Washed Up ≫ A.I

Chapter [11]

[Ashton Irwin]
Day 4 

The smack of skin against skin contact had me crawling backward as fast as I could. Its brutal beating wasn't bestowed on me but I still felt the pain. There, the smack came again and I knew my turn was coming.

I scrambled to my feet, kicking my toes against the floors and slipping up underneath the rug I was once asleep on. The agonizing scream pushed me forward onto my stomach. My hands never caught me in time so my chin was my falling support. I bit my tongue and immediately felt the blood.

Suddenly two hands grabbed me and threw me back up into the air, "Ashton, what are you still doing here?" My mother's voice was strained behind me. Her hot hands pitched at the back of my arms before forcing me forward on my feet. 

A crash of glass shattering against the wall behind me had me on my knees again. I was only ducking at the sounds of my father's anger. My Mum grabbed me again but suddenly let go in a scream again. The ground vibrated with a thud and when I turned around to look for her, the skin on skin had reached me. 

With slow motion impact, my father's bloody palm smacked me square in the face. I heard my mother speak my name seconds before I hit the ground. This time my hands caught the floor before my face. I felt my shirt pull up and my collar was suddenly choking me from the front. My stomach was slightly raised from the floor. I could feel my face turning viciously purple by the second.

"Leave him out of this!" My mother screamed and movement above me slid sideways. I was dropped, "He's just a little boy!"

I heard her scream again. This time I was quick to look for her over my shoulder. "Mum?" I questioned the breathless air. 

The glass broke and I was up onto my knees, scooting backward with my scraped shins on the floor. A small trail of blood seeped into the wood from the broken scab on my knee. I had got it just that early morning on my bike. Now that happier time felt like ages ago.

"No!" My mother and father danced like the devils, crashing back into the living room area. My father's hands dangerously crept around her neck, tightening by the steps of his boots.

"You do this, I'm coming back for you!" He yelled like the devil himself before pinning her spine into the side of the fireplace mantel. "All of you!" 

I jumped to my feet, screaming with my hands out as my mother was jerked off of the mantel and thrown to the floor. Her body thud to the ground with her arms cupped out in front of her. For the moment I thought she was dead. Her eyes, half open with blood gushing from her purple nose.

I ran to her but was stopped by the stomps of my father's boots against the floor. His wide hand gripped my t-shirt again and he raised me away from my mother's side. With his left knuckles curled against my chest, I noticed the missing band from his wedding finger. I had no idea what was going on from the start but things were put together quickly.

"Now boy," His words mocked everything he ever was to me. "Show your Mum that you are a real man!"

This man wasn't my Father. He never could have been one ever.

His hands shoved me aside and pinned my shoulders back so that I was now bent down, looking down upon my mother. He jerked my shoulders, screaming at me to 'do it'. . . to punch my mother like a real man.

I cried, claiming that I was just a boy. I was barely eleven and things were turning for the worst. My back was pulled and that was when I snapped. He jerked me back around to face him, eyes piercing darkly into my own. I snapped, pulled my fist back, and jabbed him under the chin, right where he hit my mother.