She stood in the kitchen, cooking. Daddy called from his bedroom. His voice, thick and rattling with phlegm, was accompanied by shouts and moans of pleasure from the adult movies playing on his television. She could even hear the slick sound of his hand, slathered with petroleum jelly, preparing himself.

He told her they were playing pretend. Just like on the movies he watched.

She microwaved a pizza, covered it in hot sauce, just like he liked it. Another plate full of French fries, grease soaking through the paper, topped with mounds of ketchup and melted cheddar cheese. She balanced the plates on one arm, the plate holding the pizza on her forearm, the greasy French fry plate in her hand. The other hand held the mug filled with soda, with five tablespoons of sugar added.

“Hurry up! Daddy’s hungry.”

“Fuck me,” the television screamed.

She entered the room with tears running down her chubby cheeks. The pizza burned her arm, but that pain almost felt good. The room stank of bodily fluids and unwashed skin. Flies buzzed into her face, circled her father like planets orbiting the sun. She had learned to keep her eyes blurred, like looking at a Magic Eye picture, so as not to see the mountain of lard that called itself her father, the beast that ravaged her with no mercy, stuffing food into its stomach as it stole her innocence.

“Come sit down, baby.”

“No, no, no, no. Don’t touch me!” Lola slammed her fists against her head. She felt the cool breeze of the night and realized where she was.

My father is dead. Heart attack. He’s not in this house.

She wiped the mucus and tears from her face and took shuddering breaths. The pain in her knuckles called her attention and she saw the shredded skin and blood from where she was grinding them into the cement. Her gun lay beside her like a dead bird.

The fear started to creep back into her mind, and she slammed her fist into the driveway. The pain was good, drove the fear back to her stomach. She hit it again, and again.

“Fuck you!” Her fist cracked against the pavement. One of the bones in her hand snapped and bent the skin like a tent. But it felt damn good. She tried to squeeze a fist, couldn’t, winced from the burn, but got to her feet. Her injured hand hung at her side, and she bent down and plucked the gun with her other hand—the trigger-pulling hand. She squeezed the metal in her palm and marched the rest of the way to the front door.

The air was electric with violent energy. It ran across her skin and burrowed deep into her viscera. She stalked through the house, following the streaks of blood until she came to the kitchen.

The text book signs of a struggle: overturned table and chairs, various items disheveled and tossed about.

And then she found her.

Lola’s injured hand floated up and covered her mouth as she peered at the kitchen floor. The woman lay motionless, just as she’d suspected, in a pool of blood that stretched out and touched the walls on either side of her. Her entire left arm had been stripped down to the bone, tiny bits of meat and sinew here and there. The hand was intact though, looked like a glove, and the gold wedding ring shone in the fluorescent light.