No Escape

Chapter Three

Lily's dreams often weren't the greatest; half the time they didn't even qualify as dreams. They were just memories from things that had happened to her, other times they were nightmares. These nightmares were always of really fucked up things that she hadn't any idea how or why her mind made it up. Most, if not all, her nightmares had the same theme: her mother's death.

For example, once she had this nightmare of a time when her mom was still alive. Her mom, Carter, and Lily went to the park and her parents were taking turns pushing her on the swings. Lily was having the time of her life with the biggest smile on her face. Her mother was smiling and laughing at her as she yelled that she wanted to go higher. In the blink of an eye, someone jerked the swing back and roughly pulled her out of it. Lily screamed, but Carter held her in his arms and was covering her mouth. Her mom was struggling against some man that had both her wrists in one of his behind her back; his other arm around her neck.

Lily looked around the park for help, but even though it had been filled with playing children and gossiping mothers two seconds prior, it was deserted. She blinked again and she was being shoved into a closet and told to stay quiet or else she'd regret it. She thought that she heard her mother yelling for her but wasn't sure if she heard properly. The next thing she knew, Lily was running out of the room she was put in to escape, but instead saw her mom laying still as a statue on the ground. No matter how loud she screamed at her, her mom wouldn't wake up. Lily then heard loud voices and stomping from elsewhere in the building and ran without thinking. She ran and ran until she tripped over, what seemed like, her own two feet. Just as she slammed into the ground, she woke up breathing heavily.

This was the same dream she was shaken awake from in the morning. Carter was screaming at her to get up. When she opened her eyes, she got a good look at how pissed he was. His face was red, nose flared, and eyebrows scrunched making his wrinkles on his forehead more prominent. The second he noticed she was awake, he punched her in the face and began yelling again.

"My friends complained about you the other day. What makes you think you have the right to tell them no?? Huh?!" She kept her mouth shut, but it turns out that wasn't a good idea.

Carter was furious that she had thought to do such a thing. How had she not learned by then that what he said was law in his house? And she had the audacity to ignore him?! Carter was under the impression that she was truly a stupid girl. He grabbed her by her hair and threw her to the ground, got on top of her, and put his forearm against her throat. "You stupid bitch! Answer me."

Lily still didn't answer, and he pressed against her throat harder. She began to struggle to breathe and Carter got this sick smile on his face, "answer me or you'll regret it." With every word that he spoke, he pressed harder and harder, until she thought that he would break something.

She began getting lightheaded as she continued to struggle against his hold; she tried responding, only it came out very coarse "th-they were g-g-gonna br-eak the r-rule." Carter wrapped his fingers around her throat this time, pulling her up and slamming her against one of the walls in the hallway so hard that she thought that a couple of her ribs broke.

He just laughed, not believing a word she said, "yeah. Like anyone else besides you would be stupid enough to break my rules."

Tears formed in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. He wouldn't see her as weak; not today. Still struggling and forcing her mind and body to stay awake, she spoke again, "they did break your rule."

"Liar!" Carter screamed at her and threw her away from him. Lily landed on one of the stairs and rolled down to the bottom of them. She wasn't sure where Carter had gone to, but he wasn't near her, so she took that time to take a moment to gather herself together before attempting to get up.