Daughter of Athena

Chapter 1: 7th Time's The Charm

"Get. Out. Of. My. HOUSE!" The red haired woman screamed as she balanced her toddler on her hip. "You and your freakish ways, I'm done with you disrupting my household! Find another person to foster you, you freak! Let's see if this one lasts more than a month!"

Not gonna lie, that stings a little. The longest time I've ever been in a foster home is almost a month. I mean, is it my fault I attract weird people, weird things that follow me, that attack me? I've reverted to carrying a kitchen knife that I took from the second foster home. That was the sixth one, and now I've got nowhere else to go.

So what do I do now? I can't hide, I can't hole up with someone, the creatures that follow me can smell me. The only place I can think of is my parents' house, but there's a reason I left 3 years ago.

*FLASHBACK*

"Mom!" she yelled. "STOP!"  

It was to no avail. My stepmother- I'd never met my real mother- continued to scream at me for the broken vase lying on the floor. I was 12, and my 6 year old sister, Sapphire, had run upstairs in fright. Amethyst was 16 and she was screaming right back at mom. How could mother not see that I was crying? Amethyst's words couldn't get through to her. When mom was in a rage, she never stopped. How could mother not see that I didn't mean it, that I didn't mean to break anything? It was an accident. "IVORY! THIS WAS MY FAVORITE VASE!" I cried and cried but she continued yelling. Finally, Amethyst stepped in front of me, shielding me, and said quietly, 

"What kind of mother are you?" 

With that, she picked me up and whisked me upstairs. She ran into Sapphire's room, grabbed her by the hand, and brought us to my room. Amethyst put me and Fire on my bed and told me to lock the door. I didn't really understand what was happening at the time, but the next thing I heard was Amy's footsteps running down the stairs. She yelled at my mother, and her words echoed through the walls. "You're drunk again! You're tearing this family apart. Did you even see what you were doing to Ivory? She's sobbing upstairs because you scared her! And what's next? Are you going to terrify Sapphire because she breathed too loudly? Dad hides up in his office, because he's scared of you. Ivory and Sapphire walk on cracked eggshells around you so you won't fly off the handle. And I have to be the real mother around this house, because you can't stop guzzling alcohol like someone who just escaped the desert! I'm tired of this! Next time something like this happens, I'm calling Child Protective Services." 

Everything went silent, and then I heard a crash. My mother slammed the door shut, and I watched her car drive off through the window. Amethyst ran upstairs again and knocked. I opened the door, and I let out a choked sob. Her cheek was bleeding, and there were bits of ceramic vase stuck in the shallow cuts. Sapphire began to cry, and Amy picked her up. She put Sapphire to sleep in her bed, then came back to me. "You can't tell anyone, okay" she begged me. I nodded quietly and helped her pick out the shards in the bathroom. 

No one mentioned that night again, and my mother's drinking problems stopped. My dad spent less and less time in the study, and our family began its mending problems. The only thing was, Amethyst was getting more and more distant, and spent more time locked in her room. I still made too many mistakes for mother's liking, but Amethyst would protect me from the rage. Every time I made a mistake, that night my mother would scream at Amy for "taking the blame for my actions" behind closed doors.

One year later, I walked into Amy's room without knocking. It was clear she wasn't expecting anyone, because she was sitting on the carpet with bandages, gauze pads, and there was something shiny in her hand. Her back was turned towards the door and she had headphones in, so I snuck around and hid in the corner. What I saw, I wish I had never walked in. Amethyst was cutting herself, and her arm showed what must of been dozens of faded scars. I burst into tears, trying to keep quiet so she wouldn't hear me. She stopped and dabbed at her arm with a bandage, and began to wrap up her arms as she pulled her sleeves down and walked into the bathroom. I was causing too much trouble in the house, I was destroying the family, so I decided to leave. I grabbed my old teddy bear that Amy had given me for my birthday when I was 6 and tied the bloody bandage from the floor in a bow around its neck, leaving it in the center of the carpet.