Not Like Your Demons

Chapter 1

This is a converted story. I just had to convert it. Originally a glee story, and Quinn is so innocent, so pure.

But this story is very dark as well. The warning are in the summary. The original story only has 12 chapters. I hope I know how to continue by the time I get there. But here you guys go.

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Lauren Jauregui's hand shakes a little as she turns the doorknob to get out of her room. She's messed up again - she knows that for a fact - and she isn't exactly thrilled to face her father's wrath this early in the morning. Or any time of the day, for that matter, but especially not this morning when she still has the rest of the day to face and worry about.

She swallows the bile that rises in her throat and braces herself. The journey down the stairs seems more like a journey to hell than to her parents and her knees feel weak at the mere thought of going down and what's going to happen when she gets there. But she knows that she's just fuelling her father's anger by keeping him waiting and so despite the violent thumping of her heart she decides to just deal with it.

Michael spies her from his seat on the dining table the moment she reaches the last few steps of the staircases, his relaxed expression immediately turning into a stony one. The fact that she messed up again is confirmed when her father somberly wipes his face with a napkin, stands up and slowly makes his way to her. It's like a shadow is creeping towards her instead of a man, filling the walls with darkness and making her feel exceedingly, extraordinarily small.

The look on his face is so stoic and yet so menacingly feral that she would have taken an instinctual step backwards if she hadn't known that doing so would only result in much worse punishment.

Clara - the matriarch - sits still on her usual spot at the table, her back towards her family. Only the defeated slump in her usually perfect posture betrays her awareness of the events that are about to transpire in her home once again.

"I-I'm sorry, S-Sir," Lauren whispers shakily even before Michael can verbally confirm her transgressions and she casts her eyes downwards, absolute shame seeping through every pore of her being. She's always making a mistake and she can't really blame her father for punishing her. She knows not meeting Father's eyes will only result in further repercussions, but right now she's too frightened and ashamed to even do that.

Michael does her the favor of forcing her to meet his eyes by pulling on her hair and twisting her head so her terrified emerald orbs are on his merciless brown ones, making her blooming headache intensify. He tugs again - this time even harder - and Lauren purses her lips to stop herself from whimpering. She knows from experience that making noise just makes her father angrier, his punishments harsher, the pain more unforgiving.

"What time are you supposed to get up," he hisses, some of his spit landing on her face. She doesn't shy away from her father's ire even if she desperately wants to - it's another thing that's forbidden in the Jauregui household in such situations.

Through her dread she is temporarily distracted by the wafting smell of bacon, and it would have been funny if it wasn't extremely terrifying. This is another one of her father's favorite torture tactics - depriving her of food for several meals, then making sure that the food her parents eat can be smelled all throughout the house, an inescapable reminder of the pleasures screw-ups like her don't deserve to have.

She feels the hunger pang in her stomach as she swallows her own saliva. She hasn't been allowed food since yesterday noon and that plus her blooming fever is making her slightly dizzy.

Another tug on her hair pulls her attention back to her present predicament.

"F-five o'clock, S-Sir," she answers. She lost the privilege to call him daddy years and years ago. Rightfully so. He'd never used his right to play that role, himself.