The North Star's Betrayal

Chapter 1 - Ellen

"Rose! Get your ass downstairs now!" Ellen shrieks down at me from the couch in our living room. She's a lazy woman, only bothering to lug her body mass off the couch to beat the crap out of me.

It's like this everyday.

I wake up. I eat from the box of Cheerios I keep in my closet. I study.

Ellen awakens from a hangover. She spends hours retching up alcohol while I hold her hair, keeping the strands away from her face. Ellen then takes pleasure in flinging horrible profanity at me. Accusations. Insults. Then comes the belt, and the occasional knife if she's in a bad enough mood.

But normally she just uses her fists.

Here are the rules: If I cry, she hits harder. If I flinch, she hits harder. If I tell a single soul what goes on in our house she'll cut my throat open.

I've become really good at acting.

But she has no idea.

Then Ellen drinks until her words are slurred and she passes out. I carry her to the couch. I go to sleep. The morning brings no relief.

It's not my fault that I'm stuck with her. It's the fault of the North Star. There was no where else to go. Ellen used to be a pleasant woman, with bouncy blond curls and laugh lines. A very good friend of our family. But the tragic incident left her without a son or husband. Grief morphed her into a woman of cruelty, and now I'm trapped in a place I used to call home but has turned to my prison.

"ROSE!" Ellen screams again. Today's beating will be horrible. She drank a lot last night.

As I sling my duffle bag over my shoulder, I relay our full plan in my headThis is the day things will change. This is the day I will escape. I rifle through my sock drawer, searching for the last thing I need...

Footsteps. They fall fast and hard, slamming against the mahogany steps. "Move faster Rose," I murmur to myself. I have only seconds before Ellen comes bursting through my room, and Phase 1 of our plan begins. I scan the area frantically, praying to God that I'll find it.

It's there. Across the room on my desk. I slip my drawstring over my shoulder as I lunge for the family picture on the night of the North Star celebration.

I just have enough time to snatch it up between my fingers before door bangs open and a large knife slams into the wall next to my head.

I feign terror. My eyes are frozen wide open and I stand perfectly still. My acting works, and I see Ellen toss a triumphant smirk my way.

"Hello Rose," Ellen clocks her head sharply to the left. "And where are you going?"

"To buy you more beer," I answer, making it seem like I did so too quickly.

"Oh, I don't think that'll be necessary," she replies sweetly. "I don't need a drink while I'm beating the shit out of you!" 'Stupid comeback,' I think to myself, and with that thought Ellen lunges for me, snatching me around the waist before I can escape. Hamming up, I pretend to struggle against the pressure of her arms, writhing and kicking.

Really, this is too easy. I can think of 18 ways to escape her grasp and have her pinned down with her own knife to her throat in less than 7 seconds.

"Let me go!" I scream at her, still keeping up the act.

Ellen clicks her tongue in mock distaste. "No no no, someone's forgotten our rule, haven't they? I need to keep that from happening." A wicked smile is etched on her face as she slices a deep cut diagonal across my lips.

No she did not. She did not just cut my face. The bitch! Forcing myself to bottle up my anger, I bite back all of my snide remarks and physical comebacks. I focus on making this realistic, and in seconds I have tears parading down my face. 'Not bad,' I think to myself, admiring my own handiwork. 'Not bad at all.' Nonetheless I keep silent, supposedly obeying her commands. Ellen's smile expands. "Good job. Now..." She shoves me onto the floor, boot pressed against my back. "Hold still."

It takes everything I have in me to not lash out as she pulls out a belt and whips me over and over again. Every time I suffer a blow I feel the pain of broken glass and the burning of a thousand suns. I count 27 times before Ellen roughly flips me over and stars punching my face. My nose cracks and bloods spouts out like Old Faithful, and I can feel my right eye swell shut as I suffer another blow.

To finish me off, she unsticks the blade from the wall and slits open my wrists and ankles. I sit in a pool of my own blood, sticky and warm, gasping for oxogen. Ellen grips my shoulders and shoves me off the floor, forcing me to look her straight in the eye. "In 20 years, when I'm long gone, you will still remember me and the power I held over you." She spits in my face. "You're pathetic."

My thoughts are being shaken up and my vision blurs and I'm loosing so much blood. But I've been trained to think clearly during these situations. Remember the plan.

Will all of the energy I can muster, I jump up and sprint over to the windowsill. The shock of my act has left Ellen confused and glued to the floor, giving me the perfect exit.

Time for the grand finale.

"On the contrary, Ellen. I do believe that you'll remember the power I held over you." And with that, I fall backwards out of the window, towards the 300 feet drop.

As I plummet towards the earth, I keep my legs tucked to my chest nearly and my hands firmly wrapped around them. Just like we practice. But when I come in contact with the trampoline below, I prepare for the rebound, and gracefully untucked my legs, landing lightly in my feet.m

But the victory of the jump is short lived, because within a few seconds of standing I collapse on the ground from exhaustion and lack of blood.

So I sit there, following the plan, and waiting.
'Where is the douche bag?' I manage to think through hazy thoughts. I curl into a fetal position on my side and wait.

Finally, a familiar face swims into view. 'Took you long enough," I mutter. His eyes are frozen wide in horror at my appearance.

"What the heck do you think you're doing! I'm freaking dying here! Take me back to base," I order him, but my voice comes out as a hoarse whisper.

He finally breaks out of his daze, scooping me up in his arms with a horrified look on his face. "Thank you," he whispers too me. "Thank you for sacrificing yourself."

I try and shrug, but the pain is to strong, so I express myself in words instead. "It's no problem. I have to deal with that every day. I'm used to it."

And with his sharp intake of breath, I fall asleep in his arms.

A/N: SO... WHO'S THE WE SHE KEEPS TALKING ABOUT? AND WHAT IS THE PLAN? U GUYS WILL C IN THE NEXT CHAPTER....AS ALWAYS, SPOT MY MISTAKES, COMMENT, VOTE, AND KEEP READING!!!! TELL ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS!!!