Izzy Moffit's Road to Wonderland (Road to Wonderland Series Book 1)

by James, Victoria L.

  “Seventeen years ago, your mother went through hell to have you,” he snarls in total disgust, leaning closer to my ear to make sure I know every ounce of venom he has inside of him is for me and me alone. “And you couldn’t even say thank you to her before you had to leave the house. You couldn't get out of here quick enough. Did you think this day was all about you? Did you think you could get dolled up, go put yourself about before breakfast and no one would know? Are you a whore, Isabella? Is this what you’ve become? Is this what your mother has turned you into?”

  Inside I’m dying. The little girl in me is cowering in a corner, unable to breathe or speak. Somewhere along the line, the father who once loved her and showed her the odd display of love and affection has ended up hating her with such fire that physical abuse is no longer enough. He has to resort to tearing her apart inside, too.

  “Answer me!” he snaps, his fingers tugging my hair once more, forcing my eyes to open and my nostrils to flare unintentionally.

  “I am not a whore,” I croak out through my strained throat.

  “If it looks like a whore, acts like a whore and smells like a whore...” I can hear the evil smirk on his face. It makes my stomach twist.

  Then it begins to happen - the thing that I’ve always feared the most begins to set in: the red mist. I always knew it was there, lurking in the background. My father runs through my blood and deep into my bones, whether I refuse to acknowledge that as a truth or not. Panting hard, my chest begins to rise and fall at a rapid rate and my skin ripples with anger from the top of my head down to the very end of my toes. I can’t control it. I can’t stop the rage that erupts as my eyes fall on the cowardly face of the woman who birthed me. I’ve lost all clarity and I’ve lost all sense of rational thought. All I can think about is hurting this guy and hurting him hard. Even though I know I can’t, I have to try.

  A lazy half smile creeps upon one side of my face as I twist my head in the grip of his hand, my hair turning tighter causing more pain to shoot through me. Raising my brow, I begin to speak before the little girl inside me even has time to blink.

  “Wait, isn’t that why you called me Isabella, Daddy? So I could grow up to be just like the whore you named me after?” I gasp. “Maybe one day I can take off with a married man and fuck him for fourteen years, too.”

  It’s not even a second later before I fall backwards to the floor and feel his foot land hard against my ribs, not once, but twice. My whole right side erupts with a pain so bad that it knocks every ounce of oxygen out of me and leaves me gasping, unable to inhale any air at all. I’m scared I’m going to choke on the bile that’s rising in my throat. My eyes are popping as I curl onto my side into a ball to try and make myself seem smaller, invisible somehow. My head rolls to try and shake the black that’s threatening to creep in.

  Everything’s moving around me. The room’s off balance, all sounds now replaced with a harsh ringing in my ears. I’m almost afraid this is going to be it and that my time has finally come to an end. I can’t breathe and if I ever manage to, I know the pain of inhaling will be even worse than the agony I feel right now.

  I try to put it off until my brain wins the fight against every other part of my body, forcing my mouth to open even wider and gasp a heavy bout of oxygen back into my blood stream.

  The sound of my father's boots walking around me makes my face scrunch tighter. Every step he takes sounds like an explosion going off in my head.

  “You disgust me,” he practically spits.

  All I can do is try to control the wave like motion my head has adopted as my neck loses all strength to keep it in place. Lifting his foot, he slams his heel down against the hard flooring before trapping and crushing my face between that and the tip of his boot, pressing down on my skull. It starts out light at first, but the weight gets heavier and the pressure more intense as he starts to crush the side of my face beneath the sole of his shoe. The pain the rest of my body is in fades away as every drop of blood I have seems to rush to my head in a bid to keep me alive.

  His low, gruff voice blares down at me in that tone of his that’s designed to be nothing less than threatening. “Consider yourself lucky it’s your birthday, otherwise it could have been a lot worse. No daughter of mine will disrespect their mother. No daughter of mine will be known as the village slut. And no daughter of mine will ever, ever speak to me that way without repercussions.” There’s a brief pause before he speaks again, the temporary silence allowing me enough time to try and regulate a pattern of breathing that doesn’t involve me choking on the blood that’s invaded my mouth. “Go get yourself cleaned up. Put some cover up on your cheek in case family surprise us with a visit, and if anyone asks you why you can’t walk, you make up a sports injury. Do you understand?”

  My eyes roll into the back of my head as I try to answer him, but there’s no chance of words forming whilst the pain grips me tighter than ever before. Just when I think I can’t hold on any longer, he drags his foot away from my cheek and nudges my chin with it like I’m nothing more than a lump of wood on the floor.

  I’m not sure how to feel when he eventually walks away: relief that it ended there, shame that I’m lying on the floor like an injured animal, despair that I want to get up and move, but can’t, fear that he will change his mind and come back to finish me off… but mainly heartbreak; heartbreak that my own mother didn’t even try to stop him. Not one single word of protest as she watched him drag her daughter across the floor like a feral dog. All those times I’ve held her, comforted and supported her. All the secret trips to the hospital, all the lies I’ve told to save her face and make sure nobody outside these four walls knows what she chooses to live with day after day. All those times I’ve jumped in front of her and protected her from his fists, all those times… and for what?

  “You brought that on yourself.”

  I can’t even bear to look at her when she eventually speaks. I try so hard to croak out some words. “W...w…” but nothing comes.

  “You think you can take him on, but you can’t. He is your father,” she whispers.

  My body heaves up a bark of a cough and I try desperately to clear my mouth of the blood that’s collected there. The rage that flows through me over what she is saying forces out a hysterical choked snort of disbelief. “You… ch-chose… him. Not... n-not… me.”

  “If you don’t curb your attitude, Isabella, he will kick you out.”

  “And… you’ll… let him?”

  “He would have good cause and I wouldn’t have a choice. He pays the bills here.”

  I grip my ribs as gently as I can and try to stretch out my legs slowly, resting my head back on the floor in an attempt to open up my airwaves some more. “Maybe… that’s…” Fuck! It hurts to talk. “Maybe that’s what… you both… want.”

  My mother doesn’t respond. The quiet just seems to grow and grow and grow and grow. Her silence says more to me than anything. Suddenly it’s not my ribs that hurt the most, but the giant crack that just tore through my heart.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say with your father in the next room.” Her feet slowly pad towards me, my eyes flickering open to see her crouching down in front of me. “None of this was necessary today,” she says in nothing but an accusatory tone.

  “It’s never necessary,” I growl as a fluttering of red mist starts to creep its way back inside.

  Her hands run themselves over my body with the first sign of tenderness and love that she has shown me since I fell through the front door. I don’t know how she manages to do it, but in one slow, yet fluid, moment and in no time at all, I’m sat upright in her arms. The pain is everywhere. It needs a new word. Pain just doesn’t seem enough. I’m at the point of no return, and I’m not sure if it’s the physical injuries that are causing it or the fact that I’m already realising I'm about to walk away from my family for good.

  She pulls herself away as gently as she can, rising to stand tall, leaving me crouched down bene
ath her with nowhere else to go.

  “I should go back to the kitchen,” she says softly, before turning herself around and walking away from me like there’s not a hair out of place on my head.

  “Will you always love him more than me?” I manage to shout out, the words sounding hoarse and strangled as they escape the back of my throat in a hurry. “Have… have you always loved him more than me?”

  This is the final test. I’m waiting for her to prove to me that there’s something there, that I mean more to her than he does - that I mean anything at all. I hold my breath when she falters, pausing briefly in her step and dropping her chin to her chest. Is this the moment she’s going to say it? I imagine the words falling out of her mouth:

  Don’t be silly, Isabella. You’re my daughter. I love you more than anything else in the world. One day, you and I will escape him. I'm just waiting for the right time. I need you safe.

  But the longer I wait, the longer the silence drags out, the more I know I’m not going to hear anything of the sort.

  “Go do as your father says. I’ll check on you in an hour. I would suggest a hot bath, also,” she answers robotically. “Happy birthday.” And then she walks away, her body fading out at the end of the hall as she makes her way back into the kitchen to carry on with her god-awful life like it’s the most normal thing in the world for her to be doing, while her daughter sits crippled in the hallway.

  I’m not sure how long I sit still for. Time seems frozen, like I’m trapped in a bubble of confusion, incredulity and agony. I’m seventeen years old and for the first time in my life, I’m alone in this world. My parents have just shown me that it’s time to move on. I can’t live in this house any longer. I won’t become a downtrodden and beat up woman who is too scared to face the world. I won't become another Cath.

  Standing proves more difficult than I could ever have imagined. Every bone creaks, every muscle aches and it takes all my strength to focus as I somehow manage to drag my broken body up the stairs to my bedroom. My mum said she would come and check on me in an hour. One hour I have to make my escape.

  Somehow, in that time, I manage to pack a small bag full of the most important things in my life, including pictures, clothes and my portable CD player. My hand shakes as I attempt to write my parents a note. How does a teenage girl do this? How does she put into words how disappointed and hurt she feels? How does she tell them that while she craves their love, the endless suffering is just too much? In the end, all I can manage is:

  It’s over. Don’t ever come for me or I will call the police. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough for you. Iz x

  Taking one last look around my bedroom, I take a small, steady breath, close the door on my old life and limp my way downstairs, gritting my teeth as hard as I can to try and endure the agony that rips through me.

  As I quietly make my way through the hall and slide out of the front door, I wait for the tears to fall. I wait for the fear to burn me inside out. I wait to feel anything, anything at all, other than numb. The gate creaks as I pull it closed and allow myself to glance up at the house. This is it. This, right here, is where I take control.

  Without giving it a second thought, I hitch the bag up further on my shoulder, clutching at my side to try control the pain. Then I do it... I start to walk away, my feet limping slowly down the street as I go in search of the one thing I need when life gets too much. I go to find my safety, my support and my real family. I go in search of the one person I should have run to a long time ago.

  I go to Paris.

  Eight

  the same day…

  I'm standing at the back door to her home, one hand clinging onto my backpack, the other holding me up against the wall of the house. What's normally a ten minute run was actually a fifty minute journey from hell. The harsh February cold has gripped hold of every sore spot on my body and is squeezing it tight. My skin shivers from the icy temperatures, causing my ribs to throb as though they are going to collapse. Maybe they already have. I can't be sure. Every breath I take feels like razor blades entering my lungs and burning fire leaving them.

  I don't remember knocking; it's why my eyes are staring at the floor when she opens the door and sees me stood there all lifeless and limp, my head hung low, my face blank.

  “Mav?” she croaks.

  I can't answer her. I can't respond the way I know I should. I can't even raise my head.

  The sound of her slipper meeting the outside porch lets me know she's moving closer. But still there's nothing.

  “Mav, what's wrong?”

  The smarting of my cheek is all I can concentrate on. It's not the same kind of pain as a punch. They're more concentrated, more direct. To survive a fist makes you strong. The adrenaline of it all almost outweighs the pain. But a slap - that humiliating palm meets skin moment - that’s nothing short of degrading. The feeling of shame throbs only to taunt me.

  “You're scaring me,” she whispers softly.

  I want so badly to talk to her, to reassure her everything's going to be okay. But I just can't get the words past my lips, not until I feel a heavy tear eventually roll down one cheek and into my parted mouth.

  “I think we might have to cancel the party tonight.”

  “Okay,” she breathes.

  “I don't have people's numbers.” My brows scrunch tighter together as I stare into nothing.

  “I do.”

  “That's good.” I swallow, nodding slowly. “I knew you would have. You're... you.”

  She takes another small step closer. “He... Did he...? On your birthday?” she asks quietly.

  “There's no reprieve from him.”

  I hear her small muttering of bastard even though she tries to hide it from me.

  My head rises slowly at the same time another tear falls. I want to move towards her, have her hug me or hold me in some way that will provide me with nothing but comfort and warmth, but I can't move. Standing still has frozen me in place. My back’s bent, my body leans, my chest sags and my head can barely hold itself up.

  I'm broken. He finally broke me.

  “Paris?”

  Licking her lips in worry, she tries to steady the obvious anger that's rising in her body, but I still hear the tremble in her voice. “Yes, Mav?”

  “This is the last time you will see me like this.”

  “It better be,” she chokes.

  “I promise you.”

  “Promise yourself.”

  “I already have.”

  Her hands reach up to my arm as she carefully removes the heavy backpack from my shoulder and throws it over her own.

  “How bad are you?” she asks nervously.

  The sound of her hidden worry hurts more than anything else. It’s always the same. I come to her when I’m in pain to try and find some relief, but in the end, I just end up feeling worse. I know I shouldn’t do it, but I can’t seem to stop. This is the place that makes me feel safe when everywhere else has left me feeling cold.

  Straightening my back, I try to stretch my body and stand as normally as I can. The pain has spread into the middle of my spine, and I know enough to know that it’s the cold that’s making it seem worse.

  “Good enough to feel able to walk and not want to cry anymore, bad enough to walk away from my parents for good and decide never to go back there again,” I say through a strained voice, my lip trembling as the reality of what I have just done sinks in.

  Her eyes widen instantly. “You left home?”

  I nod weakly in response.

  “For good?”

  “Forever,” I say slowly, my jaw flexed tight as I try to stop myself from falling apart.

  “What will you do?”

  “I-I was hoping I could…” Shit! I can’t say it. I can’t ask her or her family for a free ride, but I know she knows that’s what I’m here for. Paris knows me better than I know myself.

  It’s hard to miss the slight tug on her lips. What I have just said will be music to her ears. She�
�s been begging me to run away for years. You’ll always have a place to stay with me, Mav. It’s a single sentence and one that probably bears little significance to most people out there. A sentence a lot would say to someone just to provide a temporary moment of relief. To me, though, it’s been a lifeline - something I have clung to as a truth because I always knew she would take me in. I know this moment has always been on the cards for me.

  Now it’s here, I only wish I’d done it sooner.

  “Come on. Let’s get you inside. I have something to show you.” Her smile is too bright given what I’ve just told her, but I have no energy left to argue.

  “Okay,” I whisper as my feet begin to shuffle through the back door behind her. I try so hard not to hiss or whimper with every step I take. If I make too many protests of pain, she will only worry more. Me being here is enough worry for her.

  “Can you walk up the stairs?” she asks as she looks back over her shoulder.

  “Are you kidding? I could run a marathon right now.”

  Paris drops my bag at the bottom of the staircase, but she doesn’t wait for me as she begins to head upwards. She knows my pride won’t allow her to help me.

  I make it to the top of the hallway, my body tired, but the need to survive and beat this strong. I catch sight of my best friend's face as she stands outside the Hemsworth's spare bedroom, her hand paused on the doorknob as she tries to hide that smile of hers again.

  “What’s going on?” I pant through heavy breaths.

  She doesn’t say anything as she gently pushes it wide open and gestures for me to go inside. My frown almost hurts as I begin to walk through, my whole body tensing instantly at what I see inside.

  I’m stunned. I’m speechless. I’m convinced I must be dreaming.

  Her whisper tickles my ear. “Welcome home.”

  Snapping my head back to her, my eyes widen with disbelief.

  Nodding back into the bedroom, she gently guides me further inside. My hand flies to my mouth as the tears threaten to fall. I’m surrounded by all the things I love. The room has been decorated in all my favourite colours. The single bed is covered in a black and white duvet, one with musical notes and handwritten scribbles decorating it in a perfect pattern. Posters of my favourite bands hang above the bed, and there’s shelf after shelf of books. Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, The Bronte sisters… every one of my favourite authors lined up in perfect order. A small CD player sits on a nightstand with my favourite albums laid next to it. And there’s a wardrobe with my name scrawled across the top in a beautifully painted script.