Doomed By Mr. Billionaire's Betrayal

Maya hurried home after her shift at the Walmart. Her father knew the exact time her night shifts were scheduled to end and he had given her thirty minutes to round up whatever she had to do and hurry home or face his punishment. He still punished her anyway each time she got home, just for the sake of it but Maya knew it would be worse if she actually got home after the allotted time.

He was getting old and with that came more frequent drinking and less attention to the method he used to met out punishment on her. He had stopped caring about preventing bruises from forming on her skin and so he mostly just lashed out at her with his belt. She had gotten used to the beatings and the occasional torture, it was something she had come to expect daily. What did break her heart was the look of utter despair on the face of her mother each time her father was torturing her and her mother could do nothing about it. Lately he had started hitting her mother with so much viciousness that Maya actually feared for her life but no matter how terrified she was, how much she just wanted her and her mother to be free, she never called the police, never told a soul. Her father had taught her well, snitches ended in ditches.

She couldn't understand what was going on as she drew close to her house, the wailing siren, the neighbors who were gathered around her house trying to peek in and the officers who were all over the place. She hadn't snitched. She hadn't snitched, Maya kept telling herself as she saw an officer lead her father out of her house in handcuffs. His nose was broken and the glazed - over expression on his face meant he had been drinking - that was nothing new, what was new was the presence of the police men and the neighbors.

Ignoring the stares and her pounding heart, Maya pushed past the small crowd and headed for the front door of her house. She had to see her mother, had to make sure that apart from the normal belt marks and bruises sustained from punches, her mother was okay. She had to make sure her mother was still breathing, she had to....... Her own breath was coming out in gasps as fear clouded her vision. She was stopped gently by one of the policemen before she could get in and she tried in vain to shrug off his restricting hand.

"My mother - I need to make sure my mother is okay." She said but she could barely hear her own voice as her words came out in choking gasps. The hand stayed firmly on her shoulder, offering comfort and also preventing her from entering while the policeman explained something about her mother's corpse not being a pretty sight and then Maya blacked out.

Maya woke to the sound of whispered voices. She opened her eyes gradually to see a police woman arguing with a nurse by her bedside, she was in a hospital. They both paused when they saw she was awake then the nurse threw up her hands as if in resignation and walked out, leaving Maya with the policewoman.

"Good morning Maya, how are you feeling?" The policewoman said kindly but Maya eyed her skeptically. "It's okay, you can trust me - my name is Rachel banks from the CID." The woman added, seeing the look of distrust on Maya's face but Maya still eyed her warily.

Seeing that Maya was not ready to talk, the woman continued. "I'm just going to ask you a few questions, see if your opinion corroborates with your father's statement okay?"

Maya nodded

"Okay, how would you describe you mother?" Rachel said and Maya frowned. "Would you say your mother was stable or would you describe her as unstable?"

Maya was silent for a while as she tried to draw the courage to open up for once about everything, the beatings that she and her mother had to receive, the torture, everything but she didn't. She wasn't yet sure that her father would be locked away for good and he had taught her, snitches ended in ditches and so she didn't snitch. She knew what he father was trying to do, look for a way to make it seem like her mother was unstable and maybe pass of the homicide as suicide or self defense. She knew he would need really good lawyers to do that and he couldn't afford any but she did not put it past him. In the meantime however, she had to make sure she said nothing to contradict his story, even if it meant betraying her mother. Her mother was dead, her father still breathing and she couldn't afford to snitch on him.

Maya kept a straight face as she looked up at Rachel. "My mother was highly unstable, I think she had split personality disorder, she was always claiming to be different people and she was always either attacking me or my father or trying to commit suicide. It's been like that since I was little."

Maya waited until the policewoman had gone before she allowed the tears to fall. She needed an antidote for the pain, it was too raw, too new. She needed to dance but this time not alone. There was an underground dance arena she had stumbled upon on her way home from her night shift at the wall Mart once, she has finally found the courage to try out as a new member of any crew there. Hopefully, her father would either not be granted bail or would not even be able to afford it.