She ran up the stairs with her blood shot eyes, trembling at the sound of his voice. Reaching her bedroom door she slammed it shut and hit the lock. She slid to the floor with her back against the door, sobbing and drowning out the fighting; she wished she were invisible. She was only twelve years old, but to her she had lived forever trying to hide the pain, waiting for the day to leave him. She could hear the loud slam of her mother being thrown against the wall; the screaming always only got louder, never was it calm. She heard her small dog barking, and then yelping as it was being thrown out of the house. Suddenly she heard silence. She could not believe it, it never stopped so soon; it always went on for hours. Wondering what could be happening, she was too afraid to even peek. She could hear the man, whom she would never call a father, walk into the house. A sharp piercing scream shook her mind as the gunshot sounded. The little girl’s heart had shattered; she crawled to her bed and cried herself asleep.