Her mother’s words are black and angry. They come out like fists, hard and hurtful. Liabelle doesn’t move or make a sound. She knows the routine by now, any little thing will just make whatever’s coming ten times worse. As long as she is her mother’s only target everyone else is safe. ’It’s my job to protect everyone from momma, I can ignore it, but they can’t. They won’t understand.’

A smack lands across Belle’s face, hard and painful, especially since she already has a bruise there. But she doesn’t tremble. By now she’s learned to escape from this pain, to escape from the yelling and the fists. In her head she’s lost in her dream world. She’s Princess Liabelle, living in a real home where she has a room like the other girls describe, where she can unfold her wings and fly away. Where her wings fly her and all the other little girls and boy with bruises and angry words that try to crush them every day to a happy place.

Her mother’s fist makes her crumple to the floor, unconscious, she’s only dreaming now.