"Don't touch him!" I snarled at Victor, my mother's boyfriend, as he raised his fist to punch my little brother, Eddie. Victor had Eddie backed into the corner of our small lounge. I threw myself in front of Eddie, taking the hit for him. I bent over as his fist collided with my stomach winding me. I recovered quickly because I knew that he would go for Eddie if I didn't protect him. I straightened up and glanced a look at my mother who was sitting on the couch watching this play out. She looked back at me with guilt written all over her face.

"Victor, leave him alone" She said, timidly. My mother has been with Victor for three years now. At first he was really nice and it seemed like he cared about us all. About a six months into the relationship he lost his job and turned to alcohol. He started to hit my mother occasionally, then it became more frequent. This was the first time he had tried to go for Eddie or me.

"Why? The little brat deserves it!" He roared, turning to face my mother. He advanced on her, but I didn't stay to see what happened. I grabbed Eddie's trembling hand and dragged him out of the living room, across our small two bed apartment, and into the bedroom we shared. I locked the door behind us and pushed our chest of drawers in front of the door so no one could get in.

I turned to face Eddie who was sitting on the bed, tears streaming down his face. I walked the three short steps to the bed and pulled him into my arms. He buried his head into my shoulder and cried. We both jumped when we heard the front door slam shut.

I moved away from Eddie, grabbing his school bag and empting the contents of it to the floor. I then did the same with mine. "Ed, pack only the important stuff, we are leaving. Now!"

I passed him his bag, and we both started packing the things we would need. We both quickly packed a few sets of fresh clothes. I also packed mine and Eddies passports and birth certificates, as these were kept in our room. I grabbed my purse and phone off the bed side table and threw them into the bag too.

We lived in a third floor apartment in New York and had a fire escape outside our window. I quietly opened our bedroom window and helped Eddie onto the fire escape, passed him our bags then climbed out of the window myself. We both climbed down to street level. Eddie grabbed my hand as we ran down the road.