Author's Note:

Hey everybody, this is my first ever fanfic and i hope you like it!

Please read and review! It'll make me feel more motivated to continue my fanfic!

Please note that I'm from New Zealand, so i may have a different education system to you guys!

Hope you like this!

Just some quick notes:

Age changes:

Max 17 years old

Fang 17 years old

Iggy 17 years old

Nudge 17 years old

Gazzy 17 years old

Angel 15 years old

Ari 17 years old

Relations:

Max and Iggy are siblings (twins) and by the way, Iggy isn't blind.

Gazzy and Angel are siblings

Chapter 1

Max POV

"You useless child! You don't deserve to be my daughter!"

He screamed at me and slapped me across the face. I glared and held a hand up to my cheek. My cheek stung. I swore under breath.

Iggy stared at me helplessly. I could see from his eyes that he wanted to help, but knew it would make matters worse.

I wanted to cry, but I'm Maximum Batchelder, and I never cry. The last time I recalled crying was when my mother Valencia left. But I was 10 years old back then. Who wouldn't cry if that happened to them at such a young age?

I stared back at my father, Jeb Batchelder. He was drunk as usual. That night, when my mother left with another man, my dad just drank and drank. I didn't blame him. It is painful when your wife leaves. I thought that he would just drink it off.

But then one night, when I came home from my friend's house, I saw him beating Iggy. Iggy! He would never beat Iggy. My dad was sexist. He adored Iggy more than anyone else. At first I thought that Iggy had done something, so I just ran and broke them apart. Then, Jeb burst into tears, realising what he had done. He apologised to Iggy and begged us that we never leave him like our "mother". Iggy forgave him, and then we acted like nothing had happened and went back to being a loving family.

About a month later, he began to take his anger out on us. He lost his job and was yelling and hitting us. This continued for a long time, and every time, he would stop, burst into tears, apologise and then beg us. Iggy, being the kind self, would ALWAYS forgive him, but I was always quite doubtful about it.

After another night of hitting, it suddenly struck me that my father had become abusive from alcohol. He had family violence, and I, as a 15 year old (that was when I realised) couldn't do anything about it. I told Iggy, and he agreed with me.

But today, I had had enough. I was sick of this torture, so I walked up to my room, slammed the door, got out a bag and packed. I decided. I was going to run away, no matter what Iggy said. I rummaged through my closet and took out all my essentials and any sets of clothes that needed, and headed towards the door.

I heard soft knocking on my door, and immediately knew it was Iggy.

"Come in Igs"

Iggy walked in and froze. He looked down to the floor. His eyes seemed to widen at the sight of my "unzippable" bag.

"Where are you going Max?" You could see that he was seconds away from tears

"Away from hell" I replied casually. "And you are coming with me."

He gasped in surprise and I ran and shut the door completely. He looked at me, with tears in his eyes. I read them. Half of him wanted to leave this damned hell, but the other half didn't.

I wiped his eyes "Igs, we leave in 5. Get ready. Now"

He obviously understood my reasoning and pain, because he walked out the next second.

3 minutes later, he was back, with a bag almost as large as mine. He looked at me and smiled. Even though this was a serious moment, that smile of his warmed up my body.

"So, how will we leave?"

Then it hit me. I hadn't thought of anything at all after the part where I packed my bags. But as the older one by 6 minutes, I couldn't look like I had no plan at all. I quickly skimmed my room and said "We leave by jumping out my window."

Iggy was stared at me like I was crazy.

"Iggy, what else are we going to do? Walk to the front door and say, see you Dad, we're running away. Bye!"

Iggy was silent for a while.

"Don't worry Igs, you'll go after me, okay?" I tried to reassure myself at the same time.

Iggy nodded and as I approached my window frame, I realised that we were never going to come back.

I opened my window, and my hands touched on a water pipe. Bingo! I climbed out my window and slid down the water pipe like a pro. Iggy seemed to look worried, but since he was a hell of a lot taller than me, he was fine going down.

When he got down, I hugged him with a smile. We were never going back into that damn house. I thought for a while where we should go. Then I smiled and dialled a number. Iggy looked a little worried at who I was calling and was about to ask until I said "Hey Nudge! Mind if I crash at your house tonight with my little bro. Sweet. See you soon!"

I grinned when I saw Iggy's face as I said 'little bro', but hey, he is younger than me.

I pulled Iggy by his shirt sleeve, and together, we walked to Nudge's house feeling a sense of accomplishment. We were 2 teenage runaways, no; actually we were 2 young adult runaways from home. We felt proud, or we thought we did.

Well that's the end of my first chapter! Hope you like it!

Don't forget to R&R!