Fugitive

“John, please stop! You’re hurting me.”

At the far end of the hallway, Lucy could hear the screaming from her mother’s bedroom. She paused on the stairs and listened again. It was not fear she felt, nor was it danger she sensed. How could an occurrence that took place at least once a week scare her anyway?

“Crap. He’s hitting her again,” Lacy, Lucy’s sister, whispered.

There was fear in Lacy’s voice. Lucy glanced at Lacy and shook her head. The younger girl had always had a soft heart. Lucy, on the other hand, was sick of everything and would rather be anywhere else in the world than in this house. A permanent escape from this hellhole had been her only wish on her eighteenth birthday one week ago. There was no sign that this wish was close to coming to pass, but Lucy held on to hope. The thought of seeing her mother’s bruised face for the umpteenth time irked her. But there was nothing left for her to d0. She consoled herself with the fact that she had at least tried to do many things about it before now.

“I’m going to my room,” Lucy rasped, before proceeding up the stairs.

“Lucy,” Lacy grabbed her by the arm, her breath already heavy with panic, her heavy bust heaving softly. “We need to help her. He could really hurt her this time. Don’t be like this.”

“This time?” Lucy scoffed, yanking her arm away from her sister’s grasp and staring into her sister’s coffee brown eyes. “There’s no saving mom, Lacy. You need to understand this so you can sleep well at night. Besides, this won’t be the last time John practices his boxing on her. You can save her another day. Go to bed, Lacy.”

Lucy stared emotionlessly at Lacy, then stormed up the stairs, irritated with her sister too now. The loud grunts and screams that echoed through the hallway broke her heart and made her want to punch a hole in the wall, but Lucy refused to allow herself to feel pity. Her bitterness was nothing her headphones and loud rock music couldn’t fix. She’d be asleep in no time.

On getting to her room, Lucy walked up to the window and lifted it open, allowing fresh air to pour into the room. She sat on the window sill, inhaling deeply while fighting back the hot tears that stung her eyes. Sometimes, she wondered if their neighbors heard the screams and chose to ignore them, or if they didn’t hear them at all. Their mom had always been good at hiding her injuries from everyone.

It never made any sense to Lucy how her mother could stick to the side of such a horrible man for so long, continually making excuses for him. She constantly maintained that John was a nice man who was ‘going through a lot.’ Lucy laughed, wiping the tears that had made their way down her face as she recalled her mother’s numerous excuses any time Lucy begged for her to leave John. It had taken a while, but Lucy had finally mastered the art of looking the other way.

“Let me go!”

Lucy’s ears twitched at the sound of Lacy’s voice. She cursed under her breath as she dashed out of the room, fuming. A million thoughts raced through her mind on her way to her mother’s room. The dominant one was killing John if he as little as hurt a strand of hair on Lacy’s head.

When she saw John’s hands wrapped around Lacy’s neck, her heart’s thumping was all she heard. Her gaze trailed down her sister’s body. Lacy’s top was ripped, revealing her black bra and bare skin. Lucy’s breaths came in drawn-out huffs, her chest rose and her cheeks puffed as she took slow steps to John. She wasn’t scared of him. She’d never been and now, she felt enough rage to combust.