I do not own any of the Twilight related characters. They are Stephenie Meyer's creation and I in no way intend any copyright infringement. I am sure she has a vampire army of lawyers and I don't want her to send them marching my way.

A/N: I don't have a beta reader and it has been years since I have had to put this much thought into grammar, so bear with me. Warning right now before you begin, this is a dark angsty violent tale with some OOC and AH. If that isn't your thing, steer clear.

Love and hopefully have fun reading,

Deelzebub

Home Is Where The Hell Is

Chapter One: Giant Slice Of Suck

June

Isabella Swan, your day just took a nosedive. I sit alone in my room forlorn listening to the lecture next door become an argument, become a shouting match. I know exactly what it becomes next; we have all been doing this same sick dance for years. I sigh dejectedly and lay my head on the desk. Please, please can he just remember that he loves us and walk away. One time can we be the normal family we try so hard to make everyone believe that we are. I wish I wasn't here. I wish I was anywhere but here or nowhere at all. Sometimes I wish I didn't even exist. Rarely, but once in awhile, I wish to die. I do my best to insure I am almost never here. I participate in every extracurricular activity I can, and if Forks High School had a larger budget I would invent more to join. Latin club, yearbook, newspaper, choir, green club, anything that meets after school. God, summer breaks bite; I have to get really creative to find excuses to be out of the house that don't raise questions. So far, this is shaping up to be the worst summer yet. That's saying a lot with our family's sordid history. It has barely even been a week since the last horrific episode.

"Rose, did you forget to do your chores today. I told you I wanted it done before I came home from the station." Dad says with an annoyed tone.

"And I told you when you said it that I had plans with Greg today and I wasn't doing it." Rosalie replies in a terse clipped voice. "I'm eighteen and don't have to toe your stupid line anymore. I'm out of here in seventy-four days. I'm out; I'm freaking done. You can't make me do anything; I'm not your slave and I'm not your property," she continues more irate as she speaks. "I had plans to go to the beach with my boyfriend and that's what I freaking did!"

"You're out of here if I pay your tuition. Maybe I won't do that, you ungrateful little bitch. As for now, you can kiss that boyfriend time goodbye because you are grounded for two weeks." Dad bellows.

"Oh, that's rich. Grounded. Wow, I've never heard that one before. You can say the big scary word all you want, but I'll go where I want, when I want, with whoever I want, and you can't stop me. You can take my stuff, you can threaten, you can hit me, but you can't watch me twenty-four hours a day and you can't lock me up in your pathetic little jail." She jokes with no humor in her tone, "Watch me."

"You'll goddamn do as I say; I am your father!" he growls loudly.

I could write the script for the remainder of their heated exchange before they said the words. It was the same fight tragically stuck on repeat, just fill in the blanks with the specific details of this blowup. It was always like this, some random meaningless thing that would set it all in motion. One snowflake landing on the wrong spot that starts the avalanche. My father would feel ridiculous if he ever stopped to ponder that he is brutalizing his child because she didn't do something as trivial as pulling weeds out of the flower beds. Then again, that would require him to feel anything besides blinding rage for once. The volume of their voices through my wall gets progressively louder. Here we go again. Here we go forever. I don't want to go again. I can't take much more of this.

My sister Rose suddenly releases a bloodcurdling scream as I hear her body collide with the bookcase in her room. The shared wall between our rooms vibrates under the impact. How hard did he throw a one hundred and twenty pound girl to make that much of a crash? I hear her continue to cry out as items from the shelf rain down from their perch. I am both frozen with dread and spurned to action simultaneously. My stomach clenches and heartbeat speeds up as I sadly and slowly stand up from my desk chair and open my door to face the giant slice of suck that is my home life.

I stand in the hall and play my role in all of this. I used to cry, to scream for it to stop, to beg and plead and tell him I loved him and we would all be good girls. It never helped and I stopped. I used to hide away under my bed, under a table, in a closet and wait until I heard silence or only muffled sobs to emerge. It didn't help and I stopped. Now, I'm too desensitized and numb to cry. I am a silent vigil, bearing witness to the carnage. My job is to observe and run to my phone if he goes to far and she needs an ambulance. Sometimes I wish he would do something that he couldn't cover up and hide. I feel so alone and utterly helpless. My father is the local police chief, he fishes every week with the local prosecutor, and his best friend from college is the state attorney general. Who do you turn to when the good guys are with the bad guys? Not that anyone would believe me anyway. My father is very warm and funny when he is around others. He is deceptively charming and one of the most beloved figures in town.

Her door is open and I see her on the floor surrounded by the books the fell off her shelf as she slammed into it. He dresser has been knocked askew of its place against the other wall. Rose doesn't have figurines or picture frames in her room anymore; they all broke many brawls ago. She has a large sturdy corkboard over her bed covered in pictures of her friends tacked up with pins. She decorates with posters, mostly punk rock bands and angry alternative rock; they're cheap and easy to replace when they get ripped down or smeared with blood. Although, he is usually careful enough not to leave noticeable marks on her or to draw blood. There is a point at which even he isn't lawless.

She is crying and glaring daggers at my father. Her pale face streaked with tears and mascara, crystal blue eyes bloodshot. She has always reminded me of a Valkyrie, an icy brave badass warrior. No matter how many times he hits her he will never conquer her. She has long blond hair and her tall frame is very thin but well muscled. She is uncommonly gorgeous and intimidates most people she meets either with her stunning looks or her queen bitch attitude. She doesn't scare Dad. He is across the room by her bed seething, but the purple rage of his face is beginning to fade as he calms. Her red pouting lips that drive every man and boy in Forks wild are set in a determined grimace. "Got to Hell!" Rose shouts venomously.

"Say that again and you will regret it." my father replies as he slowly stalks across the room glowering at his oldest daughter. His cold blue eyes squinted into hateful slits. His hand goes to his lightly graying dark brown hair in frustration. Frustrated that she won't obey him, bend to his will, let him control because that is all he craves. Control. At the end of the summer she is moving to college and he will not have nearly as short a leash on her. I think that is why this summer is so much worse than any time since the beatings began, he knows he is going to lose the reins soon. We will all drift out of his grasp year by year. He is a large man, broad shoulders on a six foot frame. He spends countless hours in the gym in the basement lifting weights. He likes to feel strong and have people fear him. How strong is a man that beats up a eighteen year old girl half his size?

"Go. To. Hell," Rose answers with victorious bloodshot eyes as she scratches him on the side of his arm with her long fingernails. Oh, dear God! Why can't she ever learn when to shut her damn mouth. Just when the whole thing is almost over, she just has to push his buttons and make everything a million times worse. I admire her spirit and resent it at the same time. I wish she could even once just keep her head down and let it blow over. Its just her normal infuriating nature. She was born a bitch. Never in her life has Rose met a conflict that she didn't relish putting herself in the middle of and escalating the hell out of it, the very definition of a drama queen. This terrible hobby of hers has only gotten worse due to years of abuse. If God loved me, he never would have put Charlie and Rosalie Swan in the same household. I wouldn't say they are oil and water because they just don't mix. They are potassium and water; putting them together causes powerful explosions. God clearly hates me. Charlie stands over her and clamps his huge hand around her thin arm viciously yanking her to her feet. She yelps and tries to wrench her arm out of his grip. He grabs her wrist and cruelly twists it higher and higher behind her back. She howls in pain begging him not hurt her more. Rose chokes one garbled sentence among anguished shrieks, "I hate you!" He is a monster.

Mom walks down the hall to stand beside me in Rose's doorway. "Let her go, Charlie. You'll break her arm." she says coolly, a frown on her delicate features, a arch to her left eyebrow. She is slim and youthful looking for fifty, with short honey blond hair cut in perky bob. She has just arrived home from the hospital where she is the hospital administrator. I don't know what happens to her to flip the switch, but my scatter-brained mother excels at her job. Somehow putting on a business suit and pearls transforms her into a super organized efficient person. Get her in jeans and a sweater and she'd lose her head if it wasn't attached to her body. My flighty, inconstant mother has swooped in to end this for now. To an outsider she would seem like a good mother, protecting her child. But, she wasn't protecting her daughter. Oh no, not my mom. She was protecting herself and her husband. Renee Swan is not a good mother. Yeah, I'll admit that she takes care of us when we are sick, and makes us food, and is generally warm and loving towards Rose, Alice, and I. I don't love her. I can't. Mom fails the most important test of a parent. She doesn't put the needs of her child before her own needs and wants. She doesn't tell him to stop out of care or compassion. She fears the exposure of our disgusting family secret. She fears losing the perfect family image she crafts. She fears losing position of stature in the community. She fears losing her loving husband to prison. He has never and will never hit his beloved wife. She loves him far more than she loves us. She is a monster too.

"Wash that make-up off your face, you look like a whore. Then get your ass outside. You will pull every weed in your mother's flowers tonight. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir." Rose hisses through gritted teeth.

"What was that?"

"I said yes, sir." Rose mumbles dejectedly.

Dad lets her go and glares at me as he exits her room and stomps down the hall towards the stairs. Panic rising in me, I yearn to be invisible again. I shrink away from his gaze and duck back into the relative safety of my room. I hear Rose cry for a few minutes before leaving her room to trudge outside to the garden. Feeling relieved that the fireworks are done for today, I turn off the light and climb into bed with my ipod. I stare vacantly at the ceiling, unable to cry. I'm fairly sure that I am permanently broken emotionally. I feel myself drifting farther and farther away from the rest of humanity. I survive by shutting down, but it is getting harder and harder to pry myself back open when I want to feel. Every time, the door to my heart stays closed a fraction more, not quite able to open as wide as it did the time before. I fear the day will come that it just won't open at all anymore. It's only 7:30, but I am so weary and eager for this day to be over.