Running.
Lightening bursts of light in the sky like a flashlight.
Thunder, bouncing off the edge of the Earth and crash straight into my ears.
But still I run.
Rain and sweat plaster my bangs to my head making it nearly impossible to see.
Sharp pains like needles build up on my shoeless feet,
and second my second my ragged tank top and ripped up shorts only help the heat escape from my body.
But still I run.

"Come back!" the words slur out and I don't have to turn around to know that he's drunk. Again.

The thought of him, stubby fat figure, cold heartless blue eyes and yellow, crooked toothy grin makes me run faster. The thought of what he did to me makes me want to hurt him. Turn around and stab a knife through his back, shoot a bullet through his head, and strangle his throat for all the things he did to me the past three months.

Me, a defenseless thirteen year old girl strapped to a chain, tortured night after night and forced to endure his bacchanalian pleasure. But not a day more. Acrimony built up in my veins and I pumped my arms faster and faster, running like I had 3 months earlier. 3 months before my life would change and the memories would be sketched in my brain haunting me forever.

They were soft, but I could hear the constant rhythm of this boots. Thump, thump, thump, they echoed off into the distance. I wasn’t an expert on calculating distance and time and all that stuff but I knew that I had about a minute lead if I continued to run at the same pace. That’s when it hit me. I had no destination. No plan and absolutely no idea where to go. Anywhere but there was a start, but it wasn’t good enough. I had no clue what city I was in let alone what state, but who could blame me. After being knocked unconscious time after time and always ending up in a different place it was hard to tell where I was.

I longed to stop and take a break, but even more than that I longed to be free. Free to be teenager like the other thousands of 13 year olds in the world. Free so that when I was afraid it was because I thought that my boyfriend might break up with me, not because he came home ready for me to be his play toy. Free so that I was happy when I get a new PR at a track meet, not when he drinks himself unconscious forgetting that I even exist, thus letting me go the night untouched.

Free so that…my thought was interrupted by, by nothing. Because that’s what laid out in front of me. In front of me stood the edge of a cliff and past that nothing. The inky black seemed to run on forever, portraying what looked like the edge of the earth. Thump, thump, thump, thump the faint echo grew louder and I knew that I had a mere 40 seconds left. I couldn’t believe it. I was about to end up in his hands again. Unless? Thump, thump, thump. Unless I jumped. I had never imagined suicide as the answer, but then again I had never imagined being in this situation either. And who knew maybe there was a pot of gold at the end of my rainbow. Thump, thump, thump, thump. 10 seconds left. Should I? Thump, thump. Tears streamed down my face. 8. My heart screamed out, not from the physical pain, but from the emotional pain. 7. I was just so tired. 6. He was getting closer I could almost feel what he would do to me if he caught me. 5, 4, 3, 2. I jumped in time, feeling his icy fingers brush my skin.

“NO!” he cried out knowing he was too late.

My anathema was gone, but so was I. 1.