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Chloe's life is nothing short of hell. Growing up with her abusive foster mother, Crystal Oasis, has made her distant from others and scared of the outside world, until she decides to change that.

    Chloe barely hears the faint cling of the small metal chain hitting against the dirty light bulb as she blindly swats for it. After a brief moment standing in the pitch black room, a moment seeming like forever, her long, bony fingers wrap around the chilling chain, which she gives a small tug. The all-too-familiar flickering of the dim bulb above her  begins its daily threat of going back to it’s original blackened state.
    “Come on now, I know you’re able to turn on,” Chloe pleads, closing her eyes and clasping her hands together as if praying.
    The flickering stops and the light bulb emits a faint glow around the tiny bathroom. With a sigh of relief and a small victory under her belt, Chloe reaches forward to shut the medicine cabinet’s splintered door to get to the cloudy mirror on the other side. Her fingers tremble in anticipation as she hears the click of the door shutting and sees herself, or what the mirror says is her, starring back.
    Her layered hair, which usually lays right above her shoulders, is stuffed into a messy bun sitting dead center on the top of her round head. Her bangs, uneven and unkempt, rests directly below her thick and untamed eyebrows, which peek through the bangs. Her nearly anorexic 5ft 6in frame is all but swallowed by a “I Heart NYC” tank top, although she has never left North Carolina, not since she was a baby. And her once full lips now sit dry and cracked under her button nose, and her eyes… she had to turn away.
    “What am I supposed to tell Ms. Drosera this time?” Chloe asks herself as she bends down to find her makeup bag under the sink, “The doorknob hit me again? That barely worked the first time. I’m tall, doorknobs aren’t…”
    Her fingers shuffle through the bag until they pull out her compact powder cover up and a makeup brush worn down throughout the many years of using it, so that the once soft bristles are now no better than fraying pieces of straw. It pokes into the rainbow of deep blues, blacks and purples under her left eye that she is trying to cover up, bring tears to it.
    Back in her room, she fights to put on one of her two pairs of jeans that are filled with such an amass of holes, moths refuse to touch them. New clothes are nothing more than a fantasy to her. She grabs a jacket, her school supplies and her black crystal necklace, the only belonging she has of her biological mother, before walking to the front door. Before she gets to the stairs she stops. She turns to her left and notices her reflection in the glass case that holds nothing more than cracked, dusty “fine” china that had probably been purchased at a convenience store.
    Battered and beaten since childhood, it was impossible to feel beautiful with a face full of bruises and small scars. At sixteen years old, Chloe felt more like a monster than a teenage girl.
    She shakes the feelings of sorrow away and rushes down the stairs before the true monster, her abusive foster mother, Crystal Osis, comes down to see the piece of work she painted onto Chloe’s canvas of a face the night before.
    She races out the door and begins walking down the narrow dirt path to the road ahead. She doesn’t walk with confidence; she keeps her head down and her eyes lowered while shuffling her feet along the concrete sidewalk. Her foot taps a pebble down to the cul de sac at the end of her street where other teenagers begin to pour out of their houses. She quickens her pace for, as soon as the crowd joined her, anxiety of what others would think about her newly colored eye flood her.
    Her feet jostled together as she continued to make her way down the street. The sidewalk turned to a stone path when she came upon the school grounds. The air around her was unusually thick with fog and weighed down upon her until she entered the school. The hallways swarmed with students, most rushing to their first hour class, but Chloe slowly meandered down the hall, being careful to avoid contact with anyone; teacher or student.
    Silently, she slips into her first class, English. The teacher, Ms. Drosera, acknowledges Chloe more than anyone she knows. She is Chloe’s only friend and feels more like a mother than Crystal ever has. Without Ms. Drosera, Chloe would be alone.
    She wedges into the chair in the corner near Ms. Drosera’s desk although she wishes to be anywhere but. As soon as she makes out Ms. Drosera’s kinkily curled blonde hair bounce into the room, she drops her head and pretends to scrawl something into her notebook; she still hadn’t an excuse for her fresh black eye.
    “Morning Chloe! How did you like the reading? You know Shakespeare is one of my favorite and I find Winter’s Tale to be extremely note-worthy, unlike so many other pieces of work nowadays,” she garbles excitedly as she plants her stout frame into her chair before turning it in Chloe‘s direction.
    “Abuse, mistrust and abandonment. It was a story I would hate to be a part of,” Chloe replies, her head still propped downward.
    “Yes, I see. Usually you have more to say. Nothing about character development or their backgrounds today? What about the plot? Come on Chloe, dig deep!” She starts to roll her chair closer to Chloe, but her long skirt gets trapped under the wheel giving Chloe enough time to stand and turn towards the door before she had got to her.
    “I have to run to the restroom,” Chloe mumbles, beginning to walk towards the door.
    “Wait,” a firm hand grabs Chloe shoulder, “Turn around.”
    Chloe’s heart stops the moment her feet do. Her face burns around her cheeks and she fights back tears, “Not in front of the class,” She begs, “Please.”
    “Follow me,” Ms. Drosera whispers to her as she furiously walks towards the door, “Class, take out a piece of paper and write three paragraphs over the central plot of Winter’s Tale  and how one of the characters of your choosing contributes to it. You have approximately ten minutes to formulate your well thought out paragraphs, they will be for a grade.”
    Chloe keeps her head down as she follows Ms. Drosera out the door and into the hallway. Ms. Drosera stops and stands in front of her, arms crossed and a stern look spread across her usually kind face. Not only sternness; worry and anxiousness are present in the wrinkles between her brows and the water faintly glimmering in the inner corner of her eyes. Chloe nervously switches from foot to foot, biting her lips and concentrating on a spot on the tiled floor.
    “What-- huh? Why did you have to bring me out here?” Chloe said, her breath hot and heavy, “Now the class will have to look at me when I walk back in.”
    “And would that matter unless you have something to hide?” Ms. Drosera hints, “Let me look at your face. Just a quick peek.”
    Chloe hesitates, but knowing she has no other choice she lifts her chin from its’ resting spot before becoming level with Ms. Drosera’s. The teacher only shows shock for a brief second and only through her eyes.
    “Chloe. What happened? And do not speak a single lie. I want the truth,” Ms. Drosera stammered, her breath hissing through her teeth.
    Chloe lowers her eyes again. Her mouth opens to speak, but a lump rises in her throat, “I was walking and I tripped and on the way down, there was a, uhm, rock and I--”
    “Chloe!” Ms. Drosera grabs her shoulders and tilts them back, forcing eye contact, “Only the truth.”
    Ms. Drosera is a gentle person. Her eyes always so soft and her persona light and welcoming. At some moments, she loses herself and becomes quite bemused. She reminds Chloe of a 60’s hippie, always wearing long skirts and dresses bearing the symbolic tie-dye print, pairing them with platform sandals and flowers that she wears in her hair now and then. She is simply a peaceful person, so any form of aggression tends to startle Chloe.
    “Do I really have to say what did this?” Chloe stammered, “Who, I mean.”
    “Chloe, this has gone on far to long. I know she is doing these things to you. Stop hiding from what you are scared of and do something to change it,” Ms. Drosera stated, still holding Chloe’s shoulders.
    Her eyes were soft, yet glazed over with a type of seriousness that made Chloe question her. Ever since Chloe had met Ms. Drosera, she acted with such certainty towards her. She seemed to be a ghost throughout Chloe’s childhood. Chloe thought she could faintly recollect memories of her spiraled hair disappearing behind buildings or her warm smile sitting behind a newspaper in a coffee shop. Whether they be memories or dreams of what she pretends to be a guardian angel, Chloe felt like she had known her for most of her life. She always knew best, but today Chloe found what she was saying unethical.
    “What am I supposed to do? Run away from her?” She ranted, pulling back from her.
    “I say… do whatever it is that you need to do,” Ms. Drosera coaxed before turning and walking back into the classroom.
    Chloe giggles; run away from Crystal? Someone with a name so sweet that one would think she is an angel, but even the devil ran from her. Chloe has been living with her for the past seven years and every single day has been a struggle on whether or not she would be hurt or not, fed or starved, bothered or left to be alone. No one deserved to live like that and she knew it.
    Her gaze catches Ms. Drosera’s in class and she mouths, “I’ll try to do something.”

. . .

    After  school, Chloe sneaks in the front door and quietly tiptoes upstairs to her room. After tossing her school supplies in the corner, she rounds her desk to sit on her bed. The conversation she had with Ms. Drosera earlier that morning still sat in her mind.
    Chloe stands up and crosses the room to the tiny mirror rimmed with dust in each of its’ corners. Her eye still remains a rich blue and black from the night before. She can’t let this keep happening, but she couldn’t let her anger get the best of her either. Anger is what caused her to transfer foster homes the first three times. When she got angry, bad things happened and she didn’t want any repeats.
    She hears a door close from downstairs, followed by the thumping of Crystal’s boots on the wooden floor. She had to face her, tell her that the abuse had gone on long enough. She takes a deep breath and heads downstairs. Her fingers rub against the black crystal on her necklace; it soothed her, but all the while reminded her of how dark Crystal truly was. She would never lose it though. Chloe’s biological parents had always been a mystery, a part of her past that was in a gray area. To her they were mere images of hope within her mind and nothing more. The black crystal necklace they had left her with was a reminder that she actually had a true home once before whatever happened that led to her being put in foster homes.
    Before Chloe got to the bottom of the stairs she smells the cigarette smoke from Crystal. She hears her coughing and follows the sound into the living area. There she sits; overweight, pallid skin with dull craters from years of smoking and unruly, long hair with the slightest bit of blonde streaking the gray throughout it. As Chloe approaches Crystal, she slowly turns and faces her, as if expecting her to walk downstairs at that precise moment.
    “Beautiful. My best piece of work yet and I expect it taught ya a lesson about disrespectin’ my authority, huh?” she cackles, a devious smirk crawling up one side of her face.
    Chloe pauses, carefully gathering her thoughts and forming her words before speaking, “I want to talk to you about that Crystal… I don’t think it’s right, what you do…”
    Chloe’s confidence diminishes as Crystal stands up, not towering over her in the slightest, but releasing a threatening presence Chloe came to fear, “Excuse me?”
    “I don’t want to be treated like your punching bag any more Crystal. I’ll-- I’ll report you if I have to,” Her false self-confidence was obvious with her shaking stature and diminished voice.
    Crystal catches Chloe’s bluff, grabbing her arm, much like Ms. Drosera had, but with more aggression, “Report me, huh? That’s what you’re gonna do? You gonna report this?”
    Crystal lifts her hand and within a blink of an eye, lays the back side of her palm across Chloe’s face. Chloe feels the sting on impact like she has so many times before, but it was different this time. Instead of shriveling back as usual, Chloe stands firm, locking Crystal in the eye, not breaking her gaze for a single moment. This time she wants to fight back, not retreat.
    “Never, and I mean never lay a hand on me again,” Her voice falters not a single time, exuding the self-assurance and seriousness she never had the confidence to show.
    “I knew this day would come. The day when you thought you could control me,” Crystal released her and cornered the table separating them, “but let me tell ya something; I own you and everything ya think you own. You can’t escape.”
    Chloe stands there. Her heart thumps rapidly against her chest, yet it didn’t feel like it was beating at all. There is something in her, something that tends to snap at moments like this that she had kept contained for so many years, but now longs to  be released again. She could almost feel the temperature drop as the fury built up inside her.
    She had taken in so much pain from the years living with Crystal that she hadn’t had the chance to be a kid. She had to be an adult; making dinner for them both, cleaning the house, not going out with friends, as if she had any. She was an unintentional caregiver, or at least, she had been.
    “No, no one owns me. I am my own person,” Chloe steps towards Crystal, “You’re not my mother and you can’t control me, not anymore.”
    A sudden control coursed throughout her veins, but she knew it was happening again. The cracked window to her right catches her eye; bits of frost were traveling inwards from its corners.  She looks at Crystal again and sees her breath traveling as fog from her mouth.
    Chloe’s feet swivel and she begins walking upstairs. Confidence feels good, she even smiles, but she also worries. No less than two steps up the stairs, something grabbs her ankle and gives a tug. Before she could catch herself, her body falls forward, her jaw line hitting the edge of one of the wooden stairs. As if the crack she heard at the base of her jaw wasn’t enough, she already feels the pool of blood building at the foot of her mouth where she bit her lip.
    She stands up swiftly and spats the blood on Crystal, “Enough is enough.”
    A  tremor shoots from her feet to her head as if her rage had signaled adrenaline to course throughout her entire body. Her hand flies towards Crystal’s, tearing it from the skin around her ankle. It was easy to ignore the pain with how she feels-- free, enraged and in power. She takes a deep breath and heads towards the door.
    Crystal stands up and staggers behind Chloe. She reaches for her again, grabbing the collar of her shirt and tugging it back this time. Chloe’s thrashes about, swinging her arms in all directions as her breathes choke out of her. Finally, her right fist impacts what she thinks to be Crystal’s skull. The final straw had just been pulled.
    Without a second thought, Chloe spins around, a fire burning within her eyes with such an intensity, the sun seems nothing more than a faint dull.
    In that moment, Chloe goes from the calm, quiet girl she has been to a fierce monster, much like Crystal herself. Chloe’s slender fingers wrap themselves around Crystals face, engulfing it into her palm before she swiftly thrusts her hand forward with every last bit of strength she possesses. Crystal flew backwards, falling backwards onto the cabinet that held a fish tank with blackened water and the decaying bodies of her pet fish that had long been neglected.
    “Touch me again. Just try. I’m sick, absolutely sick, of how you treat me,” Chloe’s voice builds as she trudges forward towards Crystal. She was incandescent and nothing could stop her now.
    “What are ya gonna do? Leave? You can’t, you have no where to go and, ‘sides, what would you do without your good old mummy?” Crystal thought she had her, Chloe could tell as soon as that all-to-familiar smiling creeping into the corner of her mouth once more.
    Chloe leaned in close to Crystal’s ear, making sure she would be able to feel her breath on her ear, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll live my life the way it was meant to be lived.”
    She plunges her hand into the side of the fish tank, a deep crack traveling up the side before splitting, pouring broken glass and putrefied water over Crystal. Without a second thought Chloe takes off through the front door. Her feet barely touch the ground as she races throughout the woods behind the house she had escaped. The sun nearly reaches the horizon, casting shadows and cooling the air, it was a surreal feeling that can only last for so long. Within her minute of bliss, she hears Crystal crashing through the woods in search of her. Why couldn’t she just let her go?
    Quickening her pace, Chloe seeks out the coverage of the harbor a little ways in the distance. She can hide in one of the abandoned building or stow away on a ship preparing to leave the harbor. She is finally leaving the confines of Crystal’s grasp.
    As Chloe approaches the harbor, she spots a small wooden dingy tied to the side of a dock. She runs towards it, jumping over the pile of tools lying in front of it, before shimming under its tarp as a hiding place.
    Not a single breath escaped through her lips as she sat there in utter silence. Clanging came from outside the boat, no doubt Crystal was attempting to crawl over the stack of miscellaneous tools before continuing her search on the dock. Everything grew silent within a moments time. Chloe could only make out the wind tapping the tarp above her and the sound of her heart resonating throughout her chest.
    Chloe slides two fingers between the tarp and boat, lifting it up slightly, just enough to have a quick peek out. As Chloe lifts her head up to see through the small opening, a pair of unwelcoming green eyes meet hers.
    “Predictable,” Crystal tosses the tarp and grabs Chloe’s hair with one hand, pinning her to the bottom of the dinghy, but what she held in her other hand, frightens Chloe beyond belief. Silver and shining brightly in the last rays of the dimming sun, a crowbar the size of Chloe’s arm sits planted in Crystal’s hand.
    “No!” Chloe cried out, tears running down her face.
    Crystal smirks her devilish smirk as she raises the crowbar above her head, “Yes.”

Author's Note

Help me with present and past tense! It's awful! I know!
If you find a passage that seems wordy or unnecessary, please tell.
Critique as hard as possible, I'm only going to have this up for a few day, thanks!

Reviews

[Andre Chatvick]

I looked over the chapter and I have a few comments.

The first is that you are telling the story in third person, which is good, because that provides you with alternative perspectives. When Chloe enters the classroom you could tell the scene from Ms. Drosera's point of view rather than entirely from Chole's point of view.

The second relates to present tense. Don't use it, ever. The first sentence currently reads, ' Chloe barely hears the faint cling of the small metal chain hitting against the dirty light bulb as she blindly swats for it.' It should read, ' Chloe barely heard the faint cling of the small metal chain hitting against the dirty light bulb as she blindly swatted for it.' You are not consistent in its use either, flipping between present and past during the chapter.

The point is that all action is immediately past tense an instant after it happens. Trying to tell it from an instant to instant perspective makes it hard for you as the writer and hard for the reader and not much fun for any editor as well.

Your use of imagery is good, while I think dialogue could use some work. The three characters shown all use similar language. Try and give each character his or her own voice.

That's all I have at the moment.