Here's My Hand (There's The Itch)(Daerin Version)

Chapter 1: A Light in the Dark

Notes:

TRIGGER WARNING: depictions of physical and emotional abuse, blood, injury, and anxiety attacks

Go to your room."

The calmness of Devil Marsh tone belied her chilling gaze, and Danielle's glare faltered-only for a split second, but long enough for her mother's eyes to glitter in triumph.

The young werewolf longed to retort, to scream in indignation at the haughty tone, to buck up against the juvenile demand. But she didn't. She couldn't. Because once again, fear wouldn't let her.

Crippling, debilitating fear of what was always to come when her mother told her to go to her room.

It was absurd how such a simple command could so easily make the eighteen-year-old go rigid with terror, almost like no time had passed since she'd first learned what followed those harrowing words.

Danielle's heaving breaths from their argument turned shallower, shakier, and in a fleeting moment of petulant bravado, she shoved herself up from the table and bolted up the stairs, not even turning back when she heard the chair thud against the kitchen floor.

Danielle!" came Devil sharp tone, but Danielle was already halfway up the stairs, adrenaline pumping through her veins, clogging her ears, clouding her vision.

She barely registered making it to her room and locking the door behind her-not that that would help anything, she knew all too well, but old habits die really, really hard.

Her breaths came in rapid, disjointed bursts, her body trembling so badly she could hardly stand up. But she refused to sit. No. She wouldn't be caught sitting, curled into a pathetic ball when her mother got up here. She'd experienced firsthand on many occasions how much more humiliating it was that way. Danielle wanted to look strong, not weak. She was a fucking blood moon werewolf. Surely, if it came to it, she could take her mother in a fight. She just had to stand up to her. She could do it. She was going to do it. She wasn't a little girl anymore, she was a fully grown werewolf. Surely, she could do something as simple as stand up to a bully. That was all her mother was-a bully. And no matter what, Danielle wouldn't let her make her feel weak. Not again, not ever again-

Devil's footsteps at the bottom of the staircase made Danielle heart leap in her throat, and anxiety swirled in her stomach as she steeled herself, fists clenched and shaking by her sides, breathing now devolving into full-on hyperventilation.

She could do it. She would.

Her bedroom door gave easily beneath the fury of Devil Marsh, and it swung open, slamming loudly against the wall. Her mother stood in the doorway, features deceptively placid; her only tell being the hatred that burned bright in her eyes. Danielle suppressed the terror that rose in her chest at the familiar sight, only backing up an inch before remembering her resolve.

She wasn't afraid anymore. She wasn't.

"Sit down, Danielle."

Instant nausea swept through her, and her shaking intensified. But other than a slight lift of her chin, she didn't move.

Devil cocked her head, an incredulous smile stretching across her face as she closed the distance between them in three swift steps.

It took everything in Danielle's power to not flinch.

"Sit down," she repeated.