She ushered Ashley toward the back door, and with the way she shielded Ashley with her body, Ashley could only feel what was coming, not see.

More violence. More hits. More things knocked over, in the dining room now. Ashley made a noise of the sort that little kids made. She was thirteen—she wasn’t supposed to make that kind of sound.

“Shut up,” her dad said, pointing at her. “Don’t move. You need to know this too. Respect matters.”

He kicked her mom, once, twice, again.

“Over the name of a fucking book,” he said.

He aimed a fourth kick for the face. He didn’t usually hit the face.

“Stop,” Ashley said, without realizing she was saying it.

“You can be quiet,” he said. He kicked again. “You don’t get a say until you bring something to this household. I go to work, I earn, I do most things around this house because this twit—”

Kick. Ashley flinched as her mom did.

“—is too incompetent to do any of it properly.”

The kicks kept coming, and Ashley felt a feeling of horror creep over her.

Ashley looked, then scrambled off to the side. She reached the fireplace in the living room where things had been scattered everywhere, and grabbed the first handle she could. It was the shovel, for the ashes. She pushed it aside, heard her dad coming, and grabbed the poker, an L-shaped bit of metal with a spike on the end.

She spun around, holding it up and ready. She set her jaw, trying to sound tough and sounding anything but. “Stop it.”

He approached, stopping just out of reach of the poker. “Don’t be stupid.”

He took a step forward, and she was reactive enough that she swung. But he’d faked her out, stopping mid-motion. She tried to swing back the other way, but it was too slow, too late. She hit him, but it didn’t do anything.

Then he had his hands on the poker. He tore it out of her hands.

His hands gripped her by the hair. She fought, scratching, kicking, pulling away until it felt like her hair would tear free of her scalp. She did everything and it felt like doing nothing at all. She punched, and he caught her hand, squeezing her fist inside his hand until her knees buckled.

He was taller, all the people on his side of the family were. He was stronger.

Ashley had nothing.

He moved her head into position and then let go of her hand to strike her across the face. She made another little-kid sound as she fell against the couch and she hated it, she hated that she wanted to curl up into a ball and make only those sounds. She hated that it wouldn’t do anything either way.

He bent down and picked up the poker. She watched, trying to swallow and find the breath to speak.