Eric Barton

I look in the mirror at myself after I use my inhaler, feeling pathetically weak as I see small tears slide down my face. I look at my bare chest and. I'm covered in bruises and small cuts on my chest and some on my arms, only having a forming black eye with a small cut above my right eyebrow. I glance down at the bloody words on my chest:

"Abomination."

Shutting my eyes, I try to placate my massive rage, but ashamed consumed me instead of fury. I feel like shit and all I wanna do is crawl in a hole and die in it.

I just wanna get away from my fiendish and rigorous mother, Brenda; a witch, and her boyfriend, Marcus North, who's a seven hundred year old vampire. All they do is belittle me and beat me to a pulp because they "need to let out their anger on someone". I hate them with a passion and all I want to do is run or die as I remember why I was beaten this way...

"Where the fuck have you've been?" Mother persisted (I never call her Mom), looking at me with disgust and hatred in her brown eyes. I was standing at the staircase, petrified as I see Marcus at the top of the stairs, his arms crossed over his chest as he glares down at me. I quiver and quail as I look at my mother who's standing a few feet behind me.

"I've been at school... studying..." I lie and off as Marcus blurs in front of me, veins appearing as his eyes redden, but they slowly turn back to normal. He began intimidate me, fury blooming in his ocean eyes.

I've mastered lying to them by now, having lived with Marcus for three years, and I couldn't tell them I was out with my best friend, Sean Loris, practicing our music. Mother and Marcus think I'm a loner at school and I have to keep it that way or they will kill him.

I rather die than let that ever happen.

"You're lying to her. To me. I know you've somehow found a way to make us think that you're telling the truth, but I'm not that dumb... You were probably stalking some whore," Marcus criminated, raising an eyebrow at me as my temper got the best of me and I suddenly became incogitant.

"Wow. You're not an idiot. Could've fooled me."

I shouldn't have said that...

I shiver at the memory since I'm still appalled by the events that happened before and after. I was almost beaten to death by Marcus, he had his fangs to my neck and was about to plunge them into me, but stopped. They just left me to wither on the ground and I had to stagger to my bathroom on my own, again.

How many times do I have to deal with almost meeting death?

My answer: Not another.

I put my black t-shirt on, biting my tongue as I almost groan in pain. I have about two hours before they come back from shopping and I intend to use this free time to getaway. I quickly, ignoring my pain, limp to my room and dump out my school supplies and fill it with my clothes. I put my untraceable cell phone up to my ear as I shove my money in my pocket, hoping she'll pick up.

"Hello?" I sigh in relief as my old friend, who used to be like my older sister, answers.

"It's Eric Barton, Hayley. I need your help."

"Can you come to New Orleans?" Hayley ask, already knowing why I'm asking for help. I smile, relief consuming me as I steal my mother and Marcus's money. I have a car and license since I'm sixteen so I have no trouble with traveling, gas tank is completely filled anyway.

"Yeah. It's only a state over. I should be there soon."

Freedom.