The family.

That's what we called each other, what these "parents" forced us to call each other. When you're homeless or a runaway you take love however you can get it. It didn't matter how old we were. It didn't matter that I was three years older than our "Mother", that our "Father" was a twenty-five year old man, a year older than myself. I was invested in this clump of forgotten souls. Choosing to stay for the children that couldn't protect themselves for the drunken beatings the "Father" would give out.

"Thank you mom for loving me when no one else will. Thank you dad for protecting me like no one else can." I pushed myself through those words every night, gritting my teeth till my jaw ached. All for a handful of stale McDonald's fries and one small gulp from a grimy overused plastic cup full of dirty water mixed with a couple shakes from an old Kool-Aid pouch?

I learned the hard way to keep all my valuables on my person at all times, and if I didn't want to get jacked I had to sleep with one eye open. I was twenty-four years old, I had my driver's license, social security card, birth certificate and three dollars to my name. My whole existence fit into the back pocket of my ripped jeans and every morning I woke up I had to force myself to think of anything other than ending my own life.

The family had two rules.

"Respect your mother and father."

"All money collected is given to your father so he can provide for your brothers and sisters."

They were written on the abandoned warehouse front door, reminding you every time you went outside. There was only one punishment for disobeying the rules. Death. As extreme as it was, it was always enforced. I had thought it was a joke at first. Who would kills someone for something so small?

That was why I was running. I watched the family beat a boy to death for keeping 75 cents. The 75 cents I gave him to keep so that he could call his mom, so he could go home. I don't blame him for telling the family that I gave him the money, they had beat him within an inch of his life but it put me in the same position. Running for mine.

The parents had a car, a jeep really, that's how they got around from town to town stealing and begging for money, I use to envy that car, now that they were chasing me down however, I hated the fucking thing. When I passed the Beacon Hills town sign I was already out of breath and shaking, it didn't help that they were playing with me. Going only fast enough so that I would keep running but not fast enough to hit me. Those sick people I had spent that past five months with had me stuck in their sick game of cat and mouse.

I only needed to make it to the town, I could see the street lights in the distance. I could hide inside of a shop until morning then I can go to the police tell them what I saw, I needed to get Jamie's body to his mother, I owed him that much.

"Where you going Lil Red?" I hear the family shouting from the windows, getting closer and closer, pushing me to run harder when all I want to do is stop.

So without much thinking, I do. I stop.

I take one large lungful of air as the car rushed past me. I can feel the side mirror barely brush against my shoulder. I don't wait for them to notice I'm no longer in front of them, I don't wait to see if they turn around. I don't know where I plan on going I just turn to my right and run for the woods, hoping that the close nit trees will help hide me and stop them from using their car.

By the time I reach the tree line they're already coming for me and I'm already out of breath. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep this up and for the first time since I joined their little family I realize that I want to live.

"At least for tonight. At least until morning." I huff out hiding behind one of the larger trees to catch my breath. I try to slow myself down, to not breathe in so loud but I can't help myself. I can only hope that my need to breathe doesn't give me away.

The bright headlights flood the forest and I know that if I dare even move a finger my shadow will betray me. I hear the slam of the car door and I have to force myself not to look back and see what's happening.

"Oh Lil Red! Come out, come out wherever you are." I hear the father's deep voice call out, the mocking tone. I know he is going to kill me. I can feel it like a rock in the pit of my stomach. I force myself to hold my breath, the last thing my body wants to do, when I hear the cracking of leaves and twigs. He is getting closer and closer.

"Turn on our little girls favorite song won't you Mama." I don't hear a reply only the start of the song I had always loved as a girl. They had thought it fit me perfectly when we had first met, with the bright red hooded jacket I always wore, I was forever Little Red Riding Hood.

"Who's that I see walkin' in these woods? Why it's Little Red Ridin' Hood." My skin crawls as he sings along with the song, his voice is close enough to send whatever nerves I have left through the roof.

The song goes on drowning out his footsteps, making it impossible to track where he is. I feel myself going insane, their game is tearing my mind apart. I can feel something pulling inside the back of my mind, straining against and invisible tether. The more I concentrate on it the louder the sound of my heart in my ears gets.

My heart stops when something large moves in the dark in front of me, for a moment I think it's that evil man stalking me until I see the pair of golden eyes, watching me. I'm so focused on the eyes, so drawn in that I don't see him beside me. I don't hear him lean against the tree. I don't know he's there until I feel his breath on my neck. By then it's too late, I know I've run out of time.

"Found you." He whispers, even though I know he's there it still makes me jump, my heart still leaps into my throat then drops to the pit of my stomach. Those eyes are still watching me and I wonder if it is only my imagination. "I haven't had this much fun since I was a boy." The cold edge of his knife stings as he runs it behind my ear pressing harder as he makes his way to my neck. "I don't want it to end so soon. Lets give you a head start hmm." I can feel my blood running down my chest, soaking into my shirt. I have to force myself to look at him, regretting it the moment I see his twisted smile. But I refuse to look away, if only for a moment I dont let him see the pain in my eyes.

"Better run from the big bad wolf lil girl." He laughs sticking his knife into the flesh above my hip, his free hand covering my scream before pushing me to the ground. The world swims in front of me as I try to bring breath back into my body. His shadow moves to my right and I don't think, I just run. Golden eyes forgotten.

I don't know how I do it, my body is screaming at me to stop, that it can't take anymore but his fake howls urge me forward. I believe I'm far enough from him, I can't hear his laughs anymore. I want to believe he gave up, that the chase wasn't what he thought it would be. I've almost convinced myself that i've gotten away when I'm slammed into the forest floor.

"You'll have to be quicker than that." His body is pressed against mine, forcing me into the mud. He's so heavy that when I breath out my lungs struggle to inflate again. Hands everywhere touching things that would never belong to him. I'm helpless as he turns me over, fighting only until he presses his knife against my throat. His free hand grab at my shirt before slamming his fist down hard against my chest in anger when he can't rip the fabric. The edge of his knife digs into my neck each time he tries and fails. His hands are shaking worse than my own.

"Is daddy having a hard time?" I sneer his name, mocking him. I know it's not the best decision but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I'm going to die. I know this in my bones, I won't see the sun rise tomorrow.

"Fucking bitch" He growls forgetting my shirt and going straight to my pants, shoving his hand past the zipper and into my underwear. I try to clamp my thighs together to somehow force his hand from inside me. I fight against him, not caring about the knife at my throat.

He couldn't have me that way, I may die tonight but I wasn't going to be used. I clawed at his hands and face, tearing into anything I could get my nails into. I guess he didn't find raping me worth the fight anymore, at least not while I was alive, because before I could blink he removed the knife from my throat and pressed it against my stomach. He just presses it there and watches me.

Slower than I would have liked, he pressed harder on the knife. At first it hurt. At first I could feel every inch sink into me, ice and fire at the same time, something foreign inside of me. His smile never changed, his eyes stayed dark and full of lust. I wanted to rip his face off.

"You're tickling me." I laugh at him. I believe I've gone insane, that somewhere during their game I truly lost my mind but I don't care. The anger on his face is a victory I am happy to die for. He leans in close enough that I can grab onto his face and dig my nails into his cheek. That feeling is there again, as I look into those dark eyes. Pulling against that tether, fighting to reach out. I scream as pain exploded through my head the harder the pulling got.

Then he moved, he left the knife inside me and started to cut, he was carving into me. I know there was pain, it felt like I was being ripped open but my mind could not differentiate the difference between my stomach and my head. Then there was the howling, it echoed through the forest and caused the man above me to lose his grip long enough for me to kick him off.

I accepted my death even though not too long ago I realized I wanted to live. Fate was a cruel thing but maybe there was someone on the other side. Maybe there was peace.

"Didn't we teach you to respect your elders." Once more his eyes met mine and the world flashed around me. The fire in my head knocking the breath out of me. Flashes of ghost children and sea monsters danced before my eyes before vanishing all together.

I pushed myself back, reminding myself for a moment of the "crab crawl" we did in elementary school, until I hit a tree. I collapse against its strong roots no longer able to hold myself up.I watched as he stalked closer to me, playing with me. I wanted him to be afraid, I wanted him to feel what he forced those children to feel every time he entered a room. To feel what I felt as he cut me. How Jamie felt as he beat him to death.

It was like letting all the water out of a pool; a wave of power filled my whole body and with it the world around me changed. We were no longer alone in the forest, faces old and new appeared from behind the trees calling out his name.

"What is this!" His screams echoed off the trees. Yet the children kept going for him, tiny arms outstretched. "YOU'RE DEAD!" I watched as their small fingers tore into his flesh, their cries ringing in my ears and then they were gone and he was left lying there on the forest floors the only marks on him the ones from my nails, but he wasn't breathing.

Maybe the blood loss was making me cold or maybe now that the adrenaline had worn out I was feeling how cold it really was out here but this tree felt warm, comforting to me as I bled over its roots.

"Sorry I'm making a mess all over you." My lips scrap across the bark, I don't mind the small spikes of pain, it's nothing. I know real pain now. Pressing my cheek into the rough warm bark I forced myself to breathe. It was becoming easier and easier not to, to just drift into nothingness. I needed to remember that old natural rhythm.

In and out. Again. In and out.

Alone and in the dark. I kept thinking that maybe if I just stayed alive until morning, someone would find me. I just needed to keep breathing. If I was talking I was breathing, right?

"I use to want to be the Pink Power Ranger when I was a girl." I breathed against the roots. "I would play with my cousins, kicking the air and fighting invisible mutant... things." It seemed like such a huge deal now that I was slipping. These memories were all I had left and I just wanted to share them with someone. I wanted to be remembered even if it was by a tree. "Is that what I am now? A mutant?

"I remember my aunt, she was a loud thing, she got me some lipstick on one of my birthdays, I lost it the same day. I never told her, I didn't want to hurt her feelings. She didn't have a lot of money, none of us did." Golden eyes watched me from the darkness, glowing bright. I wasn't afraid of them though, I was happy that I wouldn't be alone. I didn't want to be alone anymore. "I wouldn't do things different. I would always end up right here, with you. My new best friends, gold eyes and some roots." I don't know why it was so funny, how I could find my death so joke worthy but I did and I laughed.

"No. I lied. I would love my brothers and sisters more. I would go back and tell them everyday how much I love them, I wouldn't be so mean or so quick to yell at them. I don't think they know that I really do love them." I had to close my eyes, they had just gotten so heavy. That didn't mean that I would fall asleep, I would live until the morning. It almost felt like the roots cradled me, rocking me even. It soothed all my worries and took away my pain. I don't remember if I was still talking or not, I just kept thinking about my life and what I could have done. Is that what people mean when they say their life flashed before their eyes? If this is what death felt like, then maybe it wasn't so bad.

"Is it true that dead things help plants grow?" I asked the tree. "You being a plant and all, I could maybe help you grow big and strong. Like milk." I forced my eyes open one last time, I wanted to see the stars. Instead I came face to face with what I could have only describe as my personal grim reaper. Gold eyes, hairy face, fanged mouth and all. Yet I couldn't help but use what little strength I had left and touch him. My dripping hand painting his face red.

"Did you know..." I had to stop the catch what little breath I had left each word becoming harder and harder to form. "In the original Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf and the girl ate the grandma together?" My body buzzed in time with the roots cradling me. I closed my eyes again and accepted that I wouldn't make it till tomorrow. I wouldn't make it another breath. I let go and I had never made a better decision in my entire life.

I cannot promise this story will be regularly updated for more than a few months but I did get the x-men fever again. Hopefully we can make it farther in the story this time around.