I hobbled the fastest I could around the corner, my heart lurching. As I dove through the garbage bags and abandoned furniture by everyone but the mice, I heard the quickly increasing sound of the squeal of tires, a shouting voice, and a barking dog. I strained my ears harder. “You can’t hide from me!” I buried myself deeper under the black garbage sacks, filled with the rejects that nobody wanted or loved. I sure fit in perfectly here, I thought wryly, as something extremely sharp dug into my back through one of the many holes in my t-shirt. I squeezed my eyes shut, it was all I could keep to do from crying in pain. I felt the blood dripping down my back, the drip drop of a faucet that’s handle has long since been broken. I knew this game had went on long enough, every waking moment spent hiding. Hiding from my husband, hiding from my concerned family, hiding from myself. When I opened my eyes, I saw the shadow and heard the heavy footsteps in the entrance of the alley. “I know you’re in here!” He shouted. “Come out, come out wherever you are!” As I heard his deliberate stomp down the alley, I instinctively shrunk into a tighter ball, of course causing the bags to rustle. “Hey!” He shouted. He whirled around, flashing his powerful flashlight in my eyes, and saw the glint of evil that I had come to know in both his dark, drunk, dull eyes but also in his demonic smile. “I’m gonna’ count to ten and if you ain’t out yet I’ll come after you,” his sinister leer only growing bigger and bigger. “One, two….” I quickly felt for the sharp point that I had scraped my back on, grabbing it quickly as the pain exploded in my hand. “Five, six….” I stood up, wincing at the pain in my ankle as well as my back and hand. “Eight, nine….” When he started to turn around, I lunged.