Temptations (#Wattys2017)

Two

Pausing to swipe the blood from her face, she took her time fishing in her jacket pocket for her keys. As she raised it to the lock, the door swung violently backward, bathing her in warm light from the spacious hallway within. Saskia shoved the heels behind her back in a poor attempt to conceal the evidence. Jackson Malis' imposing figure loomed in the doorway, sharp brown eyes scanning his daughter's dishevelled appearance.

"What time do you call this?" he demanded, raising his brows. "You look like a drowned rat." He gestured to her hair, which was now plastered to her face.

Saskia simply sidled past him into the warmth of the house, keeping her back from view. "It's not that late..." she tried, knowing full well it was approaching four in the morning. Her father slammed the door shut, striding into the living room.

"Considering you weren't even allowed out tonight, the fact you think you can just waltz in here like nothing's wrong is unbelieveable! If I find out you were with that Sam boy..." he called over his shoulder as he poured some whisky from a crystal decanter on the coffee table. Sam was a friend of hers that her father disapproved of, who she may or may not have fallen into bed with once or twice. Or quite a lot of times. It wasn't important.

Paperwork lay scattered on and around the modern cream sofa, he'd clearly been working even at this time of night. Nothing unusual there, she thought bitterly. Normally, she would stand and allow him to rant for a while before he inevitably dismissed her, therefore suffering no consequences. But not this time—her father's gaze shot to where her hands were frozen behind her back.

"What are you hiding?" He questioned, stepping forward and tilting his head to try and get a closer look.

Saskia hesitated, then brought her hands down to her sides. There was no point in hiding the shoes as her father would probably just wrestle them out of her grip anyway. She stared into his sharp face, trying to decipher his expression as he stared intently at the pretty louboutins. Well, they had been pretty before she'd caked them in deep crimson blood.

"...Why do your shoes have blood on them? Saskia, did you attack someone?!" Her father's voice raised as his eyes bored into hers, almost like he was attempting to read her mind.

"No! I was the one who got attacked, this was self defense! He stole my bracelet..." she protested, trailing off as she sensed the disbelief rolling off her father in waves.

"Right, that's what you said when you punched that girl in school! Remember that, Saskia?" he yelled, his scarily calm demeanour shattering. Okay, that time she had hit someone first, but that was only because they had been enemies ever since they were little. That day Megan just happened to test her patience while she was in a bad mood. She did manage to give a few bruises of her own though, so it was hardly one sided. Convincing her father of that had been a pointless endeavour.

"This was different! I was in the alleys, and someone tried to strangle me! Don't you even care?" she shrieked, ignoring the stab of pain in her chest at her father's dismissal of her claims.

"You were in the alleys? There are stories of attacks occuring there all the time, Saskia!" He retorted. A brief silence fell across the room, the only sound coming from the flat screen TV on the wall. He eventually broke that silence by uttering the words Saskia never thought she would actually hear.

"I've decided you will be going to the boarding school in Exeter after all. I think it will be for the best," he said quietly.

Of all the times he had threatened her with this, she never thought he would follow through on it. Never thought he would send her away. Her chest tightened, that stab of pain lancing through her again. She couldn't go to a boarding school that far away from London—she loved this city, and all the friends she kept here.

"You can't be serious... An application takes months to be accepted anyway!" she argued. She knew it was ridiculous, clutching at straws, trying to think of ways to gain control back over her life.

"It's a good job I applied a few months ago, just in case something happened. You start in two weeks. There will be no debate on this," her father snapped. Despite the briskness of his words, his eyes conveyed something that almost looked like sadness. "I'm not doing this to hurt you, Saskia. It will do you good..." he sighed, putting a hand on her arm. "I'll see you in the morning." Picking up the remote, he switched off the TV and left the room, disappearing upstairs to bed.

Saskia stared in the direction of the staircase, unable to move for a few seconds. Suddenly finding that she was too exhausted to argue any more, her feet soon began to drag themselves up towards her room, needing to feel the warmth of her large comfy bed.

Flinging her dirty heels into the corner of her fairly large, white-painted bedroom, she stripped out of her jacket and dress as she walked, leaving a trail of clothes on the wooden floor in her wake. Not bothering with pyjamas, she yanked back the covers and dived under, savouring the caress of the soft sheets against her skin.

She couldn't understand how her father had so readily believed that she was the one in the wrong. Had she really been in trouble that many times? Perhaps it wasn't really surprising. The fact that her attacker would get away with this made her boil with rage, and her gaze fell on her bare wrist. An overwhelming desire for her mother to still be here blazed through her. Saskia buried her face in the pillow and allowed herself to drift into an uneasy sleep, far from the joke that was reality.