I was in good spirits as I entered the apartment expecting to see my sullen dad on the couch interminably staring at the floor. However, I was bewildered to see him at the dining table with hot food laid out on the table. When I briefly glanced at the kitchen, I saw dirty pots and pans in the sink which meant that he had cooked.

I cautiously approached the table and examined the well-cooked tomato pasta and toasted bread. "Wow, it's been a while since either of us cooked anything here."

He didn't respond, his hard eyes staring straight ahead at the television playing highlights of an old football match as he mechanically lifted a glass brimming with water to his lips.

I took a seat opposite to him, but he was fixedly gazing beyond me at the sports match. "This looks nice. What's the occasion?" He didn't utter a single word but began serving us both the delicious looking pasta. I wouldn't have bothered trying to start a half-hearted conversation, but I was feeling chirpy tonight after having kissed Isaac. That dreamy thought itself made my spirits soar high up like a helium balloon, lost in a sea of cloud nine's.

We ate in silence with the elated cheering on the sports channel playing in the background.

*

"Sam, I swear I wasn't being dumb. All of them looked so professional there that I couldn't suspect them doing this to me," I said shakily, the images on my phone flashing in my head. "I want you to come with me, will you?" He nodded vaguely, his red-rimmed eyes indicating that he was high as fuck. I grabbed his hand and lifted him up from the stairs, surprised at how his thin body was heavy. "Come, let's go now. If we're lucky, Abel would be in the apartment."

I was cruelly taking advantage of his muddled mind because I knew that if he was sober, he would have probably taken his childhood baseball bat and beat the shit out of Abel. While that imagery was tempting, I couldn't risk what Abel would do if he was beaten into a pulp. He would most likely leak all my provocative pictures online or do something worse to Sam and me.

I dragged a tottering Sam to Abel's apartment, mentally praying that Sam's parents wouldn't catch him in this condition. Perhaps they should, then Sam would slur all his suppressed, venomous words against his mother for being a leech and abusing his father. Perhaps, he would even impulsively call the police and blurt out the secrets (which weren't secrets anymore) behind his father's scars and bruises. But I also knew that his ashamed father would never forgive Sam if he exposed their so-called family to the biased world. 

"Remember not a word, okay?" I reiterated the same instructions and judging by his face, I wasn't sure whether he even remembered his own name. "Sam?"

"Yeah, cool," he mumbled hazily and I clutched his dry hand, ringing Abel's doorbell.

The door opened ominously or maybe I was imagining it opening like that because it was an ordinary door. I tended to imagine a lot of things lately. Abel stood without a trace of his usual smile on his face and his greying hair was untidily dishevelled, making him look decades older than his mid-thirties.

"So you brought him along," he said almost accusingly, his eyes fleetingly narrowing at Sam before he shrugged indifferently. "Alright, come in. You have already caused me a lot of trouble and it's on you to make it right."

"What do you mean?" I examined his shabby apartment filled with clutter. From all those random objects, a photo-frame with a couple and their two smiling daughters stood out to me. There was the same open packet of plain, wheat biscuits from the agency next to the frame and a trail of ants marching purposefully towards it. My thighs suddenly itched from the memory of wearing the cheap, scratchy purple frock.

There were too many lights on the ceiling, too many.

"It was the first time I recruited a model for the agency, Mariana," he elucidated, bringing in a tray containing two cans of opened coke, an apple and a knife from the kitchen as Sam and I sat on the hard, cardboard-like sofa. "But you refused to co-operate. Your stupid, little head thinks you can be a model for sex ads without showing a bit of skin. All girls do that these days, but you had to make a big deal out of it."

"Sex ads?" My voice was low, even whiny. I glanced confusingly at Sam who had just finished drinking the entire can of coke in one gulp. I felt the cold water droplets of my own can freezing my clammy hands.

"Of course, what did you think you were recruited for? Bloody Vogue?" He scoffed contemptuously, peeling the apple with the sharp knife which reflected a glint from the excessively bright lights above. "Now, my only way was to calm you down by---" He fearlessly gestured at the can in my hands with the knife and I quickly let go of it, watching the fizzy liquid spill on the floor and foolishly remembering the moment of Isaac and I drinking Mirinda on the sidewalk. "---well, you know . . . But the agency didn't approve of my methods and they fired me when you made an embarrassing spectacle in front of everyone."

I blinked dumbly at him, having no recollection of this incident.

He gracefully got up from the chair he was sitting on and strode towards me. I took a glimpse of unconscious Sam beside me, passed out on the sofa without a care of this world. Abel stooped down my seated frame till we were eye-to-eye, his blue eyes maliciously twinkling under the lights.

Before I could scramble away, his arm snaked around my waist, pushing me close against him and I felt the cold press of the knife against my stomach.

"Tell me, love," he said endearingly as I held my breath. "Will you do as I say?"

"No," I answered in an unwavering voice and the sharp metal pierced into me, the lurid lights claiming my vision as my head collided against the hard sofa in shock.