Chapter 15: Success

After breakfast they set off back, and by eleven they’d parked in the next street from her family home. They’d argued on the way over about Jeff or Dan or both of them coming in with her, but she didn’t want her dad to know about them or have any leverage. She could see how the hard drive had to slide in with the rails and click into place and have two plugs put into those sockets, the only way they could. Anyway it was something she had to do, otherwise it’d be obvious someone had come with her to take it out.

So she had her phone all set ready to call Jeff’s, and if she hadn’t called after five minutes they’d come after her.

She almost knocked, like it wasn’t her house any more, but she used her key and went in.

“So you’ve come back,” was the greeting she got from her dad, sitting on the couch not getting up. Her mom was looking nervously from the kitchen doorway, going to give the game away that she’d seen her yesterday the way things were headed, so Ellie quickly went over and kissed her. “Hi Mom.”

She braced herself to face her father.

“No I haven’t come back to live,” she told him, seeing him half worried and half angry at her attitude. “I brought your hard drive back. I know what’s on it and the websites you’ve been on and what you’ve searched for. Some friends of mine have an image of it, so I’ve come for you to sign these documents about home schooling and giving me permission to stay with friends and a drivers licence. And there’ll be some more things to sign when I’m ready and when I send them I need you to sign and send them back to me please.”

“Oh is that so?” Her dad was getting up: “Looks like I should’ve put you over my knee long before.”

To her own surprise, because she’d been afraid of his size for a long time, Ellie stood her ground and pointed a finger at him. “If you touch me I’ll call the police. I’ll press charges for assault and they can look at this disk.” He stopped, six feet from her.

Ellie knew she looked different. She could kill. Kill men and feel right about it. She wasn’t on her own any more, Dan and Jeff being right outside, and she could survive in a wilderness and shoot people and had thousands of dollars - more money than her dad. She’d swum in an indoor pool at night and been told she belonged in the rich, successful family that owned it; and if he took one more step towards her she was going to go back in the kitchen and grab a knife out of the block and stick it in him.

Her dad stood there, undecided, and Ellie found her mind planning to take two knives out of the block: one in her left hand she’d wave in his face, and while he was busy with that she’d stab the other one in below his ribs. She knew which knives she’d take, in which hand, and how she’d stand, one leg behind, bent a little so she could drive forward...

“You’ve changed,” he said. He turned and lumbered back to the couch.

“I’m not a little girl any more,” Ellie could hear the spite in her own voice, “you missed your chance.” She was mad that she’d once had to be scared of this selfish pedo shithead. “Anyway why don’t you sign these and then you can have your disk back.” She handed him the bunch of papers Dan had given her and watched while he signed each one. It was weird and wonderful that her dad was doing what she told him, but it felt right.

“Oh and I need you to open a checking account with me at a bank. Not your bank, it’s one I’ve chosen. Can you drive us there please?” He started to get up, not to grab her this time but to run her to the bank. He wouldn’t touch her now, she could feel it. It was like she had a bit of Paula or Sandi about her somehow, so he had to respect her.

Ellie took the hard drive over to the computer, looked inside and slid it in where it obviously had to go, till it clicked in place. She plugged in the two wires that were hanging down next to it and put the cover back on, then stood up.

“Where’d you learn that?” her dad asked, sounding resentful. Ellie realized he preferred women not to know too much.

“It’s not that hard.” She was giving him nothing. She kissed her mom goodbye and went out to the car with her father. Dan’s car was just turning into the street, ready to protect her, but she didn’t need it - she wasn’t giving off the defenseless young girl prey signals she used to.

She was getting it now that it was having her woman’s body while still being vulnerable and basically a child that had tempted her dad to finally grope her and drug her; or join in with drugging her, at least. She had an idea it would’ve been Allie’s dad who was mainly behind it, though she’d never say so to Allie.

She wished she’d stood up to her dad more, though maybe that could have made him attack her like he’d just been threatening? It was hard to know. Without Dan and Jeff just there she might not have had the confidence to pull it off, and it would have made it a millions times worse? Anyway it was history.

Half an hour later she had a bank account, with a bank that also had branches in Lewisburg and Norfolk and that she could manage online, change her password and postal address for and apply for cards with. Later on she could see about making it a joint account with Allie. It was another symbol of being grown-up.