Full House by Carol Lynne

schools?”
    “No. She was at first, but I told her she’d still be able to see her friends occasionally.” The sound of someone banging on the door made Marco jump. “There’s someone here.”
    “Don’t answer it. I’m in the office. I’ll use one of the other lines to call Moody.”
    “What if it’s a neighbour or the realtor?” The pounding came again. “Shit. Hold on and let me peek out the window.” Marco walked over and peered through the brand new mini-blind. His hand shook as he met his father’s angry black eyes. “Fuck!”
    “I’m calling Moody. Stay on the line and don’t open the door.”
    Maria came out of her room. “Who’s banging?”
    “Go into the bathroom and lock the door, sweetheart.”
    “I know you’re in there! Open the goddamn door!” Eddy yelled.
    “Come in here with me,” Maria begged.
    “I can’t. The important thing is for you to be safe. I’ve already emptied out the stuff from under the sink. Try and hide in there.”
    “Not without you!”
    Marco suddenly realised he only had the flimsy doorknob lock in place. It wouldn’t take Eddy more than a well-placed kick to get inside.
    “On second thought, run out the back door and go to the neighbours.”
    “No.”
    “Maria Corrine De La Santo, do what I tell you to do!” he screamed.
    With tears in her eyes, Maria ran to the kitchen. Marco heard the back door open and stepped towards the sound of his yelling father. He quickly reached out and turned the deadbolt into place, pulling his hand back like it had bit him.
    “You there?” Kent asked in his ear.
    “Yeah. I made Maria go out the back to one of the neighbours.”
    “Where’re you?”
    “In the living room, but I’m seriously thinking about going into the bathroom and locking the door.” Out of nowhere, the front window seemed to explode.
    Marco jumped back as a large yard ornament went sailing inches from his head. “Shit. He broke the window.”
    “Run!”
    Marco did just that, locking himself in the bathroom as he heard Eddy enter the house. He sat on the floor and braced his back against the vanity and his feet against the door. “How long did Moody say it would take?”
    “He said he was calling the black and whites, but he’d be over as fast as he could get there.”
    Eddy began to scream obscenities through the bathroom door. “Come out of there, you fucking faggot!”
    As predicted, Eddy kicked the door, splintering the wood around the lock. Only Marco’s feet braced against the hollow-core door kept his father out, but the continued battering against the wood was having a painful effect on Marco’s, not quite healed, knee.
    “I can’t hold him off any longer,” he told Kent.
    “You have to, baby. Just a little longer.”
    “Go away!” he shouted. “I don’t have any money!”
    Eddy’s next kick went right through the flimsy door. Marco looked around for something, anything, he could use as a weapon.
    “I gotta put the phone down.” Marco dropped the phone to the floor beside him and reached up to the towel bar beside the sink. He wrapped his hands around the square bit of chrome and pulled down with as much of his weight as he could as Eddy steadily chipped away at the door.
    A knife appeared through the door and swung down towards Marco’s feet just as the bar broke free. Marco swung at the hand holding the knife with all his might, hearing a satisfying scream from his dad as the metal connected with its target.
    “You little sonofabitch! You’re gonna pay for that.”
    Marco continued swinging the rod back and forth in front of the hole. He heard the police sirens pulling up in front of the house. “Here that, Eddy? They’re coming to take your ass to jail.”
    “Fuck that!” With one more body slam, the door gave way and splinters, wood and his father came crashing down on Marco.
    “If I’m going to jail, it’ll be for murder,” Eddy growled.
    “Hold it right there,” a deep voice shouted from the