Expectations (Violentine)

Chapter Two: Little Runaway

“Mom! I got the gas for the lawnmower and stuff you wanted for the barbeque?!” Brody called, tossing her car keys into the bowl on the table next to the door. She took notice of the candles lit in front of a framed image on the mantle, a pang of sadness hitting her heart. With the shatter of a glass, she furrowed her eyebrows cautiously. “Mom…?”

She lightly leaned to her right to set down the bags next to the mantle, making her way towards the source of the shatter. Despite it being an open doorway, she couldn’t see her mother. After her next step, she didn’t need to.

“What did i fucking tell you?! I do my business wherever the fuck I want! Do you underst-” “-hey!”

The man with dirty blonde, slicked back hair turned to Brody with a glare, squeezing tighter around her mom’s throat.

“Leave her alone.” Brody instructed, form holding study yet voice failing her. The man, also known as step-ass, also known as Frank, visibly tightened his grip. “I said let her go!”

“This isn’t any of your goddamn business.” He growled, pushing her mother harder against the wall. Brody watched her mother claw at his hand, giving her a look and shaking her head as best as she could with a hand around her throat. She wanted her to leave.

“Mommy?”

Marjorie turned to her daughter, eyebrows furrowed. “What is it, sweetie?”

Brody’s lip turned, head tilting. “How’d you hurt your arm?”

“...I fell down the stairs at work, baby.”

Brody glanced back to Frank who was glaring daggers into her head, before gritting her jaw and turning around.

“Why do we have to live with him?”

Marjorie frowned. “He’s...Gonna be your stepdad, Brody,”

“He yells at me. And at you. I don’t like him.”

“...I know, Baby.”

Frank grinned, turning around and staring back at her mother. He knew she wouldn’t do shit.

“Mom?”

Brody cupped her mother’s face, lightly tapping it. “Mom? Mom, wake up. Mom?” At a weak whimper, Brody’s lip quivered. “I called the cops. They’re- They’re coming mom. I know it hurts. Just-” “-where’s-” “-I told him I called the cops. He’s gone. He ran, mom.” “..don’t tell them anything.” “What?”

“What?” Frank grinned. “It’s been ten years, Maizie. Did you think she was going to-” His voice cut off as something connected with the back of his head. His grip loosened, Maizie wheezing for air, Brody’s form shaking as she held the cooking pot in her hand.

Maybe she had seen Tangled a few more times than normal, but what could she say? Flynn was attractive.

With a growl, before Brody could even register that Frank was standing up, his hands were gripping her shoulders, slamming her back into the wall behind her. She put her arms on his shoulders, doing her best to push him back, only to be shoved into the wall once more. She couldn’t even look up before he slapped her, barely managing to grab his hand from connecting with her throat and pushing it to the side. Her knee connected with his crotch, ears picking up his pained whimpers as he doubled over. She made a move to shove him, only for him to grab her wrist and twist. A barely muffled scream of pain left her lips before her knees buckled in attempts to relieve the pain. Instead, he twisted her arm in a way no arm should ever be twisted, a sickening crack making her whimper.

The pain made her lose her balance, falling back and knocking into the bags. That, and the jerry can of gasoline. Brody didn’t process the liquid seeping into her hoodie, instead doing her best to stand up, only to feel Frank grab her by the shoulders and shove her into the mantle.

“Frank-!”

He ignored the desperate calls of her mother, instead moving his hand up to Brody’s throat.

“Frank!”

What felt like half an hour was only a few seconds of Frank tightening his hand around her throat before another glass shattered in front of his face, causing him to jerk and let go of Brody. Not only that, but said glass smashed right into one of the candles on the mantle, knocking it off and onto the floor into the puddle of gasoline. Brody pushed herself back as the flame ignited the gas, a soft gasp of shock escaping her throat.

“Mom-!”

She couldn’t even finish her worried call as it flared up, catching the couch only a pace away from where the gasoline had spread. The heat burned against her face as the room quickly went up in flames, the open windows only helping the burn rate. Brody scrambled back, shakily standing to her feet. Her good arm moved over her eyes in attempts to prevent her face from burning.

“Mom?!”

No response. She couldn’t hear her or Frank. Couldn’t see anything through how thick the fire had already gotten. Why did their house have to be made almost entirely out of wood?

She glanced to her right at the wall. To her left was the living room. There wasn’t an upstairs, and the hallway to the bedrooms was most likely already cut off by fire. Why was it spreading so fast? No fire extinguisher, instead, another flare as the flames caught something else they shouldn’t have. The fireworks. It was the Fourth of July soon, of course she was going to get fireworks for the barbeque; even if Frank was the one to put them on the list. A yelp escaped her throat as one went off, the firework screaming as it hit the ceiling and bounced back down. The fire flared again, Brody’s eyes watering because of the smoke.

Backing up until she felt the door hit her, she didn’t move her eyes away from the fire. Not while she opened it. Looking for anything to signal that the flames hadn’t already engulfed her mother. Nothing.

With a shaky whimper, Brody turned the door knob, half falling backwards as another one of the fireworks she had gotten for the barbeque went off, aimed somewhere too close to where she had been standing. As her back hit the small porch, her body turning and crawling out into the grass, she coughed. Why was she so stupid? Standing with the living room on fire? Smoke rises. She coughed on her knees until her throat stopped tickling and burned instead, turning over to look back at the house.

As she did so, almost as if perfect timing, the roof collapsed. Almost the whole thing. Over their whole, one story house, with her mom still inside. A broken sob escaped her lips as the smoke stinging her eyes caused them to water and accompany the tears, her mind racing.

Sirens.

Her mother was dead.

Sirens.

Frank was burning, crushed under a piece of ceiling.

Sirens.

The fire had started because of gasoline.

Sirens.

An ignitor.

Sirens.

She bought the gasoline, and was the only survivor.

Sirens.

Making a quick decision, Brody scrambled to her feet, whimpering as she made her way to the sidewalk. She walked backwards, another sob escaping her lips as she stared after the burning house, before turning and spriting as best as she could down the sidewalk and away from the sirens.