LILY'S SIDE
When her father had decided to dub this the beating of her life. he hadn't been kidding. No, definitely not but then again Mr. Martin had never been the joking type, Lily remarked to herself as she wearily glanced up at her father from where she was sitting on the floor - her back slumped against the wall. He was muttering something as he stomped away, ungrateful, she made out. Her, ungrateful? Yes, that's probably what it was. She toned out the curses.
Closing her eyes, she took a shaky breath, holding back a cry as she felt the pain in her ribs increase ten fold due to her lungs causing her bruised skin and muscle to stretch. G-d, it hurt. It hurt so bad. She felt her eyes prick with tears but tried to hold them back. Holding on wasn't helping her right now though. What did holding on ever give her aside from her sanity? Nothing, that's what.
Letting some of the tears slip out, Lily feared even moving. She willed herself to shrink back into the wall, maybe seep through the floor. She wanted to be tiny, small, but right now everything hurt and she was made her painfully aware of her existance. An existence haunted by a man, a monster of a man. He was Mr. Martin to the world, a respectable man and Dad to her, an awful monster who could not control his temper over silly, irrational things like her being out on a summers day.
Was it really so hard to believe she had gone to the woods? Tons of kids did. He was looking for reasons now. Maybe his temper was growing. Maybe he needed an outlet and that was her. She didn't know. Maybe he just wanted something to control in this world. That something being her but Lily, Lily didn't want to be controlled. She wanted to live. She couldn't stay here and wait for the day something much worse would happen to her. This beating, this was certainly a step in that direction. This was the last straw,
She had to get out, she had too.
She waited until her father fell asleep then, moving when he did with much difficultly. Choking back her sobs of pain as she rose and climbed the stairs she began formulating a plan. She would leave a letter under James' window wipers on his car for him, to explain. James didn't know about this part of her life. No one knew except for the only two souls living under this roof though sometimes she doubted whether her father really had a soul.
Still, the letter wasn't enough. As silly as it sounded, she had to say goodbye to her wolf. She had to.