Fallen Petals

Chapter one

Lucas breathed heavily, his chest-beating inside as he ran. His vision was blurry from the rain and soaked to the bone. He had nearly fallen over three times as his legs kept giving out on him.
"Don't let him get away!" A female voice exclaimed.
Lucas tensed up at the voice as he recognized it as his wife or the wife he wished to divorce. She hadn't stopped her pursuit of him since he walked out of their house without a word. His mind went into a frenzy at the thought of being caught by her, so he approached a nearby fence. He was about to climb it when a flashlight shone in his face.

"Deanna stop please." he practically begged.
The blonde-haired woman just tsked at him and turned up the brightness on her flashlight. It blinded Lucas and he was forced to cover his eyes, Deanna snarled.
"Stop? I'm only just getting started!" She screamed. "You think you can just do that to me? Try and leave me!" Although Lucas towered over her in height, he still flinched. The times she had used her fingernails to leave marks on his skin left him petrified. Even with all the red marks on his arms, no one believed him. Whenever he tried to tell someone Deanna would break down and cry crocodile tears. Then started going on a rant on how he was the abuser and putting on a facade. Even a false accusation of abuse for a man was bad as everyone looked at him like he deserved to rott away. 

"I had to." He whispered.
That only made Deanna angrier and she pulled out a gun. The glare on her face made him cower. He could feel his heart sink into the pits of his stomach when she screamed at him. She had threatened to punch him and drag him back screaming at least twice. Yet now he feared she might kill both of them to save her own skin.
"You think anyone is going to care about you like I do?! You are not good enough and can't do what you are told like a good dog!" She exclaimed.
He backed away and tried to find something to defend himself.

In a moment of flight or fight, Lucas snapped the gun out of her hand and knocked her out with it. He would never in a million years hurt or abuse a woman, but he couldn't go back with Deanna.
Lucas climbed up the fence before she could come too. In the distance, he could see a nearby tide pool and he ran towards it. It was connected to the ocean but he took a handful of the water anyway to clean himself off. A few drops got into his mouth as he washed his face, thankfully not enough to dehydrate him. It was salty but at least it was refreshing for the time being. 
"Still salty as ever." He whispered to himself.

He placed a hand on his heart, his ears, and eyes on high alert for any sign of his psychotic wife. Even with no one else around Lucas was still on edge, every gust of wind or snap of a twig made him freeze. He shed a few silent tears to relieve himself and looked around. In his ears, he could still hear all the insults Deanna would throw at him.
"You are freaking brain dead, you need to lose weight if you want to get a job." He heard in his head. It wasn't the first time she had body-shamed him, as that happened five times a day. But that was mild as he often had to deal with her bursts of rage over small things. If she had a bad day at work or her chest was hurting, he was to blame. She had threatened to leave him once when he locked the door to their house at one thirty in the morning. 

After a whole two hours had passed, the waves began to calm him, and he embraced the silence. I can disappear here, no one will care or notice, he thought. It was something he hoped he could avoid, but he couldn't handle the abuse anymore. If he ran away to a place where no one knew him, he could heal. There was a part of him that felt like he was crazy because of Deanna's gaslighting.
"I just want to feel safe and not small." He cried. A piercing cry interrupted his train of thought. "What?" He asked. At first, he thought he imagined it but then the cries filled his ears again.

In the distance, he saw what looked like a pink blanket or maybe it was something else. Without a second thought, he ran towards it and found a baby girl. She cried as he picked her up in an attempt to help her, she had no clothes and a bite on her arm. Lucas was shocked and was horrified. Blood slowly dripped out of a scratch on her head and nose, staining her very pale skin and tear-stained eyes. A black eye looked up at him and he wondered who could have dared hit her. There was a twinge of anger at whoever could do that to a child.