wall. She fell to the floor. ‘I’ll teach you what
happens when you dare strike your own father,’ he said to me and raised the
knife.
    “I didn’t feel anything,” Marnie said. “I could see my blood
everywhere but nothing hurt as he kept slashing at me. My mother was screaming.
I saw her heading for her skillet and wanted to tell her no, to run, go to one
of the neighbors, to protect herself. But I couldn’t speak. All of a sudden, I
was cold and felt horribly tired, as though I’d run for miles. I couldn’t catch
my breath. Everything went black. The next thing I knew I was in the hospital.”
She lifted her shoulders.
    Tor went to his feet and helped Marnie to hers. Then he sat
in the chair she’d vacated and settled her on his lap. She curled into him,
needing his strength and warmth.
    “I’m so sorry,” he said, rubbing her back. “He had no damn
right. Thank God your mom stopped him.”
    Marnie pressed her face into his neck. “She didn’t. She said
after I passed out, he stopped stabbing me, realizing what he’d done. He left
the house and raced away in his pickup. I don’t know whether what happened
after that was an accident or intentional but he rammed into a tree at high
speed and died instantly.”
    Tor held her closer.
    “I’m not sorry,” she said, refusing to feel bad. “Even
though he was my father, he was a monster.”
    “He can’t hurt you any longer.”
    “Not physically but what he did isn’t easy to forget. Moving
on seems impossible at times.”
    “I know. Wait, I don’t. What you and your mom went through
isn’t something I can even imagine.” He hugged her carefully. “No wonder