Knocked Down

Trigger warnings: abuse, death, murder, suicide, drugs, cutting, depression

Kylee leaned against her bedroom door, her heart beating erratically. Even from here, she heard Bill swearing and yelling in the living room. She squeezed her eyes shut. Why was he still going on? He should have forgotten about her by now.

“Please stay in the other room. Please stay in the other room,” she chanted to herself. She glanced down at her throbbing arm, noting the small rivulet of blood collecting in the corner of her elbow.

Her mom’s shouting mingled with Bill’s, and something large crashed into a wall. The single-story house rattled as Bill’s thundering footsteps approached.

“Kylee!” he roared, the full extent of his fury echoing in the one word.

She whimpered. Her eyes landed on the chair scooted against the wooden desk next to the closet. She lunged for it, intent on propping it under the doorknob like she had so many times in the past.

Barely had she vacated her spot by the door before it banged open, slamming into the opposite wall with its force. Kylee shrieked and spun around.

“I’m sorry,” she sputtered, her hands splayed out in front of her for protection. “I should have stayed out of it. I—”

He cut the rest of her apology off with a left hook to her jaw. Kylee stumbled backward and went down to her knees. She hadn’t seen that coming. Bill was angrier than usual.

“What did I—” she began, but this time his punch knocked her into the desk. A searing pain lanced through her forehead. The sudden instinct to flee powered through her limbs. She had to get out. Bill blocked the exit to her room, which left her window as the only retreat.

Kylee shot forward, putting all her effort into getting to the window before Bill could get to her.

But he was faster. His hand closed around her ponytail, whipping back so hard her head spun.

“No!” she cried as Bill grabbed her shoulders.

“Shut up,” he said.

“Let me go.” She squirmed under his hands. “Please.”

“I said shut up,” he said before slamming her head into the floor.

All Kylee got out was a small groan before blackness claimed her.

---

The sun dipped low behind the Virginia trees, casting long shadows over the crumbling steps where Kylee sat. When the sleek black car pulled into the driveway next door, she barely moved—until the moving truck followed behind it, rumbling like thunder through the quiet neighborhood.

No one had lived in that house in years.

She sat up straighter, brushing a strand of hair from her face. A man in a suit stepped out of the driver’s side, his voice sharp as he barked directions to the movers. They unloaded box after box, but it was the house that caught her attention again. That beautiful, white-washed colonial at the end of the gravel drive, so full of history it made the air taste older.

Next to it, her house looked like rot made visible—peeling paint, a roof that bowed in the middle, weeds curling around rusted-out tires. No one built million-dollar homes next to people like the Mansfields. And no one stayed long if they did.

She turned, glancing through the mesh of the screen door. Her stepfather’s voice spilled out from the living room, slurred and bitter. Her mother’s reply was barely audible. Kylee didn’t need to hear the words. She knew the rhythm of that conversation by heart.

Her stomach twisted.

She stepped off the porch, bare feet brushing the overgrown grass, just as one of the movers called out—and then he stepped into view.

He wasn’t dressed like the others. No suit, no uniform. Just a charcoal hoodie pushed up to his elbows, dark jeans, and the kind of expression that said he’d rather be anywhere else.

Still, he moved like someone who was used to watching—his eyes tracking everything, taking in the details she thought no one ever noticed. They locked eyes for a second too long.

Kylee froze.

He didn’t smile.

But he didn’t look away, either.

And for a reason she couldn’t explain, her pulse kicked harder against her ribs. Not out of fear. Out of something else. Something alive.

She turned quickly and started back toward the porch, her heart thudding like it had just woken up.

Whoever he was, he didn’t belong here.

Which probably meant he wouldn’t stay.

But still—he’d looked at her. Really looked. And for a girl who’d spent years blending into silence, that felt like the first flicker of something dangerous.