[The Kill List]—❈—05:: Screaming Their Way to A Better Tomorrow

Sometimes, not always, and really not even that often, Danny Hebert hated his daughter.

Just a little bit.

It hadn’t always been this way. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, it was a fairly recent development, having only began a little over two years ago, when Danny’s wife, Annette, Taylor’s mother, had died in a car accident.

Annette had always been a rather reckless driver, especially pertaining to phone use. Dialing, texting, it was as though she could never understand that using a cell while driving was just asking for trouble.

Consequently, when the trouble found her, and Danny received the call that she’d gotten into a fatal accident due to texting and driving, well, he hadn’t really been surprised, but he had been devastated; as was Taylor, who was barely thirteen at the time.

Now, most thirteen years old girls, upon finding out that their mother was dead, would understandably run to their fathers…

Taylor ran to Emma.

Danny wouldn’t lie, it had hurt. It had hurt a lot.

The love of his life was dead, and the only family he had left (or, at least, the only family he still gave two shits about) had gone to someone else to seek comfort from her grief instead of him.

It had left Danny feeling alone in the world in ways that were hard to put to words.

Regardless of how he felt about it however, Emma was what Taylor wanted, so Danny put on his big boy pants and sent her to go be with the Barnes for a couple weeks, while he wandered the empty halls of a house that now haunted his every step with memories of a woman he would always love.

Eventually, because Taylor couldn’t live with the Barnes forever, regardless of how okay they were with it, Danny brought his daughter back home. But just as his dead wife’s memories haunted him in that house, so too did they haunt Taylor.

Their house didn’t feel like home anymore, not without Annette.

They needed time away, time to grieve and time to heal, but Danny couldn’t take time away from work, not now with the breadwinner of their home dead and still thousands in medical bills to pay.

So, once again, Danny sent his daughter away, this time to camp.

Taylor had always loved it there, and Danny reckoned that the time away in nature, kept busy and engaged with people her age would be just what the doctor ordered for his little girl.

He was right.

Week by week, every time they spoke on the phone, Taylor sounded brighter, happier… a little more like the girl she’d been before the tragedy.

Her rising spirits lifted his, and Danny began to believe, for the first time in what felt like forever, that they would be okay.

That lasted until Taylor returned.

The camp provided transportation for its members to and from the premises, so Danny hadn’t needed to pick Taylor up, meeting her at home instead after he closed from work.

The girl he found that night, curled up in bed with eyes red from crying, sounded nothing like the girl who’d been looking forward to being back home that morning.

With an aching heart, Danny reached out to her, trying to let her know that she wasn’t alone; that he missed Annette too.

Taylor told him that she wanted to be alone.

Danny respected her wishes, but, despite his best attempt, it was the first time he felt something besides love for his daughter.

A few days later, school resumed, and Taylor didn’t get better, she got worse.

She lost weight, became withdrawn, dressed like she wished she was invisible, and every time Danny asked after her, she said she was fine even though she clearly wasn’t.

Eventually, Danny stopped asking.

The years passed.

More and more Taylor became like a ghost, bitter and withdrawn, haunting the waking world, and more and more, Danny sank deeper into work as he found himself trying to keep two sinking ships (their home and the DWA) afloat.

Week by week they talked less; month by month they connected less; and by the time two years had passed they were half strangers sharing a home.

Sometimes, on those days when he thought about how it would hurt Annette to see them now, he blamed himself. If he only tried harder, he would think. If he could only be a better father to his daughter who lost her mother…

On other nights, nights when the stress of existing left him needing a few drinks, he blamed Taylor. He’d tried to reach out to her, after all. He’d done his best. Offered her a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen, a companion in her grief.

But she hadn’t wanted that. She hadn’t wanted him.

When Taylor had wound up in the hospital back in January, it was the first time that Danny had ever wondered if maybe there was more going on in his daughter’s life than grief over her mother’s death.

But the school had assured him that it was an isolated incident, and Taylor had… well, Taylor had been Taylor, so after getting the school to handle the hospital bills, and extracting a promise from the principal that the perpetrators had been dealt with, Danny let it go.

When Taylor took up jogging after the incident, Danny was happy she was beginning to take care of her body again.

If he’d known that it’d actually been training for this… well, Danny had to be honest, he didn’t think he would have done anything.

Just like he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to do anything about it now.

Sure in that moment when he’d first opened the door to find his daughter in her ridiculous costume standing next to that Vinsmoke character, he’d felt like this was a thing that he had to deal with, but Vinsmoke was gone, Taylor was inside, face set resolutely and prepared for a fight, and suddenly, Danny realized that he didn’t want to deal with this.

He didn’t want to deal with Taylor.

He was tired of her.

And sure, maybe in the morning when he’d slept off the stress from the bad day he had at the DWA, he would feel different, but right then… fuck no.

Danny walked past Taylor to the stairs.

There was surprise on Taylor’s face for a moment, but when she realized that yes, Danny really was going back to bed, her surprise shifted to disappointment, then anger, then disgust.

“Of course,” she muttered in that way where you totally want the people around you to hear, “why did I expect any different?”

Danny paused on the stairs.

“And what does that mean?” he asked.

Taylor hesitated for a moment, but like a lot of idiot young people everywhere who’ve died early deaths, anger served as a substitute for common sense.

“It means that you never gave a shit before, Dad,” Taylor said. “Why would you start now?”

Danny stared at his daughter for one long moment.

First there was confusion, then as understanding set in, there came anger.

With the anger came a burning desire to hit her. Some crazy, angry part of his mind told him that if he did then maybe she would understand; as though his feelings would somehow be translated through the physical contact into her.

Danny didn’t hit her. He didn’t think he could. But he could scream at her, and it was only as the words came out that Danny realized how much he’d wanted to do this all these years.

Taylor screamed back.

Danny screamed more.

Taylor screamed louder.

At some point during all the screaming they began to cry.

At some point during all the crying Danny held his daughter, and for the first time since her mother died, Taylor let her father be there for her.

Later, when their tears were exhausted and their voices hoarse, Danny made them Annette’s favourite blend of tea, and, with Danny in his sleepwear and Taylor in her creepy bug suit, they sat and talked about the woman whose memory still haunted them both until the sun was high in the sky.