"Who?"
"Damian Prescott!"
Damian Prescott!
Isla Prescott hadn’t heard that na in over a decade. Yet, the mont she did, her instinctive reaction was the sa as her sister’s: fear.
It was only then she realized with a jolt that in the dozen years since she’d run away, the wound in her heart had never truly healed. That na, that man, was like a thorn lodged in the most fragile crevice of her mory.
Damian Prescott was Isla Prescott’s father.
He was a man born in a poor, mountainous region, who treated being female as a cri and ruled his family with his fists.
Back then, not long after giving birth to her first daughter, Susan Dudley had been forced by the misogynistic Damian Prescott—who prized sons over daughters—to have a second child. Unfortunately, the second was also a daughter.
Damian Prescott was convinced that daughters were a financial drain. He began beating his two girls when they were still very young. To protect them, Susan Dudley had, on several occasions, picked up the kitchen cleaver, intending to kill the monster, but she was always stopped by their neighbors.
Later, as Isla Prescott grew up, she displayed a prodigious talent for dance. Seeing this as a heaven-sent gift and refusing to let it be buried in the mountains, Susan Dudley pushed herself to the absolute limit. Behind Damian Prescott’s back, she worked two part-ti jobs, scrimping and saving to send Isla Prescott to the nearby town for dance lessons once a week.
When Damian Prescott found out, his response was another vicious beating for the mother and daughter.
After that beating, Isla Prescott and Susan Dudley couldn’t get out of bed for ten days.
All three of them longed to escape the monster. But in those backward mountains, isolated and helpless, there was no one to show the mother and her two daughters a clear path out.
The turning point ca the day Mrs. Lockwood, Yvette Shaw, ca to do charity work.
Yvette Shaw discovered Isla Prescott’s talent for dance and offered to adopt her and teach her personally. Susan Dudley was overjoyed, but Damian Prescott adamantly refused. He was counting on marrying Isla Prescott off for a handso bride price once she turned eighteen.
Damian Prescott not only chased Yvette Shaw away but also gave the mother and daughter another brutal beating, warning them not to get any ideas and to just stay put.
That day, the normally stoic Susan Dudley held Isla Prescott in her arms and cried for a long, long ti.
She reflected on her thirty-so years of life, which felt more barren than a single sheet of paper. She couldn’t bear the thought of her daughters being trapped in the mountains, forced to repeat the sa tragic, selfless life she had led. She made a firm decision: she would escape with her two daughters, see the wider world, and change their fate.
Over the next week and a half, Susan Dudley went into town every day to morize the bus schedules. Finally, she calculated the perfect ti for their escape.
Susan Dudley succeeded.
On a dark, windy night, Susan Dudley took her two daughters and fled. The journey was rough, but by dawn, they had finally escaped the mountains. Still, she didn’t dare to even blink, pushing onward with her daughters by bus until they finally set foot within the borders of ritopia.
「Over a decade passed in the blink of an eye.」
When Isla Prescott first arrived in ritopia, she was plagued by nightly nightmares. She dread that Damian Prescott would suddenly appear and drag the three of them back to the mountains. She dread he would beat them until they were bruised and battered, their bones broken...
It took her years to slowly diminish the shadow cast by that na and that man. She never imagined he would reappear.
When Isla Prescott rushed to North Lane, Damian Prescott was squatting at the entrance of Jude Dudley’s building materials store, shouting into a bullhorn, "Jude Dudley, the building supply boss, is shaless! He stole my wife! Jude Dudley, the building supply boss, is shaless! He stole my wife!"
The sound of the bullhorn had attracted a crowd of neighbors, who were all standing around to watch the commotion.
The front door of Jude Dudley’s building supply store was open, but no one was inside.
Isla Prescott dashed forward, snatched the bullhorn from him, and smashed it on the ground.
"What are you yelling about? Have you no sha? Who is your wife? You don’t have a wife anymore!"
Damian Prescott stared at Isla Prescott’s face for a long mont before slowly getting to his feet. "Are you Zoe?"
Isla Prescott loathed the na "Zoe Prescott," especially when it ca from Damian Prescott’s mouth.
"Shut up! Zoe Prescott is dead!"
"Oh, right. You’re Isla Prescott now. The famous internet celebrity, Isla Prescott!" Damian Prescott picked up the broken bullhorn and started shouting again. "The famous celebrity Isla Prescott struck it rich and abandoned her own father! She has no filial piety! She’s an ungrateful daughter!"
Soone in the gawking crowd raised their phone and started taking pictures.
Just as Isla Prescott was wondering how to handle the situation, Jude Dudley arrived with two police officers.
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