I run through the woods, branches clawing at me from all around. My feet never seeming to touch the ground. But as fast as I am, I know they are even faster. Suddenly I'm dragged to the ground. Something hits me across my head, hard. I fall into darkness.
When I wake up my hands are bound behind my back. My plaid flannel shirt is torn.
A man walks into the damp, dusty room and over to me. He uses the tip of his blade to tilt my chin up.
He clicks his tongue. "So much trouble caused by such a small person."
I just stare into his eyes and snarl, "You'll never find her."
"That I know my dear."
I normally understand his crazy tactics, but this just mystifies me. "Then why…"
"Do all of this? Well, my dear, even if I can never find her, who says she'll never find me?"
...
I stare out the window into the falling rain.
"This isn't fair," I grumble for the hundredth time.
My dad looks at me from the driver seat. "It's just the last nine weeks of the school year and summer camp."
"Yeah, a new school and camp I don't want to go to."
He sighs. "You're going and that's the end of things. Maybe when I get back we can go out to somewhere, just the two of us, for a couple weeks. I promise."
I shake my head at him, tears actually springing to my eyes. "I can't believe you."
"What?"
"You don't get it, do you? I'm sick and tired of moving around. Sick and tired of your work being more important than me. And you know what's worse than that? I'm sick and tired of you making promises you won't keep."
I climb out of the now stopped car and sprint to my aunt's front porch, banging on the door until she opens up. I mumble a quick hello and then run to what's going to be my solitary confinement for the next three to four months. My room.