Some debts aren’t settled with apologies—they’re paid in blood.
Writer’s Prompt
Cari didn’t ask what happened. The plum-colored ring around Emma’s left wrist and the split lower lip that wouldn’t stop weeping told the whole story.
Twenty-five years evaporated in a heartbeat. Cari didn’t see the tired, thirty-two-year-old woman sitting on her floral sofa; she saw an eight-year-old girl in red pigtails clutching an empty lunch sack by the school swings. Those two boys back then had run home with busted noses and cracked ribs. Cari hadn’t hesitated then, and she wouldn’t now.
“Drink your tea,” Cari said, keeping her voice soft, level, and entirely devoid of the fury scorching her veins. “Rest here. I’m going to go talk to Carl.”
“Cari, please,” Emma whispered, her voice raw, trembling as she reached out a shaking hand. “Don’t. He’s twice your size. He’s been drinking since noon, and he has a gun in the nightstand. Just let it go for tonight.”
“Nobody touches you,” Cari replied, kissing Emma’s cold forehead. “Nobody.”
Five minutes later, Cari sat in the idling front seat of her car outside Carl’s house. The front porch light flickered, humming under the humid dusk. Through the sheer living room curtains, she could see his heavy silhouette slumped in the recliner, a bottle dangling from his fingers.
On the passenger seat beside her lay two distinct options: her father’s heavy, steel-jawed tire iron, wrapped tightly in black electrical tape, and Emma’s spare house key.
Cari cut the headlights. She picked up the key, slid the heavy steel beneath her coat, and stepped out into the gravel drive.
She climbed the porch steps, the wood groaning beneath her boots. Carl’s front door stood unlocked, cracked open an inch into the dark hallway.
Cari pushed it open.
The porch light hums, the door is open, and Cari has crossed the threshold. What happens when the living room door closes behind her? Tell us how the story ends in the comments below.
