IRON DAUGHTER ▹ stark ✓

fifteen - breakdown

I nod slowly and my eyes burn as I quietly whisper, "O-okay."

She kisses my cheek before leaving the house and closing the door behind her. This is most certainly the last thing I want to do. Talk to my dad? How about, no. Somehow my feet start carrying me down the concrete staircase anyway. The glass doors are suddenly before me and I can see him now. He's leaning over his work table, working on the familiar red and gold suit. Probably patching bullet holes. I scowl before shaking my head slowly. No, I have to stay calm. Again I'll be mellow so he'll stay mellow. Well, hopefully it works that way anyway. I swallow hard, brush my tangled brown hair behind my ears, and type the passcode before stepping inside slowly. He glances over his shoulder and his face darkens before he looks back down to his suit.

So much for mellow.

I stand in the center of the room, feeling even smaller and feebler than I already am. He doesn't even look at me or say anything. He just keeps working. It somehow feels worse than if he was scowling at me, that he won't even give the time of day to glance in my direction.

"Dad, p-please just l-look at me," I stutter, thinking back to how I used to when I was a lot younger and was still learning to use my voice again.

"Can't. Busy. Working. Suit."

I squeeze my eyes shut, "J-just, please."

"Oh, I'm sorry, but I didn't think that was what this family does."

"Huh?" I peek my eyes open at him, confused.

"I thought we never listen to the other person when they say 'please'. Because of stubbornness or stupidity, who knows?" he still doesn't look at me, speaking in such a nonchalant manner.

"I was helping people, Dad, why is that so bad?"

Suddenly he's slamming the tool in his hands down on the work table before standing and stepping over to me. I hurriedly step back, stumbling on my own feet. I was wrong. I think I preferred when he wasn't even looking at me. His scowl is so much worse. It makes me want to run and cry.

"You know what they were going to do to you, don't you?!" he snaps, eyes fiery with rage, "Kill you or rape you, one of the two, probably both," my mouth falls open and I think I'm going to be sick, "If I wasn't there in that next second, that's exactly what would have happened! Can't you understand that?! Can you get that through your thick skull or are you just too stupid?!"

I flinch at his words, but I am too angry to stay quiet, "Stupid?! Me? You just knocked off a bunch of terrorists, not to mention the fact that you were nearly killed by the US military and,"

He cuts me off, "You think that what you did can even compare? I'm an adult and I'm also fully equipped to do what I just did, clearly. And you," he steps closer and my feet are glued to floor, "you are a small, little kid! You clearly can't even listen to simple instructions, and you can't, apparently, do anything that doesn't cause me some form of trouble! Sorry, but it's true! You don't even deserve to tell me off right now!"

"'I don't deserve'," I repeat his phrase, realizing how hot my face is and how much my eyes burn, "Don't you dare tell me what I do and don't deserve! Who are you to tell me anything, huh? You married my mother, ditched her when you realized that she was psycho, and you left me to her,"

"One day," he stares deep into my eyes, "one day that is exactly what is going to happen. Someone will take you. They will hurt you so badly that you wished that your mother had killed you that day ten years ago," my breath catches and I become aware that I am crying, "and then they will slaughter you. Your big mouth and your stupid, stupid, stupid decisions will get you killed and I'm going to have to suffer for it! No wonder," he stops suddenly and his face contorts in pain, realizing what that must have sounded like.