Chapter 1

A Chapter by Bee135

I could hear the pounding behind me, forever getting closer. I turned a corner into a different street. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me but it was no use, I could hear the pounding footsteps getting close now, probably only five metres away. I daren't turn around. For two reasons; the fear of what I might see, and it would slow me down. I turned another corner, in a hope I might lose him! "NO!" I screamed at the top of my voice as I reached a dead end. "NO! LEAVE ME ALOE! PLEASE!" I was screaming for my life now. He was closing in on me. I backed up against the cold brick wall. "PLEASE! LEAVE ME ALONE!" I screamed over and over as he slowly reached to me. He was one metre away now. He reached forward, grabbed me wrist and then...

I sat up in bed screaming. I looked frantically around my room and saw my bedsheets and pillow strewn on the floor. This always happened. I wish it would stop, I've had the same dream for months now. Always the same, him chasing me, then him reaching out to me, crouched on the ground. And then I wake up. I've never known what happened next. I don't want to know; I want it to stop! Always him chasing me, never anyone else, not the bullies at school, not scary Mr Bishon, the Maths teacher, just ... him!

Ok, so now you're probably wondering who he is, right? Well, he's my dad. Yes, I know it's weird to be running from your dad but I hate that man, and so does my mum. I've always lived with my mum. Mum took me and we ran away from him when I was only four. I used to ask Mum where dad was and she'd always say the same thing, "He went away to do some work in America. He'll be home soon, sweetie," she had said. But soon I didn't believe her and I squeezed the truth out of her. She says dad hit her real bad, she has scars from when his ring caught her. Mum says she was terrified and then he was starting to hit me, but not as hard as he hit her. I always tell mum she should've told the police but she says no because he would know it was her that told them. It was my fourth birthday when we ran away. Dad has got out the beer ad he was drinking loads. Mum says that he looked like a human sized cushion, all floppy and lollopy. I had probably laughed.Mum told me that she had said to put the alcohol away otherwise I would get the wrong idea. Dad had thought this prepostorous and had come up to me, grabbed my arms and put his face to mine and shook me, shouting in my face, "You're alright aren't you?" while I hung there, my head banging around like a rag doll. Mum says that he took it as a yes so he shouted at mum for suggesting to put away the beer. Mum told me she was scared for both of us. Dad only hit her when he was drunk. Apparently dad went out after a bit, to the pub with his mates. That's when mum decided it was time to leave. She packed our stuff, got into out car and that's why we are where we are now. 58 Briar Way, a massive house in a busy town. So dad will have trouble finding us... or so we hope.

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I did a thorough search of the whole house to make sure he wasn't here but I still couldn't get back to sleep. It was 2am and I was really tired! Five more hours and I'd be getting up and getting ready for school. Slowly, I crept out of bed and tiptoed down the landing to my mum's room. I pushed the door open even slower, making sure it didn't creak or groan. Mum looks so peaceful when she's sleeping, I didn't want to wake her up but she had said to tell her whenever I had a dream about him. I edged round the room, stepping carefully over creaky floorboards. I crawled into bed next to my mum, being ever so careful not to disturb her. I snuggled down under the covers and I fell asleep cuddling up to my mum.

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I woke again with a start two hours later. I wondered what had woken me because it wasn't the dream. I listened intently, the covers pulled up to my chin, when I heard a chink of glass from the en-suite of my mum's room. "No," I thought, "Don't be him! Please don't be him!" I reached over to shake my mum awake but she wasn't there! I was scared to my bones; mum wasn't here and someone was in the bathroom. I stayed huddled under the covers. It must've been at least ten minutes before I heard the floorboards creak and my mum climbed into bed.

"Mum! Where were you?" I asked as I flung myself around her. "There's someone in the bathroom!"

"Hon, there's no need to worry! That was me you Muppet!" she replied. "Honestly! What's got into you, Becca?" That's me. Becca is what everyone calls me, short for Rebecca.

"I had the dream again," I sobbed into her shoulder. "So I came in here but I didn't want to disturb you! And then you weren't here, and the noise from the bathroom! I was scared mum!" I didn't bother to stop myself crying. Mum was safe, he wasn't here, everything was OK. "What were you doing anyway?"

"I got myself a glass of water. I was thirsty," Mum said.

"I'm tired, mum. I'm going to go to sleep." I don't know how long it was before I finally got to sleep but the last thing I remember is seeing my mum getting up and leaving the room. Then I drifted into subconsciousness.

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BRRIIIING! BRRRIIIING! The alarm clock went off at exactly seven o'clock. Again my mum hadn't heard it. I pulled myself out of her bed and turned off the alarm. As I trundled through to my room I stopped, I'd heard something. A scruffling sound. It stopped so I thought I'd imagined it and I carried on to my room. As I opened the door I saw what the scruffling was; it was Bonzo, our black Labrador retriever. He was nosing around and running over my duvet.

"Here boy! Here Bonzo!" I coaxed, as he came bounding towards me. I sent him downstairs so I could get changed into my school uniform. Ugly though it was, it was comfy. Bright red jumper, soft materialed polo neck shirt and baggy black trousers (a grey skirt (also comfy) in the summer). I brushed my hair and tied it up out of my eyes; we had art and drama. Both of which I'm good at, or so the teachers say. Miss Gak, the drama teacher, says I show my feelings clearly in my movements and facial expressions when I'm acting. Mrs Starly, my art teacher, says I am good at sketching and painting, especially details. I guess I just use them as a way of getting all my thoughts out.

Before I went down to breakfast, I popped my head round mum's door. She was still fast asleep and I decided to wake her after breakfast. When I finished my cereal, toast, fruit and yoghurt I went upstairs to wake mum. I stomped loudly into the room but she didn't stir. Not unusual though. I jumped on the bed and shook my mum hard.

"Ok! Ok! I'm up, I'm up!" my mum laughed as she tumbled out of bed.

"Ok, mum. I'm off to school now. Bye, Love you!"

"Bye, Becca, see you later!" mum called as I ran down the stairs.

I heard them before I saw them. My best friends forever! Rosie and Megan (the fashion sisters), Ananya (the accident prone one), Shubhangi (Shubby for short, the funny one), Sophie (the crazy, hyper-all-the-time one), Rebecca (my twin, well not technically but we do everything together and we love the same things so we are basically twins. We call her Becky to tell the difference), and me, Rebecca (the devil in disguise). The seven of us make up our friendship group. I ran down the hill to the end of the road where they always wait.

"Hey guys!" I shouted as I ran towards them.

"Hey, Becca!" they called back. "What's up?"

"Not much. The usual; stayed at home, helped mum," I told them as I slowed to a walk.

"It's a shame you can't come out. We were thinking of going to the cinema after school," Shubby said, as I caught up with them.

"I know. I'm still trying to figure out why she's so depressed," I replied, even though there was no question. Ok, so basically my mum has been depressed lately and I'm not allowed to go out or have friends over; I have to stay and help mum. Yawn! Boring! We started walking to school and Rosie and Megan were telling me all the gossip from the weekend. They were telling me about Buggy (Buggy was a nickname for Bob, who Shubby fancies) asking Shubby out when Becky pulled me behind.

"I know something's wrong, Becca. What is it? You know you can trust me not to tell," she said. Becky always knows when something's wrong and she coaxed the truth out of me. I told her about how on Saturday night I had heard my mum murmuring in her sleep about texting someone - a boy or man. So the next morning I had checked her phone and I found who she needed to text. I'd looked through her messages to see who she had texts from and then I saw. There were some from a man called Ben J. Ben was my dads name, and his surname was Jefferson. This could only mean one thing: MY MUM AND DAD WERE IN TOUCH WITH EACH OTHER! Then I actually checked the texts to see what they had been saying. I was hoping that it was stuff like "how r u?" and "is Rebecca ok?" but those hopes sank down almost immediately. I selected the first message dad had sent. No "hi. how you been?" This is all the message said:

'I KNOW WHERE U R!

I'M CUMMIN 2 GET REBECCA!'

I was terrified then and still am now! I told Becky that I then checked the reply, which was:

'WHERE R WE THEN?'

Just that, nothing else. Obviously neither had forgiven each other. My dad had then replied:

'U TELL ME UR ADDRESS

I'LL SEE IF IT'S THE SAME

AS I'VE GOT'

Oh God! Now, I could figure out that dad didn't really have our address, he just wanted mum to give it to him. And mum really isn't the cleverest of people so I'm guessing that's what she wanted to send in the text. She hasn't yet though!

When I finished my story we walked along in silence. Becky was obviously thinking what to say to cheer me up but all I could manage was, "Oh my gosh! What did you do with her phone?"

"Oh, I've kept it, just in case, ya know? I'm hoping she might forget but she keeps asking if I've seen her phone and she needs to text someone. And I say no and ask who it is but mum walks away and says, 'Not now, I'm busy'. Ugh, parents - yes I know I know one of mine -," I added before Becky could interrupt, - "they are just so annoying!"

"I know! And sisters!" Becky replied. She looked ahead towards the others and added, "Come on! I think Charlie, Lucas and Jamie have joined them!" We started running to catch up. Charlie is Sophie's boyfriend, Lucas is Rosie's and Jamie is Megan's. We never want to miss the dirt with boys! That's us Twins!

"Oh, please!" we said loudly enough for the others to hear, as we walked past Jamie and Megan snogging. Rosie and Lucas, and Sophie and Charlie were snogging next to them.

"Only because you don't have boyfriends!" Rosie shouted as we carried on walking. Megan and Sophie just looked at us in way that seemed to say: 'Come on! Leave us be!' in a joking way.

"So, are Buggy and Shubby an item now?" I asked my twin as I remembered I had never heard Shubhangi's answer.

"Oh, that yeah. They kissed on Saturday! So now us and Ananya are the only ones without boyfriends. I feel so..."

"Lonely?" I finished. "So do I but never forget we have each other. Twins now and forever!"

"Oh yeah!" Becky replied and we did our handshake - shake hands, hi5, peace sign, hugs!

We kept walking and walked into Ananya. She had stopped and was staring ahead at the boys who weren't snogging anyone.

"Ananya? ANANYA?!" we shouted.

"What? Fred's up there! Oh, he's so cute isn't he?" she asked in reply. In my opinion, Fred is nothing special, but to Ananya he's like Prince Charming. He has blonde-brown hair with a fringe that sweeps across his eyes (that he flicks, as boys do) and vivid green eyes. So anyway, Ananya was standing there, gawking at Fred, while me and Becky were telling her that she should just go and tell him that she likes him. We all agreed (the three of us) that if Ananya did not tell Fred that she likes him by the end of the week then we would.

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