The Tatted Psycho

The creased photograph felt brittle in Emily's hand, its edges worn from countless nights of desperate longing. It was the only tangible link to her father, a man she'd never known, a phantom hope against the harsh reality of her mother's cruelty. Jolie's neglect was a constant, gnawing hunger in Emily's stomach, a dull ache that mirrored the emptiness in her heart. Days blurred into a suffocating cycle of forced servitude, of watching her mother feast while she starved, of enduring a relentless tide of drugs and alcohol that drowned out any semblance of parental care.
Emily’s gaze was fixed on the smiling face in the picture, a silent plea hanging in the air. Please, save me.
The sudden rumble of an SUV shattered the silence, pulling up outside the dilapidated house. A large, tattooed man emerged, casting a long shadow. At first, he was just a stranger, a formidable figure. Then, as he turned, Emily's breath hitched. It was him. The man from the photograph. Her father.
