The minute Dalton walked through the front door and shrugged out of his jacket I I immediately tensed, biting into my bottom lip to stop the slight quiver in it.

"Hey." Dalton greeted, hanging his coat. I watched in silence as he crossed the room and kissed me gently. The smell of weed and alcohol still lingered heavy on him. Seeing something he didn't like in my expression, his eyes started to darken. "What now?"

"Nothing." I whispered, more to myself than him. "Just had a long day."

He snickered. "Such a long day of lying on the couch and looking at a textbook every few seconds. Oh, my bad, maybe tending to our daughter every couple hours. How strenuous for you, having to be a mother."

I swallowed the retort that burnt the back of my throat and started to turn back to Danni between us on the rug.

"You don't know exhaustion, Harley."

I nodded in agreement, too tired to try and argue. "Yeah, you're right, sorry."

"Really?" he snapped so harshly that Danni flinched. I straightened slightly, eying him in confusion. "Don't give me that look. What's with the attitude?"

"I don't have an attitude." I responded softly. "Do you want me to get the shower running for you?"

He shook his head and disappeared down the hall, but I shouldn't have expected peace and relief. As soon as I crouched down to pick up Danni, he strode back into the room with my duffel bag, and worse, the white envelope of money I'd hidden under the mattress of Danni's toddler bed. "What the fuck is this?"

I immediately shot to my feet, my left hand against the small of Danni's back, my right buried in her dark blonde hair as she hid her face in the crook of my neck.

"What is this, Harley?" his voice rose. "Do not make me repeat myself again."

Unfortunately for him, I wasn't going to oblige and give in. Unfortunately for me, that was my biggest mistake.

Without a single care that our three year old was in my arms, he dropped the bag and envelope and stalked across the room and in one swift movement hit me hard across the face. So hard, in fact, my head slammed into Danni's. She immediately started crying, her nails digging into my shoulders.

"Put her down." Dalton snarled, inches from my face, eyes dilated and pulsating. Knowing it'd be for her safety, I lowered myself in a crouch and rested my phone in her hand, and without a word, she ran from the room and to the safety of her own. I didn't even have enough time to exhale in relief before Dalton pulled me to my feet. He was so close his nose was brushing my own, but a once loving action had become terrifying and I clenched my hands into fists at my sides, bracing myself for the inevitable hit, both verbal and physical, that was sure to come any second now.

"Are you trying to leave?" he growled. "Are you trying to leave me, Harley?"

I refused to stare into those eyes, and knowing this, he took my jaw roughly between his index finger and thumb and forced it. "You're not going anywhere."

I looked from Dalton to the hallway, my heart plummeting when I saw Danni was in the shadow of the hall, her entire body shaking.

"Let me go." I breathed. "Let go, Dalton."

He tightened his grasp. "Where'd you plan to go? To that piece of shit you've been fucking behind my back?"

I didn't even bother to satisfy him with an answer, as I was rarely outside of this house, but it wouldn't have mattered regardless, because he dropped his hand from my chin and shoved me hard back toward the front door. "Answer me!"

I shook my head. "I wasn't–"

He didn't give me a chance to get a full lie out and locked his hand around my throat, cutting off all oxygen.

"MOMMY!" Danni's cry pierced through the still room, igniting the little will I did had to fight back. I started to claw at his hands to no avail. "Mommy!"

Fortunately, just as I was starting to fade out, Dalton dropped me to the ground like a ragdoll and turned on his heel. He started toward our daughter quickly, and within a second had slapped her mouth so hard that she hit the dryer behind her. Despite my vertigo and nausea, I managed to stand and moved toward them, and just as he lifted his hand again, I locked my fingers around his wrist.

"Shut the fuck up, Danni!" he growled as our daughter wailed as loud as her little lungs allowed. Feeling the heat radiating off his body, I all but dove to act as a shield between him and our daughter. "Shut her up!"

I turned and touched my hand to my daughter's tear stained, rosy cheek. "It's okay, baby. It's okay."

It wasn't okay and I nearly started sobbing as I watched blood trickle from her little nose and onto her top lip. I started to pull her into me when I felt Dalton move behind me, for the door. I knew it was too hopeful to pray he'd walk out the door. Instead he locked his hand around the nightstand and sent it across the room at us, screaming, "Shut her up! Shut her the fuck up!"

It wasn't until the screaming intensified again that I saw the chair had nicked her jaw and more blood was starting to muddy the bottom half of her face.

"Go to your room!" i ordered her, feeling the heat of her father's eyes on my back. "Go to your room and lock the door, Danielle! Now!"

Dalton's eyes immediately widened, but my little girl listened this time and ran for the room. I heard the door click then a few seconds later lock, but it didn't stop Dalton. He started slamming his fists against the door. "Open the door, Danielle!"

I tried to regain my footing, but the first time I collapsed back to the carpet, the second I managed to stand with the help of the dryer. "Dalton, stop!"

He retreated from the door, but in the action a fury lit every inch of his face. I started to back away. I didn't make it far before i tripped over my own foot and hit the ground so hard a sharp pain shot up my spine and my head hit the ground and left me disoriented for a minute. Dalton was momentarily satisfied and returned to our daughter's door to try and reason with her.

"Danni, baby, please open the door. It's Daddy."

I willed myself to stand, to protect my baby until my last breath, but i couldn't move.

"Danielle, please don't make me break down this door!" he started to slam his shoulder into the wood. I heard a scream somewhere in the ringing in my ears and I crawled my way to the kitchen. To my relief, Dalton hadn't noticed and was still too busy trying to bust into the bedroom not try and consider what I was doing. What he had planned to do to our daughter, I didn't know or want to find out. I dug through the knife drawer and clutched the hilt of our sharpest knife before easing my way back down the hallway.

Just as I entered the hall again, he managed to break the door down and Danielle's screaming was so ear piercing I took off in a run for the room. He was kneeling before her, shaking her as he had me minutes prior and screaming in her face. When she didn't do anything but continue to cry, he smacked the side of her face, and with the way he was continuing to shake her, I was afraid it'd kill her. I crept across the room, seeing I had the advantage he hadn't heard me enter after him, I drove the knife into the back of his neck. He immediately dropped Danni and spun, eyes wide and fearful, as he tried to extend his arm behind his back to retrieve the knife.

"Run, Danni!" I ordered. "Run!"

She darted past both of us for the open door. Dalton rushed at me with the knife, but I ducked and it spun under the bed. Not risking the time it'd take to retrieve it, he grasped the lamp beside the crib and started bashing it into my right temple until I saw red.

"You stupid fucking cunt!" he shouted in my face. "This is all your fault! All of it!"

I extended my arm, blinking rapidly as the man over me doubled. My fingers finally curled around one of the pieces of the ceramic, but it slipped through instantly. As he brought the lamp up once more, no doubt his kill shot, I drove the sharp edge of the ceramic into the side of his neck. He dropped the remnants of the lamp and fell onto his ass, clutching at the piece lounged deep in his neck. I rolled onto my stomach and with doubled vision and vertigo, ran for the living room.

Danni was turning the doorknob on the front door, but because it was deadbolted and way out of reach, nothing was happening. Hearing me, she turned, and relief washed over her little features, however muddied with blood they were. I hurried for her, swept her into my arms, and unlocked the deadbolt. I could see her mouth moving and that she was still screaming and pointing at something over my shoulder, but I couldn't hear her. I didn't need to. I ran out the door, down the stairs and froze in the parking lot. Police lights started to enter the lot, but that wasn't what my eyes found first, but my best friend leaving her car, still running, in the middle of the lot and rushing straight for us.