Footsteps echoed through the house. The faint mumbling and fuming anger was almost palpable from the person, and she, the girl bent to his will, noted the sounds with a quick mind.

Nerezza was always small and stuck to the walls of the house, trying to make herself as unnoticeable as possible. The tactic worked well for hiding from her father, especially on days when he tramped through like the devil himself sat on his shoulders, weighing him down and hissing poisoned words into his ears. Nerezza always tried to avoid that happening to herself; it would make her far too loud in a house so quiet and prone to listening.

Still, she followed after him like a bloodhound, her eyes and quick-witted mind gauging his emotions just as a bloodhound would smell it. He did not deign to mention whether he noticed the faithful pet tracing his steps like a hunting wolf, especially as he found himself accompanied by his wife - the beautiful and elegant and far too young for him wife - Delilah Hemp. A name sweet as a song, but a smile as double-edged as a sword.

Nerezza shrunk further, her presence nothing but a minuscule gnat on the grand wooden floors of the mansion. If she didn't do so, her mother - the one who gave her the rich brown hair and supple chestnut eyes - would snap at her with all the rage of a frothing wild beast, even if she appeared like a prized poodle while doing so.

All things she remembered, calculated, and filed away to keep in mind.

The beauty clung to the rich man and made a show of missing him, all with pouting lips and subtle swishes of her wide hips to accentuate her heartbroken words. The man smiled faintly at his doting wife, and all in the flicker of an instant, it disappeared.

"Nerezza."

She startled, brown head jumping up as she heard her name sharply called. Though she stepped forward to listen to her father, she kept her dark eyes on Delilah to see her reaction at being put aside so quickly. Surely enough, the vain woman's lip curled, and she turned disdainful brown eyes towards her daughter.

"Yes, father?" she asked. She did not look him in his viscous green eyes, but rather stared at the intricate folds and sewing of his dapper gray suit. Nerezza knew she was the broken and bent-to-his-will child as ever - even as a teen.

The man scanned her with quick and dark eyes, despite their deceitfully emerald color. "Dinner should be made and served by six. You may go," her father said, giving his permission.

Nerezza nodded and ducked away.

***

Years of reading her father's ever-blazing moods made it easy to pick out what to cook for the night. She noted the day - Thursday - and what it would mean to her or her father to help with the choice.

Typically, the man was tasked with strengthening bonds with other business people to sway their favor - and in their small, tight-knit neighborhood of rich people, there were only a select few who could've made the beast's hackles rise and stay that way hours afterwards.

Kary Backwater - a woman who had only risen to power because of Delilah, her sister and Nerezza's mother - was the clever Nerezzas' prime suspect. The vapid woman's ample assets kept her afloat in the industry even if she lacked in everything else, and her sibling's high praise also made it so Nerezza's father was forced to deal with her.

She took the knowledge into her hands and turned it this way and that, analyzing. He would need something cooked with a hint of alcohol, a dash of paprika, and a smooth wine that cooled within - all to help with his simmering anger. She started prepping the meal meticulously, trying to work fast without burning the thick chunks of sizzling meat or under-cooking the starch and carbs. 

Each marble counter and stainless appliance was soon wiped down or shifted into order while she waited and cooked. Nerezza, on tip-toes, pulled the proper wine glasses down and wiped them, too. She filled them nearly to the brim with wine that would seem like blood if it weren't so thin.

Fitting, she supposed in her head, for it was far too dangerous to say the words aloud. But it was truth, to her at least.

The glasses' thin stems held carefully between her fingers, she set off to find her parents, silently noting that she only had a few minutes before the food would start burning.

As Nerezza swept into the living room - footsteps near silent on a thick white carpet - she found that her father was practically fuming, her mother wearing a self-righteous look as she agreed with every curt word he had to say. He  talked about the sister to his wife in a frothingly raging way, confirming her suspicion. And while it was Kary he complained about, her mother didn't care enough to fight for her sister, and only whipped his anger into a deadly point.

Nerezza only offered them their wine without really listening, giving both of the glasses to her father so Delilah wouldn't have to near - or acknowledge - her in any way.

The second she made to leave the room, passing her mother swiftly, her hair was pulled.

She didn't even shriek as the ground swelled beneath her, as her own hands came to her hair, the sharp tugging in her scalp almost making her eyes water. Nerezza only tried to lessen the pain and focus on what was being said, trying to understand what she'd done wrong through a bleating panic.

"You blithe idiot! You spilled the wine on my white carpets!" was the high-pitched screech in her ear from her mother. Nerezza nodded quickly, her balance uneven still as her hair was tugged around. Though she couldn't see her father, she knew the shrill voice of his beautiful wife sent his blood broiling and lip curling.

She wedged all of her thoughts and feelings into a tight corner as she was released and tossed to the floor like garbage, her mother already tiring of touching and looking and talking to her daughter. The man, his rage nothing but burning coals flaring to life once more, picked Nerezza up and sat her properly on the floor.

She was forced to look at the single splatter of wine, the blood of it so at contrast with dove-white carpets. And so unremmovable.

Nerezza, though trying to stay calm, felt her throat go tight and painful as tears were stuffed down, down, down. Somewhere in her head, she remarked that her time was up, that the food must be burning. She also noted, perhaps with more of a tint of worry, that a burnt meal would make things so, so, so much worse for the situation if she did not check it.

She stood on unsteady and thin legs, the adrenaline coursing through her making her blood tremble and quake. Her parents were still arguing, her own mother begging for new carpets. Nerezza, as quietly as she came, tried to leave.

"Get back here, young lady!"

That voice...she had to listen to it. No matter what.

She turned back and weathered their anger for a few more seconds, but the more they spoke, the more her inner self trudged away. Only when the smell of burning food reached them did she finally get to leave.

The kitchen was wide and bright, and the food was only partially over-cooked; the noodles were softer than usual, and the meat had crisped a little too much. She reacted quickly - if a bit numbly - and flipped the meat before draining the noodles. The sauce had blackened a little, too.

She couldn't restart. It would take far too long to do so. But neither could she serve them what she had, since it wasn't cooked to her parent's liking. 

Nerezza plated the food and slid it into the microwave, her hands working without being told what to do. Another meal was prepared, and the girl presented the quickly made food, eyes noticing their angry and blotchy faces, their bullets of sharp words digging in too deep.

She was to go a week without food, and just because she stunk from her previous punishment - no showering for three weeks, all because she made seafood one night - she was to stay in her room for the whole time.

Then and only then did she feel anything - any inkling of a reaction. She had shoved herself deep within her own mind, yet the thought of being in her room constantly with the beast...

She hung her head and accepted fate.

***

Terrible parents and a shadowed adversary...which is really worse?