Close Your Eyes
Chapter One: How It All Began
Bella's POV
I'm not gonna make it,I thought while Phil chased me down the hallway. I ran for the stairs and an idea hit me. I looked back and I saw him coming closer by the second…
Now!
I grabbed a tray from a table, jumped on it and slid down the stairs with it.
Yes! It's working!
Wrong. At the tenth step something went wrong and I banged my head against the wall. Ow.
My head felt like it was about to burst. Then I heard a strange sound, like a choking toad. I looked up and saw my stepfather standing at the top of the staircase. Laughing. He started coming down the stairs, slowly. Every part of my body hurt and I felt weak. Weak and helpless. I could only watch as he descended the last step with a huge smirk on his face. He came closer until he was right in front of me. He rolled up his sleeves and cracked his neck and fingers. Like always. He grabbed me by my hair and dragged me to the cellar. On the way there, I crashed into a wall, a table, a door and eventually a chair. Great. Then he threw me down the steps to the cellar. I landed on something sharp, and wondered if I'd gotten my tetanus shot yet. I looked at my stepfather, who was grinning at my bewildered expression. Then I rolled up in a little ball, mashed my lips together and prepared myself as well as I could for the pain. He gawked at me for a few more seconds and then I couldn't think about anything but for one thing. Pain. And lots of it. Today was different, worse. He was furious and determined to make me cry out in pain. I tried not to scream, I never did. There was no point to yelling; the cellar was soundproof and we lived in a farm.
He got angrier by the minute and beat me harder and harder. This time I cried out. This time I screamed, kicked, begged, bit, punched and more. It didn't affect him at all. His smirk was back on his face. I stopped screaming and trying to hurt him and settled on minimizing the pain. No such luck. He wanted more screams, more pain. He slammed me against the wall.
I felt something slide slowly down the left side of my face. Something warm and metallic.
I touched it and looked at my hand.
Blood. All over my face and clothes. Then I snapped. It wasn't the first time I'd bled during Phils beatings, but it was the first time the source was my freaking head. I saw a crowbar lying next to me and without thinking I whacked him on his head with more force than I thought I was capable of. He looked at me, almost as surprised as I was. I hit him again, and again, and again. He slumped to the ground and didn't move. I didn't bother checking if he was alive; I didn't fucking care. I ran straight for my room, taking my weapon with me. I locked my door and shoved my desk against it. I didn't cry. I didn't sigh in relief. I didn't scream out in rage. I didn't do anything. I was numb. My knees buckled beneath me, causing me to fall on my kneecaps –which should have hurt, but I couldn't really feel it. I don't know how long I stayed like that. After a while I decided to take a shower. After I was clean, I looked at my room. It was a mess. Blood was all over my room.
Good. I took care of my wounds, which were starting to sting. Then I started packing.
I grabbed everything I might need. Money, clothes, books, toothbrush, pens, paper,…
I left the big stuff behind. I didn't want to attract any attention. I stuffed it all in a duffel bag. Then I clambered out of my window and miraculously didn't fall down. I ran to my favorite tree, climbed in it, opened the hidden hole and took out my secret stash of cash.
I'd been saving ever since Phil started acting up, so now I was prepared. I ran back to the house, grabbed my bike and rode as fast as I could. I tried not to think about my mother, Renee. What she would do when she came home from work and found Phil there, while he was supposed to be at work too. She didn't know he didn't need to work. He was filthy rich. What would she do when she opened my room and saw the blood? Would she scream? Cry? Would she even care? It hurt me to know I couldn't even answer those questions. Maybe she'd call the cops to find me and take away Phil. I started to slow down, but immediately picked up the pace when I realized she'd just call the cops to haul me back to her fucking husband. He'd be furious. She never found out it was him that caused all my wounds. She thought it was all self-inflicted. She believed everything that came out off that scumbag's mouth. She always did.
My name is Isabella Swan and this is my life as an -almost- eighteen year old teenage fucking runaway.