CHAPTER 12

“You shouldn't have returned home to that jerk!” Hilda, Stephenie's aunt, drew her brows together as she told her.

Afterwards, her aunt drenched a towel and wrapped it around a brick of ice. Her aunt then slapped it against her forehead to relieve the red mark that Stephenie’s father had left on her forehead. Stephenie couldn't keep a low shriek from coming out as Hilda's hand pressed down on the towel too hard. When Hilda was about to remove it, Stephenie immediately took the towel from her aunt and offered to do it on her own instead.

Stephenie had no choice but to seek out her father's only sister, her aunt Hilda, after fleeing her abusive father. She lived about two towns away from her father's residence. Her aunt Hilda hadn't communicated with her father in a long time, so Stephenie decided to seek temporary shelter for the time being.

“I didn't intend to stay with him,” Stephenie confessed in hushed tones that were barely audible to her aunt. Yet, despite this, her aunt was stil