A/N: Hey, y'all. Nothing noteworthy to report. On with the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd do interesting things all the time, instead of just sitting around. Like I'm doing now.

Chapter Seventeen: Break Away

Germany, 1986

Kurt was curled up in pain, tail securely tucked around his legs. He shivered, whimpering, and burrowed himself even further under the covers of his bed. His arm felt like it was burning, and he started to lick it, tasting salty blood in his mouth.

Kurt ached everywhere.

Caroline was downstairs, on the phone, which he was glad for, even if it was only for a half hour or so. But he knew it would only be a matter of time before she unlocked his door with her key – where had she gotten that, anyways? – and came back in.

When she had come back just after Emmett had left, she had given Kurt what he was sure was the worst beating of his life. She'd tossed him into a corner, and kept him there for the longest time, until he had finally screamed himself out, hating her. She had thrown him into his bed, and slammed the door as she left.

When she had come back, Kurt braced himself, expecting something horrible. It wasn't like that, though. She hadn't laid a finger on him. She'd just talked. But, oh, the things she had said...

It was like every single insult; every single degrading thing, and every single word that made Kurt want to die had all been said to him right then. When Caroline had finished and left, he lay under his covers, head covered by his pillow, and sobbed.

Since then, she had kept coming upstairs, sometimes to hit him, and sometimes to talk. He wasn't sure which he hated more – they were both painful beyond anything he'd ever experienced.

Kurt paused in his licking, and stared at the shape cut on his arm. It hurt so much.

He hated what had come with it, what she had told him as she did it.

Right before it happened, he had come out from under his blankets about an hour after she had left his room again, sniffling and wiping his streaming eyes. He had known it would only be a matter of time before she came back in, and when he heard the key being stuck in the lock on his door, he had turned on his side to face the wall, not wanting to look at her.

Kurt heard her walk up to the bed, then stop. He wasn't sure what was going to happen, and when she grabbed his arm and pulled him over to face her, he was only more scared and confused.

Caroline was holding the switchblade that he remembered from so long ago, and she was grinning. Kurt gasped, and pulled the covers up closer to his face, as a last resort to keep himself safe.

"No. Please, please no. Please don't hurt me." He whimpered.

Her smile disappeared. "I've just gotten off the phone with the bank. Emmett took everything from our account. I have nothing left. I have to stay in this hellhole of a house." She pointed the tip of the blade at him menacingly. "Guess we're both stuck here, aren't we?" She sat on the edge of the bed. "Listen, you, this is all your fault. I am sick of you, with your crying and your clinginess. Why haven't you left? Do you have anything better to do than ruin my life? I wish you'd go back to whatever hell you came from and leave everyone else alone."

Kurt felt a few fresh tears pop up in his eyes. There was nothing he could say. He just shifted farther back from her, and as he did, he felt one of his books that he kept in his bed fall out from the blankets onto the floor at the place where he used to sleep.

Caroline jumped. The noise had surprised her. She stood up, walked around to the where the book had fallen, picked it up, and held it for Kurt to see.

It was one of his favorites, Religious Symbols from Around the World. He especially liked the ones that the Archangel Gabriel (A/N: Ooh, bet you can't tell where this is going...think, "movie.") had made. But now Caroline was opening it, and the spine had been split to that page that he kept rereading. She looked at it, then at Kurt, and began laughing.

Kurt shuddered, realizing as she looked at the book and at the knife in her hand that she was getting an idea.

This was proven later when Caroline, sneering, sat on his stomach, gripping his left arm so he couldn't move it, and said, "Pride...for thinking you're worth something." She then moved the tip of the blade slowly, right over his old cut. Kurt screamed; it was too much hurt all at once. He tried to pull away, desperately, but she pulled back.

"I probably won't make a mistake if you quit squirming. You want this to hurt even more?"

When she had finished copying the symbol in the book onto his skin, he had been reduced to nothing but a quivery, shaky little thing who wanted nothing more than to be anywhere else other than that room.

But it wouldn't happen, ever, Kurt thought sadly as Caroline got up off of him, wiping the blade on the covers, leaving a streak of blood on the pattern. He'd be stuck there forever.

He thought about this, then continued licking the new cut, not bothering to even get up to clean it. What did it matter? It'd always be like this, now.

He breathed gently, and swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the salty blood in his throat. He was so tired, it had been three days since he had had something to eat, and he just wanted someone to make Caroline leave him alone.

Maybe he could get a few moments of rest from everything, if he tried hard enough. He wrapped a blanket around his forearm, and laid his head against his pillow, shutting his aching eyelids.

"Mmmnn," he murmured. He was so warm.

Kurt jumped awake as he heard the door slam open, heart beating fast. How long had he been sleeping? It felt like two minutes. He tried to focus his vision, and saw Caroline settling on the edge of the bed again. He was happy to see that she had no knife.

But that meant...

No, no, no, she's talking, he thought, frightened.

She stared into his eyes, cold blue ice, and didn't speak for a few moments. Then:

"You ever loved someone?"

Raven popped into his head instantly, but he didn't say anything.

Caroline continued. "I loved Emmett, and you made me lose him." She leaned in closer. "You thinking about your mother?"

Kurt stared back at her, not knowing whether he should answer, but eventually he nodded. "Un-hum."

She laughed, and then slapped his cheek, sending stings of hate through his face. "You wanna know something?"

Kurt gasped in pain, and glanced over to the door. Caroline had left it open. Maybe...

He jumped up, and was about to swing his legs out from his blankets when she knocked her hand into his chest, pushing him back onto the mattress.

"Trying to break out?" She snorted, and then swung herself over him so she straddled his body, preventing any escape. "Your mother left because of that. You're too much to put up with. She hated you."

Kurt struggled to get out, but she was too heavy. Instead, he winced inwardly at her words. They hurt so much.

"N-no, she didn't. She didn't," he stammered out. "Be- before she left she told me-" he shivered. "She told me she loved me."

Caroline pushed down harder on him. "She told you that so you'd leave her alone and she could get away without having to deal with you. Same thing as before."

Kurt let out a dry sob. "No, she did love me. She did."

"She hated you. She just wanted you to leave her alone."

"No, she d- didn't."

"If she loved you, why did she leave, then?"

"Because- erm, because..."

Caroline's idea made perfect sense. Raven had never loved him. She had only told him that so he wouldn't bother her.

He swore he could actually feel his heart ripping in half, at that moment. But as he noticed that pain, his chest, his arms, his legs followed, and his head...it felt like he was being sucked away. There was a huge, blinding ray of agony going through him, and Kurt suddenly realized that it wasn't normal; it wasn't what he'd expected to feel. He didn't know what was happening, and he began to panic.

The sucking intensified, and suddenly-

BAMF!

Kurt had been pulled through a whirling, dark place. Caroline's weight was gone, as was the rest of his surroundings. He was totally alone and empty. He didn't like the feeling, at all.

But as soon as it started, Kurt was back in the real world. Only instead of on his bed, he had been dropped near the door of his room, on the floor. He looked up, and saw Caroline kneeling on the bed, in a cloud of smoke, staring at him, amazed.

Kurt did not know what had just happened, and he did not know why. But the door was open, and he had the chance to escape from Caroline and everything that came with her forever.

He stood up, shook his head to get his bearings, and ran as fast as he could.

Outside of the house, the dead grass was heavy with raindrops from the day's earlier rain, and the air smelled fresh and new from it. Kurt ran, still hearing Caroline's angry shouts behind him in the house, but he knew she wouldn't be able to see him if he got to the trees in time.

As he ran past the branches he'd played on so many times before, he felt relief wash over his body. He had gotten away. He had gotten away!

Still, he moved quickly.

When the air in his lungs finally burned him to a stop, he was in the middle of an unfamiliar forest. Kurt looked around, and realized that he had nowhere to go, no one to look after him. He sank to the ground, shaking with exhaustion and sadness.

"Raven," he said quietly, and felt himself begin to cry again. He pressed his face to his knees, sobbing, and stayed like that for a while. He missed her so much, but she probably didn't miss him.

When his heart rate had slowed down, he stood up again, still blinded by tears. Kurt was scared, his arm throbbed, and he had been feeling nauseous ever since he had gone through that other place and gotten out from under Caroline.

Maybe if he ran he could ignore it all. It wouldn't be there, it would just...go away.

Kurt began to jog in the same direction, unsure of both himself and where he was going.

But it had to be better than where he had come from, he thought, staring in the direction of his new cut. There was no way it couldn't.

A/N: Yeeeaaah, sooo...Kurt's first movie scar. What did you think? Review, please!

A/N2: I know in chapter four it says he didn't leave the house till he was thirteen, but bear with me...I'm going to put in a METAPHOR later on! Praise my writing skills! Yeehah!