Runaway - A DEVIL'S NIGHT FANFICTION (PTBR + ENG)

Chapter 1 - Nini

I hated this city. Thunder Bay is where I was born, where my parents were born, and where I was raised. At least until I was twelve. But I never saw this town as home or felt like I "belonged in the community" and all the crap that most of the people who lived here pretended to believe.

Dense rain clouds overcast the sky and reflect my mood at that moment. The wind causes the drops to bounce off the window and if everyone would shut up, I bet you could hear the noise it made. I used to love that noise. While most people, including my mother, were frightened by the force of the wind and rain, it fascinated me.

The memory of the times when my mother would show up with an umbrella and drag me by the arm back to the house hits me and I almost smile. She didn't do it out of spite, but out of concern. My mother never hurt me.

Claire Colbert was always a devoted mother and a wife who strived to maintain the facade of a perfect family. She was a curator at the Menkin Museum and loved her work. It is because of her that I fell in love with art and used to attend exhibitions wherever I was. There was much more beyond the paintings and how they made me feel, but nobody knew about it. Not even her, but I don't judge her.

From early on and from the moment I became aware of certain things, I always tried to be invisible and not a burden or another bother to her because I knew how hard my mother tried to make everything okay. For everyone to see how lovely our family was. Even when everyone knew how rotten my stepfather was. Even when I only addressed him out of politeness and when we were in the presence of other people. Evans Crist was a businessman, a successful businessman and also a big son of a bitch.

However, he was my stepfather since forever and the only father figure I had since I had no memory of my father at all and that Evans didn't take long to marry my mother after my father died.

Except that he didn't die. He was killed.

Killed by the guy who is currently turning his head from side to side while talking to my aunt. I have no idea what they are talking about or what is going on in his mind, but I am starting to get annoyed by how much his green eyes seem to be analyzing every detail of me.

My stepfather is also there, but I don't understand his real motivation. Or maybe I do. Maybe this is just another thing he wants for himself just to annoy them. A fight he wants to win from the knights of Thunder Bay. The problem is that the thing he wants is me. A human being who unfortunately is still a minor and is now an orphan, so needs a home until turns eighteen.

I dig my nails into my palms as hard as I can to focus on the burning and not let any tears escape, and then I see the marks they have left as I watch the blood return.

I am sitting in a room with several people who don't know me: my aunt, her husband and their lawyer, my stepfather, my stepfather's lawyer, and his son who I have no idea why he is there. Next to me is a very patient social worker who like me, keeps silent while the others argue. I know that I have the right to have a say in where I should spend the next two years, but I keep quiet because I am not sure what to do.

If it were up to me, if they would let me, I would go back to Paris and stay at the boarding school where I have spent the last four years, and which I had grown used to.

The rain starts to stop and I try to focus on what is being said, and immediately hear Michael Crist telling his father that he would not be able to take care of a cactus without killing it and that I would be much better off under their care. The first part was true, but the second part I was a little suspicious about. The problem was that until now I could not understand why my mother would even mention my aunt in her letter, since they had never had any contact.

However, I might not be sure that Emory Scott knew of my existence, but I knew of her existence. Not only of her, but of all of them.

Beneath the façade of perfect family that my mother tried so hard to preserve, there were countless cracks and Evans Crist had countless enemies. His obsession, however, was to defeat his own son and his friends.