On The Edge

Chapter 1

Someone shakes my shoulder roughly and I groan into my pillow.

"Leave me alone." I mumble, my voice muffled through the pillow.

"Don't talk to me like that. Now, get up." Miss. Jane commands, snatching the pillow out from under my head and smacking me with it.

"Alright, alright." I wave her off, my eyes still closed. I gaze over at my digital alarm clock, the numbers hazy: 11:30 AM. "Why so early?" I whine, my head falling back onto the mattress.

"A couple people are coming to adopt a 14 year old later at around 5 o'clock." Miss. Jane explains, walking out the door. "Be back by 4:00!"

Doesn't surprise she knew I was going out today; I always do. I swing my legs out of the bed and stagger to the bathroom at the end of the room. I let out an exasperated sigh when I see myself in the mirror.

"Really?" I scold myself, picking up my hairbrush and ripping through my hair.

My brown/blonde hair is always straight, except for when it gets frizzy. I don't mind having straight hair though; it's much easier to work with.

I try to take off my oversized t-shirt, but I lose myself in it and struggle to take it off. I finally get it off and throw it to the ground. I grab my black, ripped skinny jeans and black combat boots, slipping both of them on. I grab my favorite-- and 1 of few-- shirt; it's a scratchy colored blue with cut off sleeves and a white design of the American eagle on it; but it says in music we trust. Pretty awesome.

I quickly brush my teeth and throw an army green beanie on top of my head. My golden key necklace is already clipped onto my neck like it always is; you never know when you'll need to open another door.

I walk out of the bathroom and grab my rip stick off the wall. I open the door to my room and jog out, sliding down the railing of the stairs on my butt with my rip stick in my lap.

"By 4:00!" Miss. Jane reminds me as I grab piece of toast off the kitchen counter and run out of the horrid building, away from all the bratty, girly-girls.

You might be wondering why she lets me-- a girl wanting to live on the run-- go out on my own. Well, the answer to your question is: she put a tracker in me. Yeah, that's right; I feel like her pet or something. After I had tried to escape-- more than once, as expected-- she had the police put a tracker in my arm. It stung like heck, and now I have no privacy what-so-ever, when it comes to where I am. She also has a digital map that shows were I am; I'm this weird red dot that floats around on her tracking device, and when I go past a border, I get zapped. Then, if I don't go back into the designated area after 2 minutes, I get shocked unconscious. Not fun. And, yes, it's happened before.

I toss my rip stick on the cement sidewalk and hop onto it, immediately swaying my feet back and forth to keep momentum. The spring day feels like a new breath of air on my skin as I glide past red and orange trees and people walking their dogs on the sidewalk. The sun reflects off street signs and cars as they pass, and the breeze makes my hair blow in front of my face lightly. It's days like these that just make me want to disappear into the wind itself.

I ride up to the skate park and am immediately greeted by my friends sitting on their usual bench.

"Parker, what's up?" The red haired boy that usual comes here says.

I nod my head to him and swivel over to Shades, passing the other few boys that he hangs out with.

"Edge, what up dude-et?" Shades grins, fist-bumping me as I hop off my rip-stick.

"Nothin' much, man." I grin, sweeping a blonde/brown streak behind my ear. "Just don't call me 'dude-et'."

You see, Shades and his skater friends normally call me Edge because I was famous for my rip-stick tricks on the edges of the bowls. But Shades called me Edge because I'm always living life on the edge: family dying, getting beat on a daily basis, running away so many times that I had to have a tracker in my arm-- yeah.