Behind The Lies

Chapter 1: A New Point Of View

Charlotte's P.O.V

I race away from the rotten building, the wind blew through my wild hair, my new slick clothes clung to my body and helped hide me in the darkness before I heard it. The shouting. The dirt bikes and four-wheelers.

I breathe quickly and run even harder through the thick woods. I had to get out of here! I can't take it anymore!

I finally hear the rushing water and run even harder before I reach the river. I don't hesitate to jump in, the cool water rushing over my warm body as I swim hard downstream till I hit a rough path on the opposite side and climb up and over the rocks before continuing to run. 

The sound of the dirtbikes, shouting, and four-wheelers fade and continue to run. I have to get out of here, I have to go home. I just need to find a house, with good people, away from this place.

I worked out for two years without them finding out. I built muscle and stamina and speed.  I was ready for this. Because I will not turn fourteen in that place. I will not spend another year there, playing their sick 'games'.

There was five of us there. Me, an older woman who has lost her mind over time, a ten-year-old girl, a twenty-year-old who never talks. And then there was a girl only a year older than me.

There was five of us. 

They got really drunk earlier in the day. All of them. They forced the twenty-year-old to drink and not stop. She drank herself to death.

The older woman was cradling herself and mumbling something before they got sick of hearing it and tried playing a knife game with her. They threw knives at her as she sat against the wall before one hit her in the chest and another in the head. She died after that.

The girl who was a year older then me and the youngest are still there. I vowed that once I got away I would come back and save them.

I feel tears slip from my eyes as I run, my lungs beginning to burn. I just have to get far enough into the thicket of the woods. I just need to get to where they can't and run till the next night, then I can rest. When it's dark and I have a better chance of finding a place to hide.

I don't stop running for another hour it feels like. And the only sound is my own heavy breaths and running footsteps. 

I reach another stream and quickly bend down to drink from it before I start to hear it. The faint sound of motors.

No!

I quickly take my drink and begin to sprint away again but as the sound moves closer I run harder.

I can't live like that anymore!

I can't!

I move as fast as my legs will let me but the sound moves even closer and I feel something sharp hit my back. A dart.

No, no, no, no, no, no, I wanted to get away. I needed to get away!

I feel my arms moving sloppily and my legs start to feel weak and like jello before my body feels sluggish and the bikes surround me, all lights on me.

They laugh and chuckle before I feel another dart in my leg making that leg give out and causing me to fall.

They circle around me and although I may be paralyzed, my eyes are wide open.

"Well, well, well, look who we got here. That was a nice chase. Owen, get over here," Carter calls, he's the ringmaster of this whole thing.

"Yes, sir?"

He whispers something in his ear and the kid walks off. He's the same age as me but they wanted him in their sick group.

"What am I to do with you? You were doing so good. And then you had to go mess it all up," he says as he sits on his toes, still looking down on me.