Chapter 2 - The Desperate Phone Call
Lily threw her entire weight against her bedroom door, locking the brass latch with shaking fingers. She slid down the painted drywall until she hit the carpeted floor, pulling her knees tightly to her chest. Her pink knit sweater muffled the frantic sobs racking her small frame. In her trembling hand, she clutched the blue smartphone she had snatched from the hallway charging station. Her thumb hovered over the screen, dialing the only emergency contact she knew would answer, a number she had memorized from her grandfather’s strict instructions.
The phone rang twice before a deep, gravelly voice answered on the other end.
“Speak to me, Lily. Where are you?” the voice demanded.
Lily gasped for air, speaking in a hurried, terrified whisper.
“Daddy Grandpa, Daddy is hitting Mommy!”
On the other end of the line, Arthur Vance—the formidable patriarch of the Vance family—went completely silent. The temperature in the back of his sleek black town car seemed to drop twenty degrees. His grip on his own mobile device tightened until his knuckles cracked. Arthur stared straight ahead through the tinted glass at the highway signs indicating they were only three miles away from the suburban residence. The time for passive observation had officially expired.
“Listen to me very carefully, sweetheart,” Arthur commanded, his voice remarkably steady despite the fury boiling in his veins.
“Lock your bedroom door, stay away from the windows, and do not make a sound. We are pulling into your driveway right now.”
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The line went dead with a soft click, leaving Lily alone in the dark room with only the hum of the refrigerator leaking through the floorboards. Downstairs, the muffled sound of shouting grew louder and more aggressive. Lily covered her ears, rocking back and forth as heavy footsteps thudded up the lower hallway. Suddenly, the doorknob to her bedroom began to rattle violently, turning back and forth as someone tested the lock from the outside.
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