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“Yes?”

The word caught in my throat.

Charles pulled the meat out of the fridge and examined it in his hand. My heart was pounding in my chest and I turned my head so that I could see Tommy. He stared at me coldly and shook his head. If I told Charles the truth I had no idea what Tommy would do. I remembered the cold metal of his knife against my neck and I remembered him leaning over me at the top of the stairs.

“When we left this morning there was more than this in the fridge,” Charles told me. “You wouldn’t have any idea where it would have gone, would you?”

I opened up my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I just shook my head from side to side. Jimmy was leaning up against the kitchen counter and I took a quick look over at him. His eyebrows were furrowed and his knuckles began to turn white as he gripped the counter.

Charles threw the meat back into the fridge and slammed the door shut. I jumped as soon as the door shut and I bit down on my lip to stop myself from letting out a yelp.

“You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?” Charles barked.

“No,” I said shaking my head violently.

“You’re doing it again? You can’t be serious?”

“No!” I shouted out. “I promise I haven’t.”

“Don’t shout at me.”

I couldn’t stop myself from shaking my head. I looked over at Tommy again, but it was useless. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was shaking his head, like he had no idea what he had made me do. I looked over at Jimmy to see his jaw hanging open.

“Julie-.” he began to say.

“Punish her,” Charles ordered him.

“What?” Jimmy asked. “I can’t hurt the baby.”

“Just because she’s pregnant is not an excuse to let her get away with this,” he told him. “You don’t have to get near her stomach to teach her a lesson. We are all having to ration this meat and she goes ahead and eats it all. We’re the ones doing all the work and protecting her and she’s abusing that. You have to punish that girl, James.”

“Jimmy,” I started to whine. I didn’t want to get punished because of Tommy. It wasn’t my fault. I was just as hungry as the rest of them.

“Stop it, Juliet!” Charles shouted at me. I looked to see his face become red. Tommy was biting on his lip to stop himself from smirking. He loved to see this happening to me. “James, get out your knife.”

My eyes were burning and I could feel my warm tears start to roll down my cheeks. I had my back to Charles so that I was facing Jimmy.

Please. I mouthed. I couldn’t say anything without Charles hearing it. He was so angry and I was afraid that he would take it into his own hands and punish me himself.

“Come on,” he told him.

“Dad-.” Jimmy started to protest.

“Hurry up and teach her a lesson!” he barked. “You need to punish your girl, so do it.”

Jimmy nodded his head and I could feel my knees shaking. He started walking towards me and he reached into his pocket to pull out his pocketknife. I shook my head violently and covered my belly with my arms.

“Jimmy,” I sobbed. The tears continued to run down my face and I kept shaking my head. Jimmy reached out and grabbed my arm.

“Julie, stop crying,” he barked at me. It scared me to hear Jimmy sound so much like Charles. He pulled the sleeve up on my sweater and flipped out the blade to his knife.

“Please,” I dragged out the word. My knees crumpled underneath me and I fell to the ground. My arm was still in Jimmy’s grasp and he tightened his grip around my wrist.

The cold metal from his blade was pressed against the skin next to my thumb. I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a stop. I continued to beg and plead for Jimmy not to, but he completely ignored me.

He pressed the blade down into my skin and I screamed out in pain. I closed my eyes, but I continued to cry. I felt the blood start to drip off of my hand and I knew that if I watched it that it would hurt even more. He dragged the blade down my hand and ended up pulling it down my arm. I continued to scream out in pain.

The pain never seemed to end. I was surprised that Charles wasn’t yelling at me to shut up. He must enjoy watching his son hurt me like this.

Once Jimmy let go of my arm, I completely crumpled up onto the floor. I kept my eyes closed and I pulled my arm close to me. I could feel the blood begin to seep through my sweater and it caused a shiver to run up my spine. My arm burned and I continued to sob out in pain.

“Go to our room,” Jimmy told me coldly.

I shook my head as the tears came pouring out of my eyes. I stumbled to get back up onto my feet and my head began to spin. I took a few steps forward and then tripped over my own feet. I came crashing down onto my knees and I put my bad arm out to stop myself. I screamed out in pain as I put my weight onto my fresh wound.

Jimmy grabbed my arm and heaved me back up onto my feet. I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand and headed for the stairs. I didn’t dare look back at Charles or Tommy.

I grabbed the banister of the stairs with my good arm and hurried up the stairs as quickly as possible.

“Try not to get blood on anything!” Charles yelled up the stairs.

I ran as quickly as I could into our room and went straight into the bathroom. I took a deep breath and looked down at my arm.

The blood was dripping off of my arm and onto the floor. A clean slice guided its way from the base of my thumb all the way down to the middle of my forearm. Just seeing it caused it to burn even more.

I opened up the cupboard underneath the sink and pulled out one of the ragged towels. I pressed it up against my arm and watched the blood stain the green cloth. I took in a sharp breath and sat down on the cold tiles of the floor.

I tried to press the towel hard against my arm, but it was too painful and caused me to cry out in pain. I closed my eyes and continued to sob. I knew there was blood in the kitchen and drops of blood trailed my way up the stairs and into out room. I would spend all of tomorrow scrubbing that up, but I couldn’t let that bother me now.

I was crying so hard that I didn’t hear Jimmy come into the bathroom. I jumped when I felt him slide his arm around my back.

“Shush, it’s okay,” he whispered to me before pressing his lips up against my check.

I shook my head and pulled the towel off of my arm. Jimmy got up off of the floor and opened up the cupboard behind the mirror. He pulled out a bottle of something and another towel. He sat down in front of me and poured some liquid onto the towel.

“This is going to sting,” he warned me as he pulled my wounded arm out in front of me.

“What is it?” I asked quickly.

Jimmy didn’t answer me and started to rub my wound with the towel. I gasped out in pain as it managed to burn even more. I bit down onto my lip until I tasted blood. I continued to cry as the pain was intense and horrible.

As soon as Jimmy was done I went to pull my arm back towards me, but Jimmy grabbed it and pulled it back out towards himself. I struggled and tried to pull it free, but his grip was too tight and caused it to hurt even more. I stopped and took in a few deep breaths.

I watch Jimmy as he took another, already blood-stained, towel and pressed it up against the wound. He took out a roll of gauze and began to wrap my arm up. My breath was ragged and I tried to stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks.

Once he was done wrapping up my arm he got up off of the ground. He leaned down and picked me up off of the ground. He curled me into his chest and I continued to sob. Jimmy carried me over to the bed and carefully placed me down. He pulled the blankets up over me and tucked me in.

Jimmy jumped over me so that he was on the opposite side of the bed. He threw his arm over my belly and pulled me closer to him. He left his hand open over my stomach.

“You know I love you, right?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I croaked.

“Tell me it,” he told me.

“I know you love me.”

“Good girl,” he said leaning over and giving me another kiss on the cheek. He wiped away a few of the tears with his fingers. “You love me?”

“I love you.”

The throbbing pain kept me awake all night long.