The Shadow Girl ||✔

Chapter 1

"Emily honey, go to your room and I will be there to tuck you in in just one minute." She spoke to me in a soft, reassuring tone. I turned towards my room, as the front door quietly creaked open. Daddy must be home. The instant the light brightened my surroundings, my mother's next words pierced right through me. "Ah! Phil stop! You don't know what you're doing!" My head spun around as I dashed towards the voice of my crying mother. I reached the living room to find her lying on the floor with blood dripping from her forehead; all while my dad stood there with anger in his eyes and my mom's blood tailing off his knuckles. She looked up at him, and speaking hesitantly, she said; "Phil... don't do this. You're better than this." Before I could make out what my mother had meant, I was pinned to the wall as my own father was pounding his fists into my tiny body. Tears were running down my face as I yelled; but it only made me feel useless compared to his strong grasp. "Daddy! You're hurting me!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I quickly shot my eyes open as the painful memory filled my head. I was only eight when this had happened, and my dad had first become abusive. I am now 16, 5'2'', and still living with my mom, and a very abusive father. Just in case, my mom and I have boxes packed, and are ready to get up and leave at any given moment. I shook my head free of those distasteful thoughts, and slowly turned towards my clock. It was now 8:15 on a Monday morning. "Shoot!" As I raced out of my bed and towards my closet to get dressed, my phone started to ring. Ignoring it for a few seconds, I finally gave in to the obnoxious ringing and answered. "Hello?" "EM! Where the hell are you! School starts in five minutes!" "Damn Clo! I know! I would have been there earlier, but I had that stupid nightmare again!" I could feel the sympathy in her voice. "I'm on my way!" I said as I finished brushing my hair and raced through the front door locking it behind me. I climbed in my slug-bug and began my slow drive towards school.

As I pulled into the parking lot, I checked the clock; 8:18. I had two minutes to get to first period. I was thinking about turning around and heading back home to catch up on the sleep I had missed. I mean, it's not like anyone would notice anyway. I'm what you call a Shadow Girl; a girl in the background who has one friend, and always gets straight A's. Just as I was about to pull out of the parking lot, Cloe came running towards my car in her three inch heels. How she does it, I have no idea, but one things for sure. I can't turn around now. I slowly got out of my car, and walked towards Cloe. "Hey" "Em! No time for chit chat! We have to get to class! I'll talk to you at lunch!" Cloe and I don't have any classes together, but thankfully we have lunch. We walked together into school with our arms wrapped around each other. When we reached the English wing, we departed. Cloe has English first period, I have Science.

I was making my way through the halls to the science wing, when I bumped into someone. I was preparing the apology I knew I had to say. I looked and and began to speak before I realized just who it was... James Liberty. James is the absolute hottest guy in the whole school. Every girl has a crush on him, not including me. He is a snot rag, and a complete bimbo. Sorry. I quickly gathered my things off the floor and continued heading towards class with voices fading behind me. I'm assuming they were James' friends. "Dude, who was that?" "Yeah! I mean, that was rude! I've never even seen her before!" "I don't know, who she was, but she looked busy." Like yeah I was busy. I'm almost late to class because I ran into our hot bod.... I mean.. Yeah. Mentally slapping myself in the face, I finally reached my science class. I have to say it is really boring, mainly because my teacher is a dull person and doesn't want anything to do with 'fun' things.

He was going on and on about atoms and how they make up everything. I don't think he is aware, we learned about atoms last year and he is supposed to be teaching us about atomic notation. Whatever, free class I guess. "Sir?" I raised my hand. "May I please use the washroom?" "Go right ahead Miss Emily." Ugh, I hate it when he calls me that. I grabbed a hall pass and headed out towards the washrooms with my phone in hand. I was thinking of texting Cloe and telling her to meet me, but she's not doing all that well in English and I think she should stay there. I was about halfway to the washrooms when I heard voices coming up behind me. Not that I was scared or anything, but I may have made a mad dash to the nearest open door. I pressed my ear against its cold metal, and listened. "Who's that girl?" "Does she even go here?" Guess I'm the word about again. "Emily is so hot!" "Dude! You're never going to get her! Stop trying." Well, now that's new. I leaned further on the door to listen carefully, but I guess it wasn't closed all the way because before I knew it, I was on the ground. I jumped up and turned around to see James and his best bud Aiden. I quickly turned back around and headed towards the washroom. I heard a faint voice, but I couldn't make out the words. I returned back to class, and saw our homework assignment on the board. We had to write a short essay on the revolution of atoms. This shouldn't be that hard. Thankfully, the bell finally rang. I walked towards my next class.

*******************************************************************************************************************

The day went by kind of slow, but I was glad to be home. I rounded the corner and saw my father's car in the driveway. With a lump in my throat and an instant jab at my heart, I busted through the front door. My father was lying on my mom, fists pounding at an excessive rate, while my mom lay there, wincing. I started to cry at the sight of her pain, but she only said to me "Grab our bags. We're leaving." I quickly ran into my mom's room and grabbed her suitcase out of the closet, than ran to my room and did the same. I stopped. Without thinking, I grabbed the photo frame of my family that was sitting on my dresser. I ran as fast as I could while dragging behind me, our 'getaway' bags. I reached the kitchen just as my mom got out of my father's grasp, cell phone in hand. She grabbed my hand and we ran out of the door as she said into the receiver "He did it again. We're on our way. Thanks again Heather" Heather was my mom's best friend. She said to us that if my father beats us so much that we can't take it, and we need out fast, to go by her place and she will let us live with her and her son until we can find a place to live.

After about 20 minutes of being in the car, we arrived at Heather's house. I have never been here before, or never even met her son. Although she says he goes to my school. I haven't really been looking for him though. We grabbed our bags, and got out of the car. We walked up to the doorstep, as my mom rang the bell while I looked down at my feet. It's been about two minutes, and no one answered the door. "Mom... are you sure you called? It doesn't seem like anyone is home." I asked. "Positive. I'll call her cell phone this time. Maybe she just went out for groceries or something." "Yeah, I guess." I looked up at her as she dialed Heather's number. "Hello? Heather? We're here. Oh he is? He didn't answer the door. Oh, Okay. Alright. See you soon. Bye." And with that, she hung up the phone. Looking at me, she said "Heather is going to call her son. He's home, but he doesn't normally answer the door. She said if he doesn't pick up his phone, she'll call us back. She just went out to grab a few things we're going to need." "Oh, Okay. Hey mom-" I was interrupted to the sound of her phone ringing.

One second sweetie" she said patting my back."Hello? Oh! Hi again, Heather. Okay. Yup, we'll just wait. 5 minutes? Perfect. Thank you." She than looked at me. "Heather said she will be home in 5 minutes. James didn't answer his cell phone." "Oh, Okay." Looking down, I thought to myself. James. Hmm.. I don't really know any James'. Shrugging my shoulders I took a seat on the front porch step and began the anxious wait for my new den mother.