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Lily's POV

VERY IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE END!

The knocks came a lot sooner than I thought they would. They were loud and they scared all of us except for Zak. He rose from the couch, leaving Avaya and I naked without his arms wrapped protectively around us. He glared at the door where the knocks were increasing in volume. They were being accompanied by yelling and profanities. I covered Avaya’s ears.

“Zak…” I pleaded, begging him to come back to us. If he left it alone Matt would go away. He would leave us behind; he’s done it before. I was too scared to let Zak face my demons.

“Go to the bedroom, hide Avaya underneath my bed and stay there with her. Don’t come out until I come get you.” Zak said quietly, still watching the door.

“Please…”

“Go, Lily, now.” Zak gave me one look out of the corner of his eye and I had no choice. I ran down the hallway to his bedroom and shut the door behind me.

“Mommy what’s going on?” Avaya asked, looking up at me with shining eyes.

“Shh, baby we have to be quiet,” I whispered, brushing back some of her hair. I ushered her underneath Zak’s bed and she peered out at me in fear.

“Mommy, I’m scared…” she whimpered.

“I know, baby, I know,” I could hear Matt’s voice now mixing in with Zak’s. “I’m scared too.”

I pulled out my phone and dialled 911 to report what was no doubt about to go down outside that very bedroom. They wanted me to stay on the line but I couldn’t. I just told them to please hurry and I hung up. The call had provided me with some security, but I was still perturbed about the storm brewing outside.

“Is daddy gonna hurt Zak?” Avaya suddenly whispered as a tear fell down her tiny cheek.

Something in me hardened at the thought of that. “Not if mommy can help it,” I argued.

The voices were escalating into savage screaming. I bent down and kissed Avaya’s forehead and stared into her eyes, capturing her attention.

“I need you to listen to me,” I whispered urgently. “Remember how you said you could count to twenty?”

She nodded.

“I need you to stay right where you are and quietly count to twenty, alright?”

“What happens when I get to twenty? Mommy, I can’t count higher than twenty.” She sobbed.

“Just keep going, sweetheart, it doesn’t matter. Do your ABC’s if you have to. But no matter what, promise mommy you’ll stay right where you are. Do not come out for anything until mommy comes in to get you, understand?”

She nodded again. “I love you, mommy.”

I choked up a bit hearing those words. They were very important in this given moment and I savoured them coming from her.

“Mommy loves you too, sweet pea. I’ll be back soon.” I headed for the door and as I was closing it behind me I could hear Avaya silently counting.

Carefully, I crept back down the hallway. Matt had pushed his way into Zak’s house and neither of them noticed me as I stood just outside the living room, watching them. They were circling one another like lions, glaring and spitting words. It was all very surreal for a moment. I didn’t want this to be my reality but I knew from the second I fell for Zak that it was going to boil down to this. And now I had to defend him from my mistakes, because there was no way I was going to let my past hurt him the way it’d hurt me.

I wasted no time invading their face-off, stepping between them. They both stopped what they were doing and looked at me, but I only had eyes for Matt. I glared up at him with as much cruelty as I could muster.

“Leave him alone,” I snarled.

“Lily, go back to the room,” Zak urged from behind me. But I ignored him.

Matt laughed in my face. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he said. “You think you can intimidate me into walking away from this? You were always an empathetic idiot, Lily. Besides, you should already know I’m not afraid to toss you aside.”

Flashbacks of violent beatings flared up in my head. My body ached for a split second and I winced, faltering just a little, before regaining my strength. I shook my head.

“I’m done being thrown around by you,” I said. “You’re a worthless piece of shit.”

I spit in his face. I’d wanted to do something along those lines for so long. It felt great to see him blink in confusion. This wasn’t Zak’s fight, it was mine. And I could fight it just fine.

“You whore!” Matt screamed, raising an arm to bring the pain down on me.

I grinned sadistically at his fist, the same one that had given me bruises and scars years ago. I shut my eyes and braced for impact. I wanted him to give me a proper excuse to kick his ass. But nothing came. I felt the airflow kick up as it was disturbed by my face but that was all. So I opened my eyes to see Zak shoving Matt’s fist away from my face and using his own to send Matt staggering back into the wall with a hand on his eye. I looked over at Zak to see murder in his blue eyes. It looked like no matter what I wanted, I wasn’t going to be fighting this battle alone.

Zak rushed Matt and started to literally kick him while he was down. “You…piece…of…shit,” he spat between blows, “What kind of…cowardly…fuck…beats a woman?”

Matt was groaning and yelping in pain for a few minutes and for a second I thought we might have won just like that. But then he reached out and grabbed Zak’s fist, yanking it towards him so Zak smashed into the wall head first with a loud crack that disturbed the picture frame hanging close by. Matt uppercut Zak hard in the gut and pushed him back by connecting his fist with his face. The onslaught progressed for a painfully long time before Zak straightened out and started to fight back.

Suddenly I remembered that I existed and my feet weren’t rooted to the ground. I snapped into action and jumped into the muddle of angry, tense bodies. I clawed at Matt’s neck and back, yanked out strands of his hair and tried to gouge his eyeballs out with my fingernails. I was doing anything I could to hurt him, to get him back for all the times he had hurt me. I was starting to feel pretty invincible, matched with Zak’s muscle on my side. So I guess that explains why I wasn’t expecting it when a thick arm wrapped around my throat, gagging me and yanking me away from Zak.

My eyes were bugging out of my skull and I was clawing at the arm that was practically choking me. I could barely feel the floor beneath my feet, having been hiked up onto my tiptoes. My invincibility was wiped out like writing in the sand at high tide.

“Lily!” Zak rushed for me but Matt tightened his grip, making me choke loudly.

“Don’t come closer,” he spat, “or I’ll break her fucking neck.”

“You wouldn’t,” Zak said, shaking his head.

Matt laughed in my ear. “Please, I clipped this birdie’s wings a long time ago. I’m not afraid to hurt her.”

“You’re a fucking monster!” Zak yelled. His voice shook the walls and sent a cold chill down my spine. I hoped I never had to hear him yell like this ever again. It was unsettling to see him like this. I was scared of him. “She’s the mother of your child for god’s sake!”

“Yeah that’s right, my child,” Matt growled. “It doesn’t matter how many times she calls you daddy. That’s my daughter, not yours, you gothic juicehead wannabe.”

“Zak,” I mouthed, doing anything I could to catch his attention. I started scraping the tip of my shoe against the floor and he finally looked at me so I could continue my soundless message. “I called 911.”

He gave me an almost imperceptible nod, and kept his eyes trained on Matt.

“I’ll end you before I let you hurt her,” Zak snarled through clenched teeth.

“Too late, Romeo,” Matt said. “You’ve seen the marks I already left. She’s mine, and those scars are my signature. I’ve already hurt her and you weren’t there to save her then, so you won’t make the slightest difference now.”

Zak’s eyes flicked to the window and he smiled quickly. “We’ll see about that.”

Then it all kind of happened at once. I heard the front door bust open and I was released from my stranglehold, flying straight into Zak’s arms coughing and spluttering. Cops swarmed the area and had Matt in handcuffs. Clearly they’d seen all they needed to see.

In all the madness, I felt Zak’s fingers on my face, inspecting me. I looked up at him into those blue eyes that had been so frightening just a moment ago and were now so tender and worried and I melted. I felt at peace. I felt safe, loved, and at home. That was all I’d ever wanted to feel.

“I love you.” It was my second time saying it that day. Not only had Zak just shown how much he cared about me, but also how much he cared about my daughter. I loved all the things he never let anyone else see. And I loved them so much that I didn’t even feel foolish or scared telling him that. It was the truth.

He looked relieved to hear it, like he was worried I might not love him anymore after seeing him get so violent. “I love you too.” He breathed, quickly dipping down to kiss me deeply. It was so easy, so perfect in that moment of chaos, and it was because of Zak. All my fear and all my pain was gone thanks to him.

“Where’s Avaya?” he whispered.

“I’ll go get her, you’re bleeding. Go out and get fixed up; we’ll come to you.” I kissed the cheek that wasn’t bleeding and ran back down the hallway to retrieve my daughter.

She was singing her ABC’s in a hushed whisper beneath Zak’s bed. I helped her crawl out and took her in my arms, hugging her tightly. She was worried about her dad and Zak, and for a second I was completely stumped on how to explain what had just happened to her. How does one tell their five year old daughter that their biological father and her mother’s boyfriend had just got into a violent fight in the front room? I sugar-coated it to the extreme and said that her daddy was going away for awhile. Of course he was going away for a long while if I had anything to do with it. This fight was enough to push me to the courts now. I’d had enough.

We got outside and the police standing there had us answer some questions before we could go see Zak, who was sitting in the back of an ambulance as a paramedic tended to his cuts and bruises. I said that yes, I was going to press charges, and I told them Matt had a violent history especially with our family. I actually felt better, getting some of it out to the authorities. They seemed to be firmly on my side, anyway. All I really needed to feel better at that moment was Zak, though. So I was relieved when we could go and see him. Immediately Avaya hurdled into his arms, causing him to wince, but he smiled and kissed the top of her head as she hugged him.

“You’re hurt,” she said into his shirt.

“I’ll be okay,” he said. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

“Zak…” My voice was really nothing more than a croaky whisper. I didn’t know how to thank him. I felt bad, honestly. I felt like I’d forced him into that because all this time I’d known it was going to happen. I felt like I didn’t warn him properly. I was crying and I was a mess and a terrible person but he was still looking at me like I was some sort of blessing from the heavens with that tiny smile on his face. He had cuts on the bridge of his nose and his lip and a quickly darkening bruise under his left eye but he didn’t stop looking at me that way.

“Are you okay?” he asked tenderly.

I nodded, trying to rid myself of the pesky tears. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” I hugged my arms around myself tightly, trying anything I could to keep myself together.

“Are you?”

I shook my head. “No…”

Zak hiked Avaya onto his hip and stood up, using his other arm to bring me close. And I lost it right there in his chest, sobbing and gasping for air. I’d been so scared when Matt had his arm around my neck. I couldn’t help but think what if he actually killed me? What if he snapped my neck before the cops arrived? What would happen to Avaya? I’d never be able to see Zak again. Nothing hurt my heart more than imagining life without my daughter and my boyfriend. They were both my entire world. So I cried for imagining my death, and I cried for Zak sacrificing so much to keep me alive. I cried for my daughter, who had dealt with so much and didn’t understand any of it.

Zak rubbed slow circles on my back as I cried and I could hear Avaya softly sobbing right next to me. I looked at her and reminded myself that damn it, I was a mother. I was scaring my baby girl. I wiped my tears and kissed hers away.

“Shh, don’t cry baby,” I whispered. “It’s okay now; we’re all going to be okay.”

“Lily Manning?”

I turned around to see a police officer with kind, sympathizing eyes looking at me.

“Y-yes?” I stammered.

“We just want to ask you a couple more questions, if we could…”

I was gripping Zak’s shirt for dear life and I didn’t want to let go, but the cop was waving me over. I looked up at Zak and he urged me forward, so I slowly released him. My hands were shaking so terribly and I didn’t even realize it until I wasn’t holding Zak anymore. I took a few steps and the shaking seemed to spread to every other part of my body. Soon the world was beginning to tip from side-to-side.

“Miss Manning? Are you alright?” The police officer asked, rushing to my side and putting a hand on my back.

“I’m fine…I’m fine…I’m fine…” I was hyperventilating, something I did every time I had a panic attack. I’d gotten them often after Matt, and I guess they hadn’t gone away like I thought they had.

“Lily…?” Zak was walking up to me cautiously with Avaya still clutched to his side.

“No, no, no…I’m fine…please…” I couldn’t breathe. The world was spinning now.

Everything started moving so fast as the reality of what had happened really began weighing on my shoulders. And then suddenly everything was black and I felt the earth slip out from under my feet. The only sound that echoed in my head was Avaya’s tiny voice screaming before I lost consciousness.