He throws his belt aside and kicks my side. I scream loudly, tears streaming down my face. "SHUT UP, YOU BITCH! OR I'LL MAKE YOU!!" he pulls duct tape out of his pocket and rips off a piece. He grabs my jaw tightly, so tightly I'm sure he left a bruise. He puts a rag in my mouth and tapes it, gagging me. Then he drags me to the middle of the room and begins slapping and kicking me. I can hear Jeff in the closet, so I look his way, but now I see multiple people in the closet instead of just him. Just then, I see my father pull a match out of his pocket, strike it, and throw it on the floor. This house is all I have left of my mother, so I crawl weakly to the fire and begin putting it out with my bare hands, getting badly burned in the process. "LEAVE IT BE!" my father shouts and steps on my hand. I scream through the gag. I guess that's when Jeff has enough of this, so he bursts out of the closet with two other guys with him, they begin beating my father sensless, until he is knocked out, while one of them, one with a blue mask on comes over to me and picks me up. "We have to get out of here" the one holding me says. We exit the house and run towards the woods, I'm still being carried, so I decide that I need to sleep. I fall asleep in blue-mask's arms.
****
I wake up in an unfarmiliar room, not knowing where I am. Then it hits me, all that happened, and I'm now sure that I'm in Jeff's house. I get up and walk to the mirror. I look at my reflection with disgust. My long black hair has twigs, leaves, dirt, and alot of knots in it, my skin looks pale, I have two bruises on either side of my jaw, and a cut on my lip. My arms have bruises all over them, and I'm wearing a long nightgown. I pull up the gown to see a huge bruise that is many colors on my side. That's when I notice my hands. They have bandages wrapped around them almost to my elbows. I tug on the string of one of them and nearly gag at what I see. My arms are burned; skin peeling off, bleeding, kind of burned. And the pain is unbearable. I hold back a sob and fall to the floor. As soon as the thud from me falling sounds, I hear commotion below me, then hear footsteps nearing the door of the room. Jeff rushes in to see me cradling my arms, and sobbing in the corner. "Hey, shhhhh, it's ok" he says soothingly, "no it's not," I say, holding up my arms for him to see. "Why'd you take the bandages off?" He asks. "I didnt know what they were there for" I sob. "Tell ya what," he says, me looking up at him hopefully."I'm gonna go get a friend of mine, her name is Clockwork, she'll help you bathe, okay?" I nod, "okay." He walks out of the room and comes back with a girl who has a clock for one of her eyes. "Hey, I'm clockwork." She says. "I-I'm Sky." I say nervously. "Come on," she says soothingly. "Let's get you cleaned up." She helps he up and leads me to a room a few doors down from the one I was in. "This is my room, I have my own bathroom, so we'll have privacy, okay?" I just nod, not really wanting to speak. She runs the water while I undress, making sure she's turned around. Then I wrap a towell from the counter around myself.
"It's okay. You don't have to hide from me"
"O-okay"
I unwrap the towell and she gasps. "What?"
"What happened to your side!?"
"They didn't tell you?"
"No, they just walked in and yelled, 'NEW RECRUIT'."
"Oh......"
"So? What happened?"
"M-my father......"
"Oh......I'm sorry......"
"No! It's not your fault!"
"Okay.....Now, hop in, it's nice and warm!"
Nothing much was said after that...after she helped me bathe. I can already tell we're going to be friends. When I'm dressed, and my hair has been braided down the length of my back, we're sitting on "my" bed talking about random things until Jeff comes back. He walks into the room with his hand over his eyes, "Everybody got clothes on in there?" He asks. I laugh,"Yes, Jeff, we do." He walks in and says,"Now that you're cleaned up, I can introduce you to everybody else-" clockwork interrupts him"-Even E.J!?" I can't help but wonder who E.J is.............
