~Author's note~ Well, here's chapter three. Hope you like it.

"How could you leave your sister alone like that!?" the woman shrieked in a high pitched voice. "Don't you care about anyone other than yourself?"

Ariu's eyes opened slowly, and the bright lights burned her eyes. She blinked several times, and pushed herself up. Her luma was standing over her screaming.

"Answer me you ingrateful child!" the mother screamed, smacking the girl.

Aruin, the daemon hissed, and jumped in front of his person, as she tried to scramble out of the bed.

How did I get here? Ariu wondered, as her mother took out one of her high heeled shoes and threw it with all of her strength.

It knocked the girl over, and she screamed. "I didn't mean to! Help!" she could hardly make her voice go out of her throat, and every time she screamed, it made her throat and lungs burn like fire.

Then she remembered. Fire... Did her mother think she had made the fire? Where was Lucy?

Ariu began to sob and shake as her mother glared down at her, talking. But she couldn't hear it. She wouldn't listen. If her mother beat her, it wouldn't matter. She was beat almost every day. Because if Lucy was... She would rather die. No matter how much her sister annoyed her, she wouldn't kill her on purpose.

"You stupid child! Don't you care about me? I was at work! I was trying to get money to send you to school and buy you clothes!"

Ariu had had enough. She was tired of her mother blaming her for everything. Maybe the dream she had just had was trying to tell her something. Luma was not a real luma; no mom should treat her child that way!

So she stood up, pushing her hands against the wall of wherever she was. Maybe a hospital? But she didn't know. And she couldn't think. She felt a pressure in her head, and her eyes widened. She began to feel hot, and there was something dripping from where the shoe had hit her.

Aruin was in the form of a tiger, one of the many animals that had gone extinct in the past century. He would stand up for her, no matter what. Even if she was going to say something that would probably never be forgiven.

The mother slapped Ariu again and yelled, "You awful child! You tried to kill my real daughter!"

"You were at work?" Ariu asked, glaring at her mother. This time she wasn't crawling away. She was moving closer.

The dream had told her to do this now. But Ariu didn't remember dreaming. She just knew what she should do. No wonder her whole stupid shitty world was falling apart. Everyone treated everyone else this way.

I've always been a leader, the girl thought as she took a step closer. Her face stung, but that didn't matter. I am not going to follow any longer!

"Interesting," said Ariu, "because I thought you had to have a job to go to work."

Her mother's face was livid, and Ariu wasn't sure if she was imagining red eyes. "What would you know about anything, you little slut! I've been taking care of this family for ever, and you run wild in the streets, killing my good child! How dare you?"

Ariu was not a slut. But when her mother called her something like that in such a mean voice, it made her face turn hot and her eyes fill with burning tears. Aruin rubbed his head on her hand slightly, and she felt braver.

"How could you call us a family!? You don't care about me! I'm just a babysitter for Lucy! I don't matter to you!"

She could tell that Luma didn't know what to say, and the part of her mind that wasn't bracing itself for the beating she would recieve, was satisfied.

Luma moved forward and kicked her daughter in the leg, and began pummeling her with her fists.

Aruin howled as a wolf and growled at Luma's cat daemon. He couldn't attack her.

"Let me go!" Ariu struggled. What sort of hospital was she in? Was she even in a hospital? Why did nobody hear? Her mother tried to cover her mouth, but jerked her hand away, with blood spilling from the wound where she had been bitten. The girl, who had fallen onto the bed, rolled over it, and stood on the other side.

"Don't you dare touch me!" she gasped, holding her jaw, which ached, and plugging her nose with the other hand. "Don't you even come near me again! I hate you!"

Aruin moved to stand in front of her, as she struggled to stop crying. All she wanted to do was collapse on the bed and bury her face in the pillow.

But someone was pounding on the door, and she went to open it, as Luma banged on the walls, howling.

"Ariu!" Lucy cried, looked up at her sister, with tears in her eyes. "She hurt you again, didn't she?"

"I'm okay, Lucy," said Ariu, although she was really the opposite of it. She shut her mother in the room, and walked out into the living room.

Which generally are not in the middle of hospitals.

"Where are we?" Lucy gazed around the large room, and sighed. "We live here now tempereallyly acause her friend has a house he doesn't use."

Ariu noticed how the girl said friend, and pushed her long brown hair back.

"Listen, Lucy," she said to her sister. "I can't stay here anymore."

The girl nodded and looked up at Ariu with her large eyes. The tears lingered there, but they would never leave her eyes because she never cried.

"I'm coming with you," she said.

Ariu started to shake her head, but she couldn't just leave her sister with their crazy, whore mother.

"All right Get all your stuff. I'll go clean up. Where's the bathroom?" Lucy pointed.

Ariu and her daemon found a pad of paper and a pen on a table near the telephone. She was still marveling at how big the house was.

"Go check on Luma!" Ariu whispered as she began to write on the paper.

Me and Lucy are leaving because you are stupid, Penny, and you are not a Luma. We have no Luma. Please do not look for us or your money, because I am reporting you. Good-Riddance.

Ariu.

Then she packed her stuff quickly, and took her sister's hand and disappeared into the night.