Free Shutter by Courtney Alameda Page A

real.
    You can’t save anyone. Not my brothers. Not my crew. Not myself. Something inside me snapped like a cable. A smart girl would’ve shut her mouth, but I’d left off being Daddy’s perfect little girl the day we buried my mother and brothers.
    So I said, “You never forgave me for what happened. Or maybe you never forgave yourself because you never found the people who infected her. How’s that for not being able to save anyone?”
    Darkness coiled in his eyes. He stalked toward me.
    My nerves sparked. I held my ground. “I wish I’d died, too, rather than be stuck here with you—”
    He lifted his hand and slammed it into my cheekbone, cobra-quick. Something cracked in my neck, sending a shock down my spine. The blow hammered me to the floor. I didn’t have time to process the pain. Flashbulbs popped through my vision and my equilibrium sloshed between my ears.
    “Never say that again,” Dad said, shuddering, his face gargoyled and ten years too old. He held out a hand to help me up—the same hand he’d used to strike me.
    I scrambled backward, putting several feet between us, using the wall for support as I got to my feet. My legs trembled, threatening to spill me back to the floor. Every breath hurt, inflaming the hole he’d torn in my heart.
    I thought about calling him monster ,
    About screaming screw you ,
    I wish it had been you, not Mom, because I did.
    But I wiped the blood off my mouth and said, “I’m not your punching bag, jackass.”
    Dad’s grimace turned into something so feral, it sent a sharp spike of adrenaline through my veins. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me from his office. I twisted my arm and fought him, dug in my heels, but Dad outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds. He took me into my room, pushed me into my bathroom, and shut me inside. On the other side, I heard metal shriek. The doorknob jerked hard and hit the carpet on the other side with a thump.
    “What did you do?” I grabbed the knob, turning it right, left, but it stuck to my hand and refused to turn. “Dad!”
    A crash shouted back at me, the clamor of glass cracking and metal denting. It sounded like one of the shelves in my room had collapsed and—
    My cameras.
    “Stop!” I threw my shoulder into the door, but it trembled and held fast. Another shattering wave reached past the door and peeled a layer off my composure. I hit the door again, pounded it with my fists, while Dad conducted a cacophony outside. I kicked the door by the knob, it held; he threw a camera or a lens against the wall, and the thud ebbed through the door and floor. I shouted, “ Don’t! ” A crescendo of broken glass erupted, my voice a high, shrieking coloratura over it all.
    When it was done, my bedroom door creaked and the lock clicked, imprisoning me twice.
    Putting my back to the wall, I sank to the floor. A sob bubbled up in my chest, but I looked at the smiles cut into my palms and remembered what I’d promised myself. No crying . Square breathing, four seconds in. Hold four. Four seconds out. Hold four. Repeat. Ten cycles—that’s all the time I had for self-pity.
    I pushed off the ground, rinsed out my mouth with a handful of water, and looked up into the mirror. Thunderclouds massed and darkened under my right cheek, purplish-red and shocking. The mark spread from the crest of my cheekbone to the corner of my mouth, already stiff to the touch. My gorge rose—my father hit me. Sure, it happened in training before, but I hadn’t been prepared for the hit or had time to think about the fall. Cheap shot, Dad. Next time, aim for the knockout if you want to keep me down.
    Taking a pair of nail clippers from a drawer, I stuck the file between the door and the knob plate and began to pry. Times like these, I wished I’d listened to Jude’s lessons on lock picking and could use a bobby pin to mess with the tumblers; but I hadn’t, so brute force would have to do.
    I twisted and turned the knob, cursing, gaining