Disclaimer: Do not own the 100, anything Marvel or anything DC.
Warnings for child abuse, verbal and mental abuse and some physical abuse and warnings for rape in the second chapter.
I'm just going to give this warning here, this story still has Clarke Griffin being the soulmates of several Marvel and DC women, and in this case, they are demons, but in this, they are going to rape her. I just need to warn you of that before you start reading anything. So a lot of warnings for rape in the second chapter.
This story is inspired by many previous stories. By WolfHowlRunner61's stories and by LightSpearDarkArrow's stories. And one aspect of this story, Clarke's adoptive mom, Abby, having two boyfriends, Markus Kane and Bellamy Blake, is inspired by Dinofuryjaws's work on Archive of our own, about a mental health facility.
Safe-Haven
Chapter one
Clarke didn't want to think that she had good enough reason to leave. But she knew she did.
Her adoptive father, Jake Griffin, and really, one of the few people that loved her, was dead. And her adoptive mother, Abby Griffin, was greedily trying to get at the inheritance that Jake had left specifically for Clarke.
It was a long and complicated story. But the gist of it was this: Jake Griffin, in his will had left several accounts with a great deal of money to three different people. To his wife, Abby Griffin. To Clarke's best friend and the closest she had to a brother, Wells Jaha, who was twenty and could access the money. And to his adoptive daughter, Clarke Griffin, as well. The problem was that when that Jake had died, Clarke hadn't been eighteen. She was eighteen now. However, when her father had died and had left her the inheritance, instructing the lawyers to not let anyone have access to it before Clarke turned eighteen and when Clarke turned eighteen, only she was to access it, and no one else was to.
And that had not been good for Abby. Oh, her husband had given her enough money that she could take care of herself and live in luxury for the rest of her life.
But that wasn't enough for Abby. Or for her two boyfriends. Markus Kane and Bellamy Blake.
Kane and Blake were a couple of greedy fucks that wanted all the money. And Abby had wanted all the money too. So when Clarke had gone downstairs in her home one day and had listened in on Abby's talks with Markus and Bellamy, it had frozen her heart, hearing Abby, the woman who was supposed to love her, side with them over her and decide that she would try to convince Clarke to give her all the money when Clarke turned eighteen.
That was why Clarke had taken her time, packing everything she needed up, and when Abby had been out with Kane and Blake, she had left at night, not even locking up the apartment as she left the building.
She was eighteen now, so she knew that the time had run out and she needed to leave now.
If her supposed mother had betrayed her, then why should she try to provide safety for her and her sociopathic boyfriends?
It was even worse because Clarke was sure that she knew what some of the money Abby, Kane and Blake wanted would be used for.
Abby, Kane and Blake had Blake's horrid friends over all the time. Murphy, Miller, Jasper, Raven, Atom, Dax, Roma and Bellamy's own little sister, Octavia, and they made it very clear that they were going to prioritize them over Clarke.
Abby always paid special attention to Kane, Blake, to Octavia, to Jasper, to Raven, to Atom, to Miller, to anyone who wasn't Clarke.
And you know? If it had been conscious, Clarke wasn't even sure it would hurt her as much as it did. But it wasn't conscious. At least, Clarke was positive that it wasn't done by Abby consciously.
Meaning that Abby didn't do it just to hurt Clarke. It meant that Abby did it because she really did just consider Clarke an afterthought.
That was the part that hurt Clarke the most.
So Clarke left and didn't bother locking anything.
They didn't live in a dangerous neighborhood, no. But if anyone wanted to get in and steal anything from the apartment? They'd be able to.
And given the way Clarke had been treated for several years of her life since she had been twelve? That was fine with her.
She thought about going to Wells's place, but dismissed it. She didn't need to drag Wells down.
Wells was two years older than Clarke. And when he had turned eighteen and had inherited what Jake had given him, his biological father, Thelonius Jaha, had wanted Wells to help "convince" Clarke to eventually give up the money when Clarke eventually was to turn eighteen.
Wells, quite possibly one of the best people in this world, had refused, and had moved out of his father's place months ago and had moved in with a friend, Callie. Callie had been trying to get Clarke to emancipate herself from Abby for a while, but there was a question of what would happen to the money if Clarke did that.
And she couldn't risk putting Wells or Callie in danger by running off to them.
So she was on her own.
Unfortunately, that didn't feel like anything new.
She had a big, bulging backpack, two satchels with shoulder straps, both bags stuffed as well as the backpack was. Her right hand was pulling along the handle of a suitcase, pulling the stuffed suitcase behind her.
And her skateboard was in her left hand.
That was the entirety of her belongings. Everything that she left behind she knew she didn't need.
One could argue that she didn't need her skateboard, but she refused to leave it.
She had packed her clothes, her books, her phone, her phone chargers, her laptop, laptop charger, toiletries, extra shoes, bottles of water, money she had taken from where Abby and her boyfriends had stowed it away, not to mention her money that she had taken out of the bank; not all of it, but enough, and packaged food that would last a while.
She had brought along a few sunglasses, because homeless or not? She didn't want to end up getting bad eyesight by the time she was twenty-eight, from the sun during the day.
She had an idea of where she was going. Well, not an idea, but the semblance of an idea.
Her adoptive mother, Abby's boyfriends and the rest of their friends who they doted on, didn't know this, in fact, as far as Clarke knew, no one knew this, but Clarke had frequented a garden far from her apartment building.
The garden was very far. And she was fine with going to it. The garden had been abandoned and left to the elements for years. And it had a cottage. It had been where the groundskeeper had stayed and taken care of the gardens.
It was perfect, wasn't it?
And Clarke, she could get in.
She hadn't told anyone this. Ever. But she had found the keys.
During her time realizing that Abby would never stand up for her, Clarke had begun going out for long, long walks and had stayed at the garden for hours and hours. And she had stumbled upon the cottage when she had been seventeen years old. The cottage had been hidden deep in the garden and weeds, wildflowers, and stuff had obscured a good deal of it from view and it had been so far from the rest of the garden that it was doubtful that anyone outside of someone who had been at the gardens for hours, could find it.
She hadn't so much as stumbled across it as oddly had been led to it.
By a German shepherd.
She had been walking through the garden and had come across a German shepherd without a collar.
Not seeing any collar, and not seeing any human with this dog, she had automatically assumed that the dog had been a stray, even if the dog hadn't looked malnourished or anything like that.
She had tried to get the dog to come with her, but it had walked away from her and she had run after the dog, trying to catch its attention.
Yes, it had been dumb. Going after a stray that easily could have attacked her, should it feel threatened by her?
But still, Clarke felt like she had had to. She had tried to grab the dog and bring it to a no kill animal shelter, but instead, the dog had led her right to the cottage.
The dog had stood by the cottage, looking over at Clarke, as if telling her that it had wanted her to find the cottage. Which was crazy, right? Still, Clarke had watched as the dog had disappeared into the forest, and Clarke had never seen that dog ever again.
She had tried to find that dog throughout the past year and months, looking for the dog in the garden or on the streets around the local garden. But she hadn't found the animal. But she had studied the cottage quite a lot.
And Clarke had been there for hours and hours, and had found the keys. Multiple keys. Under some stones around the property.
Clarke had checked around the other stones on the property to see if there were any other keys. And on the awning of the cottage and under the gross, moss encrusted welcome mat. No other keys.
And yeah, she had had to wash her hands multiple times after that.
But either way? She had a place to stay and keys to go with it. And yeah, the place was probably dilapidated, but it was better than living on the streets, wasn't it?
As for the money? Clarke knew that if she was classified as "missing" or "dead," the money thankfully would not be accessed by Abby or anyone else, as the money had been left only to her, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to access the money either, if people thought she was dead or was missing.
So she had done what she had needed to do.
She had made up this plan about a year ago. And when she had turned eighteen, she had pulled out a load of her money, had hidden it away in that cottage, and had locked it up, then had gone back, and had grabbed all of her things and pulled out some more money, and had taken off.
She had checked her phone too. Because she had to make sure that someone hadn't put a tracking app on her phone. While she knew Abby and no one else had those capabilities, since she was positive that they wouldn't be able to figure out apps, even if their lives depended upon it, she knew that Raven could do it.
Thankfully, she found no app on her phone that showed that she would be tracked. Good.
She had also sent a message to her lawyer, Donnie Lavigne. She had told him that she would be leaving Abby at the age of eighteen, and she was not missing, she was just moving out. And that no one else except Wells Jaha and Callie Cartwig were to know this and that she'd send Donnie a code, if she needed more money, a code to let him know it was her.
Technically speaking, she was eighteen. By all legal purposes, she could have left whenever she wanted.
The problem, however, was that Clarke's so-called "family" would have only let her leave, if she had given them her money. All of it.
And that wasn't an option. Could she have called the police? Sure. And her chances probably wouldn't have been slim, since Abby and Kane had let thugs like Murphy, Miller, Jasper, Dax, Atom, Raven and Octavia over all the time. Bellamy, himself was a low life that didn't deserve the air he breathed. But Abby and Kane? While pieces of shit, themselves, were considered "respectable" in the eyes of their community.
Abby was a powerful doctor and Kane was a respected lawyer. There would be a lot that would not be in Clarke's favor.
So she couldn't.
For the sake of her mental health and potentially her survival as well, she would need to do it this way.
Donnie Lavigne would tell Wells and Callie about Clarke leaving and that she was safe, just as Clarke had told Donnie she was.
And she could live in the cottage in the garden in secret.
Yeah, even as Clarke smiled to herself, walking down the road from the small apartment building she had just left, she knew that it was a stupid idea. But she was desperate. And desperate people didn't have the luxury to wait.
She had considered moving in with Wells and Callie, but had decided against it.
Kane, again, was a respected lawyer. And he was friends with some very dangerous people; Bellamy, Murphy, Octavia, Raven. All of them, Clarke was positive, had killed at least one person in their lifetime.
She couldn't risk Wells or Callie's safety. They were better off without her.
And the truth was? Clarke wasn't sure she wanted to move in with them.
Clarke had been twelve when her daddy had died. And she had been hounded by Abby and others around her since then to give up all her money, telling her that if she "really" loved her mother, then she'd give up everything to the woman, and that the only way for Clarke to be loved by her mother, was if she gave up everything to Abby.
As a result? Clarke had grown distrustful.
Deep down, Clarke knew that Callie and Wells were the most trustworthy people she knew. Hell, probably the only trustworthy people she knew.
But some part of her, some part of her that had been fucked up by Abby, Markus Bellamy, Octavia, Raven, Miller, Jasper, Atom, Dax and Murphy, couldn't trust anyone else around her.
The fear was always there, that someone would earn her trust and then demand that she give everything up to them and that it was the only way for her to be loved.
No, she had had enough of that for an entire lifetime. She was not eager to be in that position ever again.
That was why she was doing what she was doing.
She could have stayed in a motel or hotel too. But she wasn't going to do that either. It was many things. Not wanting to be around people and be taken advantage of. But also, just wanting some peace and quiet.
Her life between her twelfth birthday and her eighteenth birthday, had been awful. Full of those thugs that lived in her house for years, harassing her and playing loud music and laughing at her when she had pleaded with them to turn it down, just trying to get some sleep.
Clarke just wanted some peace and quiet. That was it.
She had been to that cottage many times now, and while it required far more furnishing than she was capable of, she had, however, made sure that there weren't any bedbugs, had cleaned it of other insects and spiders, had turned on the water over and over again, to keep the bugs out of the drain, had swept the floors multiple times, had dusted the furniture and had brought clean sheets and blankets and pillow cases to it and had put them down on a table. She had inspected the mattress there. Not wanting to risk it, she had carried it out when she had been seventeen and had brought it to a garbage area and had tossed it out. A few months ago, she had ordered multiple portable beds. She had been eighteen and could access her money, so she had been able to do it.
She had gotten plenty of mental and verbal mocking and abuse from Bellamy, Octavia, Murphy, Miller, Jasper and Raven for it, telling her that she didn't have any friends for her to have over for her to use those beds.
That had been the story that she had given them; that she had gotten those beds for when she might have friends over.
But that had been a lie. And as soon as she had gotten these four portable beds, two beds in those fold up carts, and two folded up, thick padded beds without carts that just had handles, she would wait till everyone except herself was out of the apartment, and would grab one of the portable beds and bring it to the cottage. Then she did the same with another portable bed a few weeks later, when everyone but her was out. Then she had done the same with one of the other portable beds, after the other.
She knew she had had to have been an odd sight to see as she had gone down the roads, carrying one of the beds or rolling one of the others. But it was a city, so no one really stayed around to stare for long.
She had eventually lied to Abby and the others, that she had tossed out the beds, realizing that everyone was right and that she was never going to have friends over.
Rather than offering even fake sympathy, Bellamy had snorted, "See? Why'd you bother with that? You could have given us the money for those beds, but you wasted it instead? You know you're not ever going to have friends. So why do you bother?"
Whenever Clarke had thought that she had reached the true height of how much she hated Bellamy and actually wanted him dead? He would always surprise her by making her hate him more.
She was mildly ashamed of herself for it, but she had had fantasies of cutting her abusers' throats in their sleep for years.
She had known better. She knew if she did that, she'd end up in jail. Even if she was perfectly justified, which she was sure she would have been, the United States didn't care very much about people who had been abused. Especially if they were women or girls.
But either way? She now had a bed and blankets and sheets.
She brought along flashlights and batteries, however, to her surprise and relief, when she had entered the cottage and had flipped a switch on the wall, just out of sheer curiosity, had discovered that the cottage still had electricity.
Which was odd, because the building had to have been abandoned for years. But Clarke wasn't going to look a gifted horse in the mouth, or rather, a gifted cottage in the mouth.
And the cottage had many sockets around it. She had come back one time with her chargers and had plugged them in and had plugged her phone in and again, to her surprise and her relief, her phone had begun charging.
So the cottage had plenty of electricity.
Clarke had had to grab a bunch of cans of food and other long lasting food, but she knew she'd need a fridge eventually.
And that was okay. Even if she needed a bigger fridge than a small one, there were multiple sockets in the cottage, so she could get at least four mini fridges and a couple of mini freezers.
She could purchase more and more bottles of water, that wouldn't get old, so long as she opened one bottle up at a time.
The cottage had a shower. She had cleaned it thoroughly and had turned on the water for hours, to flush out any goop or bugs that might be in the drains.
Gross? Yes, absolutely. But Clarke was not going to live with the people that had been tearing her life apart for years anymore. Never again.
She was positive that the water had been cleaned out by now, because of all the times she had flushed it.
So she hopefully could take a shower now without problems.
She had brought a bunch of towels to the cottage, as well.
She had no idea who had owned that cottage, but it even had its own washing machine and dryer. Which meant that she wouldn't even need to go to a local laundry place to do her clothing.
She basically wouldn't ever have to leave that cottage, unless it was to get food, light bulbs, batteries, more water, toiletries, laundry detergent, toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, her art supplies and books.
And yes, she included art supplies and books in the essentials list.
It was like that line in Shirley Jackson's book, "We have always lived in the castle." She didn't remember the exact quote, but it was something about the sisters never going out, unless it was for things they needed, like food and books.
She was leaving now, while it was almost entirely pitch black out, Abby and her boyfriends and the rest of those thugs, had no idea where Clarke was and she was going now. There was nothing else left for her to do or say. She was gone.
They had had the chance to treat her like a person, many chances, in fact, and instead, they had thrown away those chances happily.
She also didn't need to go shopping for paper towels, napkins, toilet paper or anything like that yet. While she had been getting the cottage ready to live in it, she had bought a bunch of those items at a store far from her apartment building and had brought it to the cottage.
She also had taken some of the plates, bowls, glasses and silverware from her apartment and had smuggled all of it through different trips, to the cottage in the garden. So she wouldn't need silverware, glasses or plates or anything like that.
She had bought some boxes of packaged cocoa mix. She had many weaknesses, and amongst them? Hot chocolate.
On top of everything else, this cottage had a working stovetop and a microwave that was modern and it worked.
It wasn't one of those old, tacky microwaves that people said could give you radiation poisoning or something.
And the cottage even had a TV with cable. She had no explanation for how everything was "still going" in the cottage, but everything in the cottage had been running for years.
Well, as said, she wasn't going to look a gifted cottage in the mouth.
And she was desperate.
So she was going and wasn't going to question anything.
All she knew was this, that almost anything was better than living the way she had been living for years now.
She walked and walked and walked. She was urgent, but alert. She looked around the streets, making sure she wasn't being followed or that no one was getting too close. She might rather be almost anywhere else but the place she had been living in for years, but she knew also that there were a lot of men out there who would take advantage of a young woman on her own.
She saw no one and moved down the street.
When she got to a busier part of the neighborhood, she felt like there was something somewhat off. This was a busy part of the neighborhood. But she saw no one nearby.
She decided not to think too much about it. She was getting a life of her own. She wasn't going to stand around and question why there weren't a lot of people around, when she was in a hurry.
So she kept moving.
Her legs felt exhausted by the time she reached the garden. And this was the part where she was positive she was breaking the law. There was a locked gate, right in front of the garden. But that wouldn't stop Clarke. Nothing would get between her and her freedom. Or her sanctuary.
So she got up next to the wall where the gate was connected to, swung her suitcase and then the two satchels over the wall, watching as they went over. She heard everything thump down into the dirt and grass on the other side of the wall.
There was nothing breakable in any of those bags. She had planned this for a while. And had known that the gates would be locked.
She had planned this ahead. Everything that was breakable, she had stuffed into her bulging backpack. She tossed her skateboard over the wall and heard it connect with a soft thud on the grass covered ground.
She then pulled her gloves out of her pocket and put each of them on. She had brought ointment for cuts and soap, but she didn't want to bother with that. That was why she had brought these gloves.
Yes, she had prepared for this, for some time. She reached the wall, lifted her gloved hands and began climbing the wall.
She had done this before, but for practice. Because again, she had been planning on this for a while now.
That was why she was able to get over the wall with some ease. Not entire ease, but some.
She swung her leg over the top of the wall, then swung the other one over, her hands gripping the top of the wall the whole time to keep herself from falling.
She then started climbing down, careful to make sure she didn't slip. The wall was covered in weeds and moss, so she had to be careful of where she stepped.
Finally reaching the ground, next to her things, she gasped, releasing the wall and stepping away from her belongings, taking a breath, relieved to finally be done with that part.
The hardest part; getting out of the apartment with everything, getting here unnoticed and getting over the wall without breaking anything, not just anything that she owned, but her breaking anything in her body too, was now over. Now all she had to do was get to the cottage and get everything set up.
Finally, Clarke risked speaking out loud, sure no one was around to hear her as she said, "And walking to the cottage will only take about forty minutes." And no, that wasn't an exaggeration.
The cottage was very, very, very deep in the garden, hidden away.
The cottage was far from any highways or any other entrances. Clarke had come here for years and she knew that there were only two entrances to this garden. And the cottage was away from them both.
It would be a long walk. Not as long as the near to four hour hike that she had taken to get here, but long.
And it would be so worth it.
When she had the wind back in her, she leaned down and picked up her belongings and started carrying them down the path, away from the gate.
She had checked almost every inch of this garden. There were no cameras. No one would know that she was here, unless she decided that she wanted them to.
She walked past the many parts of the garden. Past the many flowerbeds. Past the many decorative trees. Past the herb gardens. Past the many wildflowers and weeds that had grown over the many different paths and gardens.
She walked deeper and deeper through the gardens. It was a long walk, but it felt like it went by fast. She knew exactly where the cottage was. And knew where to turn when she got to the path that led right to it.
The beds of daisies and cabbage roses, were just one of the many landmarks that she knew to recognize, before getting to the cottage.
She went through the path and made the next turn and smiled when she saw the cottage, her new home.
She got to the cottage and pulled out one of the keys and put the key into the lock and unlocked the door.
The cottage, while not as big as some suburban, middle-class house, was still sizable. It was wide and long. It had only one floor. But that was okay. It was long and roomy.
Whoever had built it, had wanted to give the groundskeeper no motivation to quit.
The building was painted dark brown and was very plain, but it was her new home.
Besides, even without looking at how roomy the inside of the cottage was? The surroundings of the cottage were beautiful on their own.
A big, wide, rectangular pond where somehow, fish and frogs alike flourished. Several patches of hyacinth flowers. An empty, but beautiful, small, stone birdbath with several stone squirrels designed around the base. And several fruit trees like plum trees and orange trees. It wasn't much. But it was nice.
She opened up the door of the house and got in. She pulled all of her things into the cottage, placed them down, raised her left hand and switched on the lights of the cottage.
She smiled, pulling the key out of the lock and closed the door. She locked the door as soon as she had closed it. Even if no one knew where she was, and she had the keys of the place, she just didn't want anyone coming into what essentially was hers, even if it wasn't legally hers.
She had been here enough times to know that no one had been here since it had been abandoned. After all, working electricity or not, everything, when she had gotten here, had been filthy.
She also wasn't an idiot. She knew that her situation right now, while better than before, wasn't good. Her being a single young woman, alone in a secluded place? She knew better than not to take precautions. It was why, only a few days ago, before she had come here, she had gone to a gun store, had purchased some guns, had registered for them, had bought some cans of pepper spray and a few tasers.
She had stored most of them in this cottage. And she had kept a few of them with her, during the last few days before taking off. Good thing too, since she had been walking out alone for hours.
But no incident.
Ridiculously, you didn't need to be eighteen to buy a gun. So no one had even blinked when she had bought those guns and had signed those forms, registering these guns for this state.
She had the forms and the firearms here now.
She pulled her backpack off and put it down on the dining room table and traveled around the cottage then, making sure all the windows and the back door were locked. They were. She had checked the back of the cottage many times. There weren't any keys hiding around the area that could be used to unlock the door.
Whoever had built the cottage? They must have cared about the groundskeeper's safety, if only for the groundskeeper to take care of the gardens.
The windows, all of them, had thick, wooden shutters on the inside of the cottage. If Clarke wanted to, she could close those shutters and lock them. Would they be effective against things like crowbars and big knives even? Probably not. But it would give her enough time to escape or use a gun, taser or some of the pepper spray.
She had gotten a few burner phones too and a few phone chargers for them as well. If she wanted to and it came to it, she technically could call the police.
But again, she wouldn't. Not if it meant losing this place.
She pulled closed all of the shutters and locked them, checking one last time to see if all of the windows were locked.
They were, and she closed the shutters and locked them.
She began to pull her things out of her bags and put them out around the cottage. Around her cottage.
There were several lamps all over the cottage, with apparently, still working bulbs. The kitchenette area was in the very far right corner of the room. The sink, stove, oven and counter with the microwave and the toaster oven on it, made up that area. The chairs and dining table were right in front of that part of the cottage.
The bathrooms, yes bathrooms, plural, were down the hall, one to the left and one to the right.
The two bathrooms and the four made Clarke think that more than one person had lived here.
It made sense. Because the garden was pretty big, right? It probably had needed more than one groundskeeper.
The bedroom where Clarke was staying, was not far from the kitchen and living room, down another hall, and to the right. One of the other two bedrooms was between the main room and the back door, in a secluded part, next to a slender closet area. The other two bedrooms were down the hall where the two bathrooms were.
After checking all four bedrooms to make sure that there had been no bedbugs or anything else like that, she had been ready. And here she was now, in her new home.
She put all the canned goods in the cabinet, put the boxes of cereal in as well.
She put away everything else and sat down on the wooden chair in front of the TV that had been set up. Again, she had no idea how a cottage like this still had this good set up with a TV, cable box and running electricity and running water.
Her only explanation that she could come up with, was that some people had lived here before it had been completely abandoned, but after the groundskeepers had stopped living here. Whoever had been here last, must have made sure the electricity and water still was running and set up the lamps, the TV and the cable.
She also had realized that this place must have predated electrical heating. Because she had looked all over and she hadn't found any heaters. That was why she had bought a few portable heaters.
The types that had those tubs that you needed to remove out of the back and spill the water out of and put the tubs back in.
She had rolled those heaters all the way to the cottage and had put them inside, she hadn't plugged them in yet, as she hadn't been living here since she got them. But she would be plugging them in later. It was warm out, so she wouldn't need it now. But it was good to have for later.
She had gotten some portable air conditioners too. Yes, this place didn't have air conditioning either.
Honestly, she had no idea who had built this cottage or how it couldn't have heating or air conditioning, when it had modern toilets and a modern stovetop. The microwave and toaster oven could have been left here by whoever had last lived here and she had no idea why. Or why anyone would leave the TV or cable box here.
But she had gotten some portable air conditioning units and portable heating units and she was all set.
Well, she would be all set, when she got the mini fridges, but she could do that later. She had enough water and more than enough food up until then.
She pulled out all the keys for this cottage and put them down onto the top of the table and began pulling out the things she had brought along for recreational purposes.
She pulled out her pads of paper and art kit and several paintbrushes and carried them off to her room, laying them out along the table across from the bed she had also brought and had set up and put sheets and blankets on.
After putting the art supplies down, she went back to her bags and got her books, placing them around her room.
She then pulled out the rest of the money she had and hid it all around the cottage.
She checked the time on her phone, glad that she had gotten away and she smirked when she saw all of the missed calls. All missed calls from the apartment that had been her prison for years.
And several texts from Abby and those thugs she kept in her life, demanding she tell them where she was or that she come back to the apartment.
Clarke actually laughed when she saw the texts.
Especially when she saw Abby calling her "honey."
That was pathetic. Now that Clarke had been gone for hours, Abby probably have realized that Clarke had had enough and had left and was now trying to be nice in order to get Clarke back so she could have the money she wanted?
That really was freaking hilarious.
She snickered as she said, stuffing her phone back into her pocket, "Payback's a bitch, huh, Abby?"
She wasn't going to call Abby "mom." Not ever again. Abby might have been an adoptive parent, but even if Abby had been by blood related to Clarke, it wouldn't make Abby Clarke's mother. What would make someone an actual suitable parent, was actual love, respect, understanding and acceptance.
Abby had never given Clarke any of these things.
So Clarke wouldn't give any of them to Abby.
But that wasn't the payback that Abby deserved, was it? No, if Clarke gave Abby the payback that Abby deserved, then Abby would be isolated and alone and be told over and over and over again that she was a waste of space and didn't deserve love and never would deserve love, and would be told that for years.
Just like Clarke had experienced.
Clarke got up from the chair and went to her room, grabbing one of the books, specifically the one she had been halfway through and went to the living room, dropping down onto the chair again and opening the book up to read.
She would get to sleep in about a half hour. But first, some reading.
Today marked her first day of freedom.
Outside of the cottage, in the blackness around the cottage, not far from the formerly empty place, was a space where several glowing eyes looked out of the night at the cottage. The owners of the glowing eyes watched, waited and planned.