Twist of Fate

"You will give me money, or so help me god, I'll blow your brains out. And don't tempt me Sophie!" he threatened.

"I don't have any money! Buck deals with the money!" she blurted out.

"Oh, Buck deals with it? Well we'll just have to wait on Buck then, won't we? Move!" he ordered, pointing the gun into her back as he pushed her into the living room.

As they passed the busted front door, she peeked out and saw the pickup truck pulling up. Floyd, however, was obviously too busy shouting to notice anything that was not about him.

"You know you're an ungrateful little bitch. You know that, right? I've always done the best I could for you but you always wanted more. You are such a little brat. Must get that from your mother; she was the exact same. I was never good enough, I didn't work hard enough, I drank too much. That bitch was never happy, just like you. She thought she could just up and walk away from me with you, but I soon stopped her," he sniggered as he pushed her onto the sofa, waving the gun around.

"What do you mean 'but you soon stopped her'? I thought mom committed suicide?" Sophie asked.

"A fourteen-story swan dive will do that to anyone. She might have jumped, or someone may have pushed her," he grinned.

Buck was slowly creeping into the house as Floyd told Sophie how her mother really died.

"You killed her? You bastard!" she screamed, jumping up to attack him.

"Don't be so stupid, you little whore. I have the gun, remember," he told her as he pressed it against her chest at her heart.

"And tell lover boy to back away, or I'll shoot you. I saw him get out of the truck. You thought I didn't, but I did." he told Sophie.

"Please babe, just back up," she told Buck as a tear rolled down her cheek.

Floyd grabbed her and held her in front of him with the gun to her back aimed at her heart, and like that, he walked them back to the door.

"If you want to see her again, you'll get me money and get it NOW!" he demanded.

"Okay, just calm down Floyd. I'll get you the money. Just let Sophie go," Buck pleaded.

"I'm not that stupid, buddy, I know you've got money and lots of it. You're brothers with the casino owner, I mean, damn, you own half of it. You done well for yourself there, Kiddo." He chuckled and slapped Sophie's ass.

That gesture pushed her over the edge. She hated him. She always had. But until now she had also feared him, feared what he would do to her if she stood up to him. But that had always been a vague threat. Now she knew just how far he was willing to go. He might even be willing to kill her, his own daughter. But now that the threat took on a more solid form, he realized that she was no longer afraid.

Floyd was just a man. He had never been much of a father to her anyway; why should she fear or even respect him? He no longer had any authority over her, and the only power he had here in this room came from the gun in his hand. Take that away, and he would go back to what he had always been: a miserable excuse for a man who could not control even himself, much less someone else.

Rage overtook her, and without thinking, she turned to face him and grabbed the gun. She heard Buck yelling, but her focus was entirely on her father. She would take his power. He would never threaten her again. Sophie and Buck would be happy together, and Floyd would not come between them!

The air was ripped by the sound of an explosion. Sophie fell to the floor, staring at the blood that covered the front of her white dress. She looked up at her father, who wore a stunned expression. As she watched in shock, he let go of the smoking gun; letting it drop with a metallic thud off the wooden floor. His knees hit the ground, then he pitched forward and fell lifeless to the floor.

Sophie heard herself screaming. Buck rushed over to her and pulled her onto his lap, cradling her and rocking her back and forth until she calmed down. He held her there in the darkness for a long time.

The closed heavy draperies helped blanket the room in darkness. Outside the wind howled with its wolf-like voice. Just that sound made the house seem colder than it really was.

"Put your head down and rest,' he whispered. "You know you want to. Things will be better in the morning, I promise. Everything always looks different in the light of day."

He hated lying to her, but if it could give her at least a little peace in this blackest hour, it was worth it. Things would not be better in the morning. What had happened here could not be undone. As he looked at the blood covering her, he knew that her life was coming to an end.

But that was for the best, after all. Buck had paid off the debt, and Floyd's blood on her dress was witness to the fact that she had just sent him where he could never harm her again. With nothing left to tie her to her old life, Buck intended to give her a new one, far away from the abuses inflicted upon her, far away from the horror she must feel at having just killed her father.

That horror would not go away in the morning; it would take her a long time to forgive herself. But one day perhaps, when she finally realized how much Buck truly loved her, when she learned to believe her heart, she might trust him when he told her that none of this was her fault. He would not stop trying to convince her until she believed it.

He lifted the weeping girl into his arms and carried her outside to his truck to drive her away from this life and into a new one.