One

JOJO:

Some moments shape the life of a person. Moments that can make or mar who you are, and who you forever will be. This was mine.

My mother held me in her arms and told me stories. A rare peaceful evening. We all wanted such a normal evening to pass in such a peaceful way.

But the sound of footsteps interrupted it all.

The door, with a bang, was thrown open.

Mom's hands were shaking as she held me.

His eyes did not meet mine. He was too busy frowning at my mother. The look in his eyes instilled fear in me. I tilted my head to stare at my mother, I saw the dread in her eyes too.

"What are you still doing here? I thought I warned you to disappear before I return?" My father barked at her. His voice thundered, resonating from the walls of the room.

My mother kept her head down in silence.

He was drunk again.

From the darkness, female fingers polished with red paint clasped my father's shoulders. He gently stroked the hand of this strange woman. I had never seen him touch my mother like that. I stole my gaze away from my father and fixed it on the woman. Brown eyes, shaped like those of a cat leered at me, filled with so much contempt. The coldness caused me to look away. I turned back to my mother, she rose to her feet, and my father's tall frame hovered above her.

"These little bastards are just like your wife, Jesse. She is as unattractive as you say she is." The strange woman looked provocatively at my mother and whispered into Dad's ear.

"Jesse, you're drunk." She said calmly,

"I may be drunk now, but I wasn't when I specifically asked you to take your filthy children away from my house!"

He threw her face to the right, I could hear my mother's neck snap - a soft, yet painful sound to hear.

" Leave me alone, woman! I've had enough of you in my house. Pack up your things and leave!"

She often said he loved her, but nothing was loving about the way he yelled at her. I think mom was just self-soothing and protecting us.

I hated him, and every time he brought his fist down, my hatred deepened a little.

"Don't hit my mother, you monster!"

"You little bastard." He shouted.

Mama wasted no time in snapping her neck back into place. The fear in her eyes could not be mistaken for anything else. She shook her head vehemently as tears streamed down her eyes. She subconsciously pulled me to her back and stood in front of him.

“No. You- The rest of her words hung midair when my father's hands gripped her throat firmly.

I peeked from behind her.

My heart skipped a beat.

"You are the reason. The reason why I'm in this strange city right now, hiding in another pack. The reason we're outcasts. I wish I had left you to the Alpha. I mean, he was in love with you and I thought you were worth the fight! How stupid. I regret it all. By now, I would have been great in the pack, but I chose to be stupid and lose all that for you, and what have you done for me in return, huh?"

"That's right, you have given me nothing but problems and two silly brats!" His voice continued to echo around the room.

Mama's cries were becoming inaudible again. I rushed away from her back and tugged at the hem of his shirt. With one swift move, he flung me away from his body, sending my back towards the hard wooden floor. I sprang up immediately, at a loss for both words and actions. I ran towards the strange lady.

The strange woman eyed me furiously and seized her two fingers from my tiny grip.

"It was our decision, Jesse, we made the decision together, I did not force you into it!" My mother cried out.

"Oh! So now you've got guts huh? You fucking whore!"

I clasped my palms against my ears, just like Mama said I should when I heard such words. But, when I saw him push her against the wall with great force, my hands dropped from my ears and I screamed as loud as my tiny vocal cords could carry.

My mother struggled in his arms but my father pulled her hair and dragged her to the ground with it. The cut on her lips and nose bled profusely.

Blood.

All that blood, gushing out of different parts of her body caused the room to spin around me. They did not stop; the bleeding did not stop. I stood there, helpless.

He lifted her off the floor again and drove his fists into her stomach.

One, two, three, four...

Soon, I lost count. I stood there, screaming my lungs out while he beat my mother like he was tearing open a rag doll.

"Valerie! JoJo hold your sister, I beg you!" She cried. Tears ran down her cheeks.

I gathered my baby sister in my arms and dashed off to a different room, away from the commotion. She was fast asleep and I wanted to watch from the comfort of that room and stay with Valerie as my mother had warned. But, I couldn't do it.

I rushed out to hold my father. I wrapped my tiny arms around his body, attempting to pull him away. I was no match for him.

He continued his battering, punch after punch to my mother's body without remorse.

No matter how many times he pushed me away, I returned to him with full force.

I used my teeth, my nails, everything my eleven-year-old frame could use to pull him off.

I wouldn't give up, and he knew it. He growled in fierce anger and grabbed me firmly by my arm, one swipe flung me to the other corner of the room.

The pain came immediately.

The scalding sensation on my left arm was too painful to ignore. He had thrown me directly at the boiler across the room, it flipped and rained the boiling content in it on my left palm, scalding there.

My arm was gone. I winced in pain and itched it, causing blood to flow from my hand while I wept. I had never felt this amount of pain before. Both physically and within me, I was hurting everywhere.

My mother staggered up to help me, but she didn't make it far before he gripped hold of her and flung her against the wall. When I saw her head crash against the concrete wall, time and space seized to exist.

She crumbled to the floor like a bag of nothing, and I knew that was it. That was the moment that would change my life forever.

The next sound to fill the room was the sound of my high-pitched screaming. I ran blindly towards her before I felt my legs being lifted from the ground, and my back being swung against the wall.

The world became quiet...

When my eyes opened, I allowed it to travel across the room. I sighed in recognition, I was in the hospital.

"She has developed a severe case of brain hemorrhage and her chances of survival is low." The doctor spoke carefully.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I wiped them off immediately after I saw my aunt approach me.

I wanted to ask her for my sister until I saw her strapped to my Aunt’s body. I watched in silence as she looked around, unaware of anything that had just taken place.

I held her tiny fingers and watched her smile at me. I swore that she would never go through this pain.

I promised to protect her with my life, against everything and anything.

We were all we had now.