"Get out! You stupid little girl! Get out!" the woman yells, cradling a smug little boy in her arms. He has a black eye but is otherwise smirking, his hair being pet lovingly by his mother as she scowls at the foster child in front her. "And you will apologize to Neal this instant," She shouts. The little girl stares at the ground. Her lip is trembling but she keeps her mind focused on not crying. Above her head a light starts to flicker. The mother scrunches her forehead in confusion at the dimming light, distracted if only for a moment.
The little girl has pushed her hair back from her face now and makes eye contact with the woman in front of her. The light seems to have gotten brighter as the girl gains strength. "I'm very sorry," She says flatly, not looking directly into Neal's smug face as she says it.
"I knew you were going to be trouble. I don't think we have any other choice but to give you back," The woman says finally without any sign of kindness or remorse to the orphan.
The little girl says nothing to her because she has heard it before, she's always too different and too tough. And the mother can't put her finger on it but there is something more that threatens her in those little green eyes.
Instead the girl looks to the father who is sitting silently next to his wife. He is moving his watch back and forth on his wrist, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone in the room, but as his eyes meet the blonde child in front of him, he sees all the loss in her eyes. "I didn't mean to hurt him," The girl tells him. She says it as an adult, much older then her age. He nods and his son kicks him in the leg. A gasp of pain erupts from the father's lips and the light starts to flicker again.
"For god's sake George! Stop playing with your watch and say something! And fix that damn light!" The mother is losing her patience and Neal curls up to her, entranced by her hatred for anyone but him. The mother just smiles fondly at him, but the girl knows that the father sees him as the monster he is.
George looks to his wife and then to Neal, a look of disappointment covering his face. His wife raises her eyebrows at him and it only takes a look for the child to understand that he will never stand up to his wife. "We're sorry Emma," The father says at last, not looking into her eyes, but at the floor beneath him, "but this is how it has to be." The light begins to flicker wildly above Emma's head and she closes her eyes, hearing the bulb smash and the cries of her foster family as the room is plunged into darkness.
"Ha! I told you you shouldn't touch me," Neal taunts her as she packs up her things for her last night in the foster home. She still doesn't understand why some of these families sign up to be foster homes until she remembers that she is nothing more then a paycheck and an extra mouth to feed.
"And I told you that if you taunted me one more time I would knock your teeth in," Emma replies through her teeth. She's taller than him and he backs down as soon as she turns to him. Even at 12, her arms are jacked and she knows how to throw a punch.
"Go ahead. Hit me," Neal raises an eyebrow at her, knowing full well that she can't touch him without putting herself in more trouble then she already is, "You're weird. Something about you is weird. My mother said so," Neal continues and Emma pretends to throw a punch. Neal shrieks and backs away, just as Emma lowers her fist. She smirks a little. Sitting down on Neal's old bed she watches him scowl at her as he makes his way to his new bed on the other side of the room that they have come to share. "You made the light break," Neal says a matter of factly and Emma scoffs.
"Don't be stupid," She shoots at him, but she feels it to. She feels like she controlled it, but she wasn't about to admit her feelings to Neal. "I'm not stupid!" Neal shouts.
"You're right. What's below stupid?" Emma taunts him back and he throws something hard at her that hits her in the jaw. She grabs it in pain, looking down at the tiny marble that was marked for her pain.
"You're a psychopath. You belong with dogs," Neal sticks his tongue out at her and turns away from her. He reaches for the light and turns the room dark, not bothering to look back at Emma's shocked face as she moves her jaw back and forth, concentrating on the pain that has started shooting through her bones. She doesn't want Neal to see her cry so she waits, focusing on the pain in her chin rather then the words that had escaped his lips, until she starts to hear the slow breathing of a child asleep.
The sky was dark by the time Neal fully fell asleep, his mouth open lazily making inhuman sounds of a kid with sinus issues when Emma finally lets the tears run down her face. She lets a couple trickle down her face that had been at the edge of her eyes since that afternoon when Neal had pushed her down onto the cement and made her knees bleed, bullying her as he always did when Emma did what she'd always wanted to do and threw the punch that shut him up, even if it was only for a little bit.
No one had asked her if she was okay. No one put bandages on her knees or kissed them better and Emma hadn't expected them to. The tears come anyways, heavy and fast and she knows once they start they won't stop. She sobs through her eyes, letting her cheeks soak in the salt water of her tears, dampening the sheets beneath her. She slams her fists into her pillows and covers her face in her scratchy blankets that have never felt like home and she wants to scream but she won't.
"Please," She whispers in a broken voice to the empty air of her room. A little light had begun to peer onto the floor through the window and she crawls down her bed so she can look up through the glass at some of the little stars that twinkle in the night sky. She whimpers, holding on to her knees and pulling them close to her chest. One star in particular shines brighter then the rest and she wonders if there is a better place out there, a place where she belongs. "Save me," she asks the sky shakily, wiping some of the tears from her cheeks. She closes her eyes as she prays for a better life and a different world. The light of the star seems to shine brighter through the window as she asks, but she shakes her head and it has returned to normal. She tells herself she must have imagined it as she climbs back under the covers and hopes for a happy dream that she knows isn't possible.
It's a little past 2 in the morning when the star begins to shine brightly again, it's light pouring into the room. Emma's little body tosses and turns in the bed, her hair flying over her face as dreams turn into nightmares and nightmares turn into reality. She doesn't want to wake up but she doesn't want to dream. She huffs a little sigh and resigns to open her eyes.
The room seems brighter and she wonders if it is morning yet as she turns to the clock to examine the time. Not even close. She looks puzzled around the room, she can feel something is different. Something isn't right. A little thud sound catches her attention.
"You asked for a savior?" A voice whispers through the dark. Emma jumps up fast, throwing the blankets from her body, searching the room for the body that the voice belongs to. A little laugh escapes their lips.
"Whoever you are. I wouldn't mess with me if I were you," She glares her eyes around the dark room until she makes out a lanky figure that has moved in front of the window, leaning leisurely on the pane.
"Who are you?" She asks, moving cautiously towards the, what she has come to assume, is a boy of maybe 15 or 16.
"Don't you know?" He asks lightly, not too concerned with her fists that are raised between the two of them, "You asked me to save you a couple of hours ago Emma."
"How do you know my name?" She growls at him and he puts his hands up in defeat.
"I don't mean you any harm, Emma," He says knowingly and she must look confused because he takes her moment of confusion to move closer to her, closing the gap between them.
"Hey!" She yells but he only laughs at her.
"I make it my business to know everyone I help," He smirks at her. Emma lowers her hand slightly, taking the opportunity to fully examine the boy in front of her. She can make out his short, wild, light brown hair in the moonlight. He is rather good looking, she decides, but has scars that cover his arms and a dark green tattered shirt that barely fits him. She wonders how he got them or why he looks the way he does but he doesn't seem to notice at all, or care for that matter. Instead he has reached out his hand to her for a handshake, eyeing the sleeping Neal in the bed across the room, who is still snoring soundly. Emma looks worriedly at the hand.
"The name is Peter. Peter Pan. And I'm here to take you home."
Neal opens his eyes to a bright light and a cool breeze coming into his room that makes him shiver under his covers. He figures Emma has opened the window as a last resort chance to get back at him for throwing the marble and he rolls his eyes in annoyance. "Come with me," He hears an unknown voice whisper in the dark and immediately sits up in bed, turning to face the sound of the voice in the room. Emma is standing by the window, her hand outstretched in wonder towards another figure who is balancing out into the air, laughing to himself.
"Emma?!" He yells, watching her reach for a stranger in the dark. Emma and the stranger both look over at him and he catches a glimpse of the boy out the window.
"The decision is now Emma!" The boy shouts at her, holding out his hand. She looks nervously at the hand and looks back at Neal who shakes his head furiously.
"Emma don't do something you'll regret," He says. He sees her face turn red.
"There's nothing regretful about leaving this house. I don't belong here remember?" Emma says flatly. Neal barely sees her grab onto the boys before he is out of his bed and running to her.
"Emma stop!" He yells but Emma ignores him, pulling herself up onto the windowsill. The boy has a smug smile on his face and he raises his eyebrows to Neal in a I think I jus won kind of way that makes Neal feel uneasy. He tries to keep moving towards Emma but is stuck standing paralyzed below the window, watching them balance on the edge of the house. The boy gives him a wink, before squeezing Emma's hand and nodding to her. He makes a leap from the window pulling Emma with him and she falls with a scream.
"No!" Neal yells, as Emma falls out the window, falling hard and fast towards the ground below her.
"You idiot!" He yells after her. He covers his eyes, unable to watch the series of events before him. He waits for a thud as they hit the ground but it never comes. After a couple of seconds Neal peers out from his hands, wondering where they could have gone if not the ground. His question is answered quickly as he looks to the sky and sees blonde hair moving easily in the wind, flying up to the stars, her hand firmly grasped in the teenagers hand, neither one looking back at Neal's stunned face as he watches her fly away.