Gasping for breath, I struggled to drag air into my lungs, as my vision blurred for several beats before finally coming into focus.
My mother was standing in the middle of the kitchen.
My father had retreated several feet away from me, staring cautiously at the door.
Mam took one look at me, Ollie, and Tadgh huddling together on the floor and burst into tears.
Joey, who was frozen in the doorway, had a different reaction.
Dropping his gear bag on the floor, he lunged for Dad, spearing him to the ground.
"You fucking bastard," he snarled as he buried his fists in our father's face. "You dirty, fucking animal!"
Rearing back, he punched our father and then jumped to his feet.
"Hit me," he demanded, dragging Dad off the ground. "Come on, asshole." Shoving his chest, he gestured for Dad to punch him. "Hit someone your own fucking size."
"Joey!" Mam cried out. "Please don’t –"
"Shut the fuck up!" Joey roared back at her. "You are the most pathetic excuse for a mother that ever walked the earth."
"You little shit." Dad swung out with his fist and caught my brother's cheek. "I'll put manners on you yet, boy!"
"Did you see that?" Joey demanded, directing his question at Mam. "Did you see him hit me?" Dodging another punch from our father, Joey reared back and leveled our father with a fist to the face. "Can't you see what he's doing to your children?"
Blood sprayed everywhere.
Dad staggered backwards, collapsing on the floor, and Joey dove on top of him.
"Joey," I strangled out, clutching at my chest, feeling like my breastbone was about to collapse inside of my body. "Stop! He's not worth going to prison over."
Joey didn’t stop.
He just kept swinging.
"Get off him," Mam was screaming. "Joey, stop – you're going to kill him!"
"Good!" Joey roared as he straddled our father and continued to hit him.
His fists were moving so fast I could hardly keep focus.
"Joey…" Spitting out a mouthful of blood, I scrambled onto my hands and knees and dragged my broken body over to my brother, desperate to save him from doing something he couldn’t take back. "You promised," I slurred as I weakly tried to pull at his arm. Feeling woozy, I shook my head and tried again, forcing my hands to comply as I clutched his forearm. "You promised you'd never leave me."
My words seemed to register with my brother because he exhaled a defeated sigh and leaned back.
Nodding stiffly, Joey let his arms drop to his sides and climbed off Dad.
"Teddy," Mam sobbed, shaking her head. Clutching her stomach, she knelt alongside our father. "Oh, god, Teddy, what have you done?"
Numb, I scrambled back to where Ollie was sitting with his back pressed to the fridge, crying uncontrollably.
Tadhg on the other hand, was staring at our father with a terrifying look on his face.
I knew the look.
It was same look Joey wore.
"It's okay," I whispered, trying and failing miserably to comfort Ollie. "Shh, it's okay."
"I thought you were going to die," he sobbed, throwing his arms around me, and causing me to flinch in pain.
"Ollie," Joey barked, turning back to face us. "Go upstairs and get Sean."
"Why?" our little brother sniffled.
"Because we are leaving!" Joey stated sharply. "We are not staying in a house with that piece of shit a day longer."
Without another word, Ollie scooted out of my arms and bolted for the stairs.
"Tadhg," Joey said, grimacing when he noticed the look of hatred on our baby brother's face. "Go with Ollie."
"But I –"
"Please," Joey snapped, running a hand through his blond hair and streaking the tendrils red. "Go upstairs and pack your bags, kid."
Tadhg gave Joey a hard look before finally nodding and stalking out of the room.
Turning his attention to me, Joey walked right over to where I was slumped on the floor and dropped to his knees beside me.
"You're okay," he whispered in my ear, pulling me into his arms. "I'm here…I'm here, Shan."
Numb to the bone, I just sat there, slumped against his big body, my hands hanging limply at my sides, while my brother tried to comfort me.
My entire focus was on our parents.
"You're bleeding," Mam choked out as she dabbed at Dad's face with the sleeve of her jumper. "Oh, god, Teddy."
Her words caused Joey's entire frame to tense.
"Are you fucking blind?" he roared.
Swinging around to face them, he gently brushed my hair off my face and pointed to me.
"She is bleeding," Joey snarled, pointing to my face. "Shannon. Your daughter!"
"Shannon," Mam wept as she cringed in horror. "Oh baby, your face."
I didn’t care what I looked like anymore.
It didn’t matter.
Because my mother had just ended my world.
She went to him.
He beat us.
Terrorized us.
Tortured us.
And she went to him.
She chose him.
Our own mother.
"Don’t you dare 'oh baby' her," Joey snarled as he climbed to his feet and helped me up. With his arm wrapped around my shoulders, he walked me over to the table and lowered me onto a chair. "You're okay," he kept whispering, and I wasn’t sure if he was telling me this or himself. "You're okay. I'm here. I'm right here, Shan."
Grabbing a tea towel off the draining board, Joey returned to me and pressed it to the side of my face while I just sat there, staring across the room at the people who had brought us into the world.
"Shannon," Dad slurred, shaking his head as if he was waking up from a deep sleep. "I didn’t mean to –"
"Don’t fucking speak to her, creep!" Joey roared, taking a menacing step towards him. "I will kill you," he seethed, tone deathly cold and terrifyingly sincere. "Do you hear me? I will slit your fucking throat if you so much as look at my sister again."
Ollie, Tadhg, and Sean all hurried into the kitchen then with backpacks on their backs.
All three of them went straight to Joey.
Because he was our protector.
He was the reason we were all in one piece.
He was our hero.
"Now, here's how this is going to go," Joey growled, standing in front of the four us, shielding us from our parents. "Either you –" he pointed to our mother, "find some maternal instinct deep inside that cold fucking heart of yours and put that bastard out for good, or I'm taking these kids out of this house and they are never coming back."
"Joey," Mam sobbed. "I'm so sorry –"
"Don’t apologize," my brother spat. "Protect your children and put him out."
"Joey, I –"
"Make a choice, Mam," Joey snarled as he glared down at our mother. "Him or us?”
The End