Email: asamoya_
Disclaimer: Sadly, this is mine.
Author's Notes: I didn't originally mean for this to be continued, and I still don't really want to write any more, but I realize as well that it has sort of a cliff-hanger ending. I might write a sequel or I might not. Depends on REVIEWS *nudge nudge*. Anyway, this one actually came from my own fits of temper... based on something I probably would have done if I'd let my temper get the better of me. Luckily for the kid, I don't... but all the same...

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One Small Child

"So what was that all about?" I ask. My voice is not unpleasant. Really, I am making an extraordinary effort to be patient. Otherwise I know that I will get no response from the small form before me, this young girl sitting across the room from me.

"Nothing." The child's word is short, curt, with not even a glance in my direction. Involuntarily, I can feel the anger start to churn inside me. The child does not know how close she comes to breaking all the barriers I have worked so hard to put up.

"You must have called her for a reason," I reply, trying to keep the angry edge from my voice. "You wouldn't have called for nothing."

The child gives me a surly look, as if I don't even matter. Her mouth remains closed; she does not speak again. The rage is swirling within me now, the silence eating away my patient cover.

Finally I cannot take any more. I stride across the room, my feet thudding on the hardwood floor, and she looks into my face, the fear and dislike beginning to show for the first time.

"What did she say?" I say, loudly, harshly.

"Nothing!" the child says. She, too, is beginning to get angry. But I will win... oh, I will win this battle yet. I am twice her weight and almost twice her height. It is impossible for me to lose.

"WHAT THE HELL DID SHE TELL YOU?" I scream.

"NOTHING!" the child roars back, the crossest expression that I have ever seen a person wear on her face. It's too much. I reach out a hand and strike her across the left cheek, with all the strength I can muster, and the child cries out shrilly, beginning to wail and sob. I feel no pity for her. My rage has taken me over; this rampage cannot be stopped.

I grab her arm and yank it violently, pulling her off the couch, causing her to crash onto the hardwood floor with a loud THUD. She continues to sob, and attempts to get up, tries to escape. But I will not have that. I hit the child again, even more violently. She wails, she cries, she pleads, but she cannot stop me. I will win. I will win, god damn it, and I will have my way once and for all. She will never be disobedient again, not after what I will do to her.

I haul her up by her shirt and look into her bruised, puffy face with a trickle of blood running down the cheek I hit. The eyes are scrunched up in agony, bloodshot, the face completely red from screaming. I look into those tear-filled blue eyes once more, and her fear overcomes her.

"No! Stop! Don't... don't... " The shrill yell echoes on the bare walls, and she dissolves into a fit of tears once more.

Suddenly something strikes a chord somewhere inside me, and all at once, a strange compassion comes forward for this child, battered and bleeding in my hands. I lower the shirt, lower her until she is lying on the hardwood with her face in her hands, crying, and I turn away from this horror that I have created. I, too, begin to cry; the tears flow freely down my cheeks as I marvel at the sheer horror of what I have done. Hitting a child... child abuse... words and images flash through my brain, and all at once, I realize just what my temper has condemned me to. I cannot look at the girl. I, too, bury my face in my hands.

The doorbell rings.

~*~