Page 19 of Carved

They reach the top of the stairs, and I lose sight of them for a moment. But I can still hear Jenkins's voice, growing louder and more agitated as alcohol and adrenaline feed off each other.

"You think because you get good grades, because you want to join the FBI, that makes you special? That makes you important?"

A door slams somewhere upstairs—Delilah's room, probably, though I can't be sure from this angle.

"I know what you think of me," Jenkins continues, his voice echoing through the house. "I see it in your eyes. The same look your mother used to give me. Like I'm some kind of animal."

Thud.

Something heavy hits the floor—furniture being moved, or knocked over, or thrown. My body moves toward the house again, pulled by instincts I can't control. Three steps this time before I force myself to stop.

"Maybe it's time you learned some fucking respect."

Crack.

The sound is sharp and clear through the night air—wood splintering, or something breaking. Then Delilah's voice, high and frightened: "Dad, please! I'll keep looking, I promise!"

But Jenkins is past listening now. Past rational thought. He's found his groove, the place where alcohol and rage and old pain converge into something that needs to hurt other people to feel better about itself.

"Disrespectful little bitch," he shouts, and I can hear his footsteps moving around upstairs, heavy and unsteady. "Just like your mother. Well, look how that turned out for her."

Another crash, louder this time. Glass breaking. Then Delilah's voice again, smaller and more desperate: "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please, I didn't take your keys!"

But she's not sorry for taking keys she never touched. She's sorry for existing. Sorry for being small and vulnerable and trapped in a house with a monster who wears a badge during the day and terrorizes children at night.

Sorry for breathing while female. Sorry for wanting more than this. Sorry for being born.

My vision goes red at the edges, and for a moment I can't see anything but the past—my own childhood blending with hers until I can't tell the difference between nine-year-old me cowering in a corner and sixteen-year-old her trapped in that room with a man who's supposed to protect her.

The fence post cracks under my grip.

CRASH.

The sound explodes through the night—something heavy and breakable hitting the floor upstairs. Glass and ceramic and wood all shattering at once, the kind of destruction that comes from fury finding a target.

Then Delilah's cry, sharp and pained and terrified: "Ahh—"

Followed immediately by: "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Dad, please, I'm sorry!"

My body moves before my brain catches up.

I'm halfway across the yard, feet pounding against grass, blood roaring in my ears, before the rational part of my mindscreams at me to stop. I slam into the side of the house, palms flat against the siding, breathing hard enough to hyperventilate.

What the fuck are you doing?

I grab for the fence post I'd abandoned, fingers finding splintered wood that creaks ominously under my weight. The sound grounds me just enough to keep from charging through the front door like some kind of avenging angel.

But inside my head, everything is fracturing.

She said sorry. She said sorry. Why is she saying sorry?

The words loop through my mind like a broken record, each repetition driving deeper into places I thought I'd sealed off years ago. I'm nine years old again, small and helpless, watching through a crack in the bedroom door while—

No. Stop. Count something. Three screws, never two, never four. Three. Three. Three.

But the pattern isn't working. The careful structure I've built inside my head is crumbling, and all I can hear is the sound of a child apologizing for being hurt. For existing. For breathing while someone bigger decided to use them as a punching bag.

My hands won't stop moving—fingers drumming against the fence, counting and recounting, trying to find some rhythm that will make sense of the chaos in my skull. But every number dissolves the moment I reach it, scattered by the sound of Jenkins's boots on the stairs.