Author's notes: I think this is the first time I actually posted notes! Anyway, thanks to all those people who went and reviewed/favourited/followed, you guys are awesome!

I was actually really nervous posting this chapter for some reason. I have this feeling you lovely readers would be really unsatisfied with it and stop reading, but oh well. Here it is. Don't be too harsh on me when you go to write the negative reviews(which so far I haven't received! :D)

For the next few days, nothing happened. And the brat acted like nothing ever happened too. I hadn't heard the shouting voice from downstairs ever since.

It was infuriating watching him paint like usual, that bruise still clear on his face. But the painting was almost finished now, and he seemed happy about it. I watched from a shadowed corner as he dabbed at the mouth with red paint, carefully making it darker and darker where the shadows deepened. I lifted my gaze up to see his face - brows furrowed with concentration but happiness still evident in those green orbs. His hair looked soft too, swaying a little from the light breeze coming in through the window behind him, and I felt like pouncing on it and pulling.

I don't get the chance though, because suddenly, loud footsteps thundered closer and the wooden door was wrenched open.

"Eren." An unfamiliar looking man snarled, holding up a thoroughly abused piece of paper. "Explain these marks."

"Dad." Eren visibly paled and stood up shakily, letting go of the paintbrush he had been holding absentmindedly, and I watched it fall onto the floor to leave behind a dark red smudge.

"Explain to me NOW." I faintly realise that this was the voice I had heard shouting the other day, and I unconsciously cringe further back into my corner.

Was he the one that put that bruise on the brat's face?

"That…that was because you tore up my essay on the day of the submission-"

"Oh, there you go again. Everything's all my fault isn't it? Right? You worthless piece of shit." He raised his fist, and I watched with wide eyes as it connected with Eren's cheek, sending him crashing down onto the floor.

The man, apparently Eren's Dad, towered over him. Them his bloodshot eyes slid over to where I was crouched, petrified.

I froze, my grey eyes staring unblinkingly into those cold, murderous ones. What was he going to do?

"A cat, huh." He spat as he approached me with heavy steps. "Explains why you kept sneaking stuff out of the cupboard." He reached where I crouched and picked me up by the scruff of my neck. I tensed, never taking my eyes off him.

He sneers at me for a moment before flinging me carelessly towards the wall. I smacked into it with my back and slid ungracefully down, scrambling to stand upright again as I saw the Dad loom towards me again. My back ached like hell, but I knew not to show weaknesses.

"Dad, stop it!" I heard Eren shout, grabbing onto his Dad's leg with both of his arms to keep him from going any further. "He has nothing to do with anything!" His voice sounded firm, but when I looked over to where he was, his eyes were uncertain, full of dread.

"Get your grimy hands off me." The Dad lashed around wildly with that captured leg and succeeded in shaking Eren off. His attention turned to his son now, he began kicking at his stomach, forcing whimpers and coughs to escape Eren every time his foot came in contact. I thought that I should do something, but I couldn't – my body wouldn't move from the spot.

After five clear blows, he landed a final, hard kick - one which made Eren cry out in pain and curl up into a fetal position.

And still I stood, unable to do a single damn thing. The man's attention was now drawn to the half complete painting of me discarded on the floor, still wet with fresh paint. He looked at it for a moment before smirking and stomping on it, grinding his foot across the delicately painted surface.

The image of the painting when he lifted his foot off it was something that would haunt my thoughts for days to come.

What used to be bright, silvery orbs glinting with mischief was now a grey and white blurred circle, staring out as though a member of the dead. The distorted red from where the almost smiling mouth was now seemed like blood was dribbling off the lower, smudged half of my face.

He snickered over at Eren, almost triumphantly.

I wanted to rip his foot off his body. I wanted to mangle his face up so his features would be ghastly, unrecognisable, just like the painting he had just demolished. Didn't he know how hard the brat had been working on that thing?

I flatten my ears and growled at the back of the Dad's head, trying to build up the non-existent courage to leap onto him, claw his eyeballs out.

I saw movement behind the large figure and saw Eren rolling over slowly so he was facing me. His face looked pained, and he was trying not to draw any attention from his Dad who was scraping off the paint on the sole of his shoe onto the floor.

"Go."I heard Eren whisper faintly, clutching his stomach and breathing hard. His eyes were wide with urgency. "Levi, go. Hurry up."

I was pathetic. Useless. A coward.

So without a second thought I turned around and darted out of the open window and into the fading, darkening day, away from the hideous man. Away from Eren. Out of the window where I had stood so many times, waiting for the brat to come upstairs and give me a pat which he knew would be avoided. To give me the tuna I always claimed was the only reason I would come home with him.

But it wasn't. And I knew that.

I wondered if I would ever go through it again.