Hiding Murderers (Sequel of Can't Escape Your Past)

Chapter six ~ Worse of a Life~

Skylar's P.O.V

I hear the door to our room open and Mrs. Francis tells us to get up in her loud voice. Day two in this place. Maggie jumps up and I get up as well. Twist soon follows a few seconds later.

I take off my nightgown and put on my undergarments and dress. I rush to the mirror to brush out my thick hair and put it into a French braid. I've never had to keep my hair up before but mom taught me how to make a French braid when I was a little kid. I look at it in the mirror and it doesn't look all that bad.

I look over to Maggie who's struggling with her hair that was extra messy this morning. As she moves her hair over her shoulder I notice a little round, black and purple bruise on her neck. Now that I've noticed it, they're all over her body. Some bigger than others but they're still everywhere.

I then realize I'm staring and that looks really awkward, so I look away. "Do you need help with your hair, Maggie?" I ask, pinning some loose strands back.

"No. She's coming back in a few minutes and my hair takes too long to put up on days like today. But she will flip out if she sees us helping one another out with things like this!" she says quietly. "And I'm not gonna let any of you take the bullet for me,"

"You're sure?" I ask, panicking as I hear Mrs. Francis's loud, heeled footsteps coming up the stairs.

"Yes I'm sure! Now line up in front of your beds!" she orders, taking one more panicked shaky stroke of the brush through her messy hair.

Maggie speed-walks to the footboard of her bed just milliseconds before Mrs. Francis bursts the door open. She walks over to me and studies how good I look, I'm guessing. She does the same to Twist. But then she reaches Maggie.

She stares down at Maggie with her cold, ominous eyes. I myself am scared and she's not even the one staring at me. "Edith..." Mrs. Francis says.

"Yes, ma'am?" she says quietly in return.

"You don't have your hair up this morning," Mrs. Francis just deepens her stare into Maggie's green eyes.

"I know. But I was too messy and I didn't have enough t-" she's cut off as Mrs. Francis slaps her.

She slaps her again and again until Maggie falls to the ground, clutching her cheek. Mrs. Francis kicks her in the stomach and pelvic area which makes her cry in more pain than the kick to the stomach did. Mrs. Francis took note of her pain in that spot and continued with at least another ten kicks there.

I leave my spot from behind the bed and rush to help her; but Twist grabs me by the arms so I can't move any further. "Do you want to end up like her, too?!" he groans against my struggles into my ear.

Her cries of pain keep me struggling for about another thirty seconds, but then some sense passes through my brain and I go back to my spot behind the bed. I look down at the floor and try to drown out the pleading cries for the pain to stop from Maggie. Mrs. Francis then yanks her up by her hair and sits her in front of a mirror.

She pulls out a hairbrush and roughly starts pulling it through Maggie's hair. I hear the sound of her hair ripping as clumps and knots are just ripped out of her head. Maggie screams but the brush is just pulled and pulled through her black hair.

When it's finally done, there's a tight bun in the top of her head. It looks so tight it's uncomfortable, but maybe that's the point. Now that I've seen Mrs. Francis in her truly wicked form I don't have any doubts that the bun is supposed to be painful or at least uncomfortable.

"You remember the rule for this bun, Edith: keep it neat until you return home or you get the same treatment again," Mrs. Francis says coldly.

She lets us all go downstairs for breakfast. Twist and I sit beside each other and Maggie sits on the left of Mr. Francis in her normal small and broken look and Mrs. Francis on his right. He sits awfully close to Maggie and I'm really suspicious now with the bruises.

So I intentionally drop my fork, apologize and duck under the table to pick it up. I look over the where Maggie and Mr. Francis are sitting and what I see completely horrifies me. He's moved up the skirt of her dress and is caressing her thigh!

I hold back vomit and grab my fork. I get back into my seat and continue eating. This is just something I'll have to ask Maggie about later.

Once we finish eating we are given a brown satchel each and head outside. All three of us stand at the end of the driveway, waiting for the school bus. This'll be my first day of actual school in my near-seventeen years of life.

I'm really not looking forward to it.