Beyond The Veil (A Paranormal Romance)

Chapter 2

"Oh no," she muttered, freezing in the doorway. "Dad?"

Carefully, she stepped over half a dozen empty bottles that were scattered all across the floor to reach the man in the chair, who was passed out with his head on the kitchen table.

"Dad!" She shook his shoulder and received an annoyed grunt in response. "Dad, would you please sleep it off in your bedroom? I'm kind of in a rush and want to have breakfast before I leave."

"You're not going anywhere," her father muttered, slowly lifting his head to look at her. There was bad mood written all over his face.

"Yes, Dad, I'm going to school."

"No," he yelled and grabbed her arm, violently pulling her closer. "You don't need school. All you need to do is make sure you're at home and clean up that filthy dump of a kitchen."

His breath was nauseating and she closed her eyes before she gave a cautious answer. She had to be careful when he was like that. The last time they got into a fight he had slapped her face so hard that her cheek was swollen for the rest of the day.

"I will clean it up when I come back, okay? But I really need to get ready now, it's getting late."

Two green eyes stared at her in fury. "You're such a useless waste of oxygen."

His grip lost some of its strength so that she was able to withdraw her arm and step away from him. She examined the deep red skin that still showed the outlines of her dad's fingers. Her eyes filled with tears as she gently touched that spot. This would certainly bruise.

"I actually don't care what you do and where you do it." Her father's slurring was almost unintelligible, but she was so used to his drunken stupor, which always included rants about her mother, her grandparents, and herself, that she inevitably had gotten accustomed to the incomprehensible gibberish, and thus was able to decipher it. But almost always she wished she hadn't learned the language of the drunk, she wished she could just ignore his outbursts. But they got to her. She knew her father despised her as a person. He had told her so on more than one occasion. She was too much like her mom, and he simply couldn't handle it. Ever since she passed away several years ago, his blind rage was directed at the only connection he still had to his wife - her daughter.

"Go to hell."

With shaky legs, her father pulled himself up, supporting his entire weight on the cheap plastic table, making it rock back and forth on its thin and uneven legs, as though to give a heads up that its tipping over was imminent. With a loud bang, both the table and her father landed on the gray floor tiles.

"I regret the day you were born! I regret you, Emily!" he shouted up to her, about to lose the last bit of his control. She could see fury in his bloodshot eyes, and if she wouldn't get out of there quickly, she would fall victim to the violence of his wrath once more.

In panic, she ran out of the kitchen and grabbed the bag she had packed the evening before in preparation of her first college day. With trembling hands, she also snatched the house key from the dresser before she escaped the hell she had to call home.