Journey to Love

Chapter 2

The sun shone through Layla's window, waking her from her sleep. The bright light pierced Layla's eyelids. She growled lightly, covering her eyes with her arm. Rolling over, Layla blinked away the harsh light, and began to reach out towards the right side of her mattress. She patted the wooden floor until she felt her fingers fall around her glasses. She picked them up and wiped them with her shirt before placing them onto her face.

She did a quick once over of her room to make sure her foster parents were not standing around waiting for her to wake up. Before she slowly stood up from her mattress, and picked up a shirt from what she hoped was her semi-clean pile. After sniffing it, she deemed it worthy to put it on. She decided to wear the same pants as yesterday, but swapped her socks for clean ones.

Once her shoes were on, she left her bedroom. She didn't bother with brushing her hair, instead she went down the stairs to start cooking her guardians their breakfast.

However she wasn't prepared to see both, Danielle and Jackson to already be seated at the kitchen bench. Layla stopped in her tracks. She looked at the clock on the side wall and quickly worked out the time to be 7:15am. Which she was sure was earlier then what her foster parents would normally have been down there.

To make matters worse, both of her foster parents were facing her, as if they had been waiting. The scowls on their faces were enough to cause Layla's heart rate to speed up exponentially. She was in trouble. Big trouble.

"Well I see that you finally decided to get your lazy fatass out of bed" Danielle growled out, leaning back on the counter, taking a drag from her cigarette.

"i-I'm sorry....i did..didnt realise I s-slept in" Layla trembled out. Her hands instinctively intwined with each other. A nervous habit she had. She watched as her foster mother released the smoke-clad breath out into the room.

"I seriously don't think we ask much of you Layla." her irritation clear in her voice, "We give you a nice house to live in, your very own bedroom, yet everyday you seem to disappoint us in some way. It's like you want us to hate you"

"I-I s-"

"I'm so sorry, it wont happen again, I promise" Danielle mocked the girl, "you keep fucking saying that, yet here we are. With you fucking up again and again and again. Maybe we aren't disciplining you enough. Maybe you need to be taught harder, because you clearly haven't been learning"

"n..n..no, please no" the little girl backed up a couple of steps, her legs trembling. When her foster father suddenly stood from his seat her natural instincts kicked in and she bolted. She ran out the side door towards the dining room when her parents simultaneously shouted

"You fucking brat, get your little ass back here right now" and "Wait till I fucking catch you"

This propelled her malnourished legs to run faster. She sprinted past the dining table and towards the second exit which lead into the lounge room. She didn't pay any attention to the furniture or the locked back door as she sprinted herself towards the foyer and hopefully outside the front door. But in her panicked state, she didn't realise her foster mother was standing in the doorway until another force pushed her to the ground.

She landed in a heap on the floor, sharp shooting pain erupted in her left hip and shoulder causing a small whimper to escape her lips. She quickly moved onto her back, just in time to see her foster father lash out at her. She begged her body to cooperate with her, to get her away from this mess, but she wasn't fast enough to move away from the fist that plummed into her right cheek, causing her body to fall back to the floor. Her left cheek slamming into the carpeted ground. She didn't have time to recover before she felt her arm being crushed in a tight grip. She was yanked from the floor, half dangling, with her knees slightly scraping the carpet. Layla lifted her head slightly, to see her foster mother walking towards her.