Family Comes First

Chapter 41: Knock on the Door

 I knew that this moment was eventually going to come, but Charles discovered the missing meat sooner than I expected. Jimmy raised an eyebrow as he looked over at me.

"Tommy made me cook it," I said.

"This lying needs to end," Charles said. "Tommy is sick. There is no way that he would have eaten it."

"He's not actually sick," I said. "He's faking it."

"I don't believe so."

"He is!"

"Do not shout at me."

Jimmy put his hand on my shoulder. I took a step so that I was behind him.

"Punish her," Charles told Jimmy.

"What?" Jimmy asked. "I can't hurt the baby. Plus, you said it was my choice whether or not to punish her."

"Now she's not only lying," he said. "She is now being disrespectful and she ate the remaining bit of meat."

"I can't hurt the baby," Jimmy said.

"Just because she is pregnant is no reason to let her get away with all this," Charles said. "You don't have to go near her stomach to teach her a lesson. We are all having to ration the meat, and she goes ahead and eats all of it. We're the ones doing all of the work and protecting her and she's abusing that. You have to punish that girl, James."

"Jimmy," I started to whine. I did not want to get punished because of Tommy. I was just as hungry as the rest of them.

"Stop it, Juliet!" Charles shouted. I looked past Jimmy's shoulder to see Charles' face growing red. "James, get your knife."

"Dad-" he started to say.

"Hurry up and teach her a lesson!" he said. "You need to punish your girl, so do it."

Jimmy let out a deep breath and reached into his pocket. I started crying as I watched him pull out his knife. I held my arms against my chest and shook my head. Jimmy turned around and walked toward me with his hand out.

"Julie, stop crying," he said. His voice was stern and sounded a lot like Charles'.

He grabbed my wrist and held out my arm. He rolled up the sleeve of my sweater. He flipped out the blade of his knife.

"Please," I dragged out the word.

My knees crumpled underneath me and I fell to the floor. My arm was still in Jimmy's grasp, and he tightened his grip on my wrist. The cold metal was pressed against the flesh on the inside of my arm. I begged and pleaded for Jimmy to stop, but he did not listen to me.

He pressed the blade down into my skin and I screamed. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the tears continued to roll down my cheeks. He made three deep slashes into my arm.

The pain never seemed to end. I was surprised that Charles was not yelling at me to shut up. He must enjoy watching his son abuse me like this.

Once Jimmy let go of me, I crumpled on the floor. I kept my eyes closed and pulled my arm against my chest. The blood soaked through the front of my sweater. My arm burned as I sobbed in pain.

"Go to the bathroom," Jimmy said.

I stumbled as I got back onto my feet. My head spun as I hurried into the bathroom.

"Try not to get blood on anything," Charles said.

The blood was dripping off of my arm and onto the floor. I looked down at the three wounds, and seeing the damage to my flesh made me cry even harder. I opened up the cupboard under the sink and pulled out one of the ragged towels. I pressed it up against the wound and watched the blood stain the green cloth. I took in a sharp breath and sat down on the cold tile floor.