I braced myself when my dad threw me into a wall. Again, he came home drunk. Again, he was taking out his anger on me. My mother was at work taking the night shift, again. She was hardly ever home. I really was starting to miss her, but, I knew she couldn’t do anything. Dad would just hit her, and yell at her. 

My name is Kylie. Kylie Burtie. I am fifteen, some people call me a nerd. I work hard in school, so I don’t turn out like my dad, or mom. I have dirty blonde hair with gray eyes. I where a T-shirt, and jeans, with an oversized hoodie on top, most of the time. I grew up with a poor family. My dad always spent our money on beer, and whiskey. My mother, she works for a thrift store. Her income is fifty-six dollars a week. Most of it goes to my father’s beer and whiskey. 

My mother is the sweetest person you would ever meet. She has golden blonde hair. She has a wrinkled-up face, though she is still breath taking. She has hazel eyes, and she is so gentle to me. Makes me wonder why she married trash like my dad. Then again, she is never home to see the stuff my father does to me. She is always working overtime to get some food on the table, and keep a roof over my head. Sometimes I think she is doing stuff that is illegal, just to get money. I know it sounds disappointing that my mother would stoop to that level. I do feel ashamed of my mother, but I guess she was desperate. 

My father was not always this bad. I do have faint memories of when I was four or five, where he would to come to my bed and smile at me. The smile felt warm, like it was one of those perfect days, not a cloud in the sky, the degrees stays around forty-eight to forty-nine, the sun not to bright, and not to dim. He has dark brown hair, with gray hair growing in it. He is super tall, and strong. There was a time when he was handsome, but when he started to drink that changed everything about his looks, but, something change in him. He started to drink beer and whiskey when I was six. He started to yell at me for hours. He didn’t hit me till I was around ten years old. 

I had a little sister, named Lucy, she was the sweetest little thing. Sweatier than my mother even. She is seven now.  She has short golden hair, a smooth face, with freckles across her nose. She has crystal blue eyes, and a smile like my dad’s, before he got drunk. She always got into the center, of mine and dad’s fights. We would mostly fight about her. It really is sad. My dad would threaten to take her away, and leave me with mom. I mean I love my mother, but some of the stuff she does for me and my sister. It is illegal, I don’t want to be in the middle of it all, when she gets caught.

“Why are you such a little brat?” Demanded my dad. “I mean does it kill you to put my beer on the second shelf of the fridge, and my whiskey on the first?” He scolded me. Again, our fight was because of something stupid. 

“Well, I’m sorry! I didn’t-"

“You didn’t know! How many times do I have to show you?” He demanded. He then staggered over to our kitchen. It was a small kitchen. The floors were white, very dirty from the lack of cleaning we did. There a stove, covered with food, and rust. A small counter next to it, with a fridge on the other side. The fridge was small. Barley taller than our stove. 

He opened the fridge. I decided to follow him. He started to put the beers onto the second shelf, then he dropped one. He cursed loudly. “Now look what you have done, you little brat!” He scolded me again. I opened my mouth to speak but got hit in the cheek by his beefy hands. I fell off my feet onto the ground. My cheek was stinging with pain. “Clean this up! Now!” He then stormed out of the room…well staggered out of the room. I laid there for a seconded. My cheek was still stinging with pain. It was probably going to be swollen tomorrow.

I managed to get up onto my feet. I grabbed a paper towel and wiped up all the beer, then I grabbed a broom and swept up the glass. “While you’re at it, brat! Fix the fridge!” My dad shouted from the living room. I sighed heavily and walked over to the trash and dumped the glass in it. I then walked over to the fridge and sorted the beers and whiskey. “Bring me a whiskey too!” My dad ordered me. Again, did I feel like Cinderella. My dad treats me like a slave. 

I grabbed his whiskey and took it to him. “Here is your whiskey dad…” I sighed out. 

“Thank you. Now what do you have to say to me?” He asked eyeing me now, with his drowsy eyes. 

I’m sorry your crack head. I thought, but I didn’t want to have a black eye, along with a swollen cheek. “I’m sorry for not doing my chores correctly dad,” I said trying to sound as guilty as I could. 

He nodded, sipping at his whiskey. “Go on, I don’t want to see that bratty face of yours,” he said sounding drunker by the seconded.

I went to my bedroom where my sister Lucy laid on our bed. She was not asleep, though she looked like she had been crying. We had to share a room. All our room was a closet that had a few clothing in it, and a mattress in the upper right corner, next to a window where the moonlight shined upon Lucy’s beautiful face. 

I walked over to her. “Hey kiddo,” I said to her climbing into the mattress. 

“What was the fight about this time?” Lucy asked. I could hear a soft whimper coming from . Tears rolled down her cheek slowly. 

“It was nothing. I’m fine,” I lied. “It was over something idiotic, as usual,” I said and wrapped an arm around her. I wiped her tears away. I started to her golden hair, when I heard a loud knock at the front door. It made Lucy jump. 

I got out of bed. “I’ll be back, it is probably just mom,” I said and left her. I hesitated before going into the living room. I was happy to see dad asleep on the couch. 

I made my way over to the door. There was the knock again. I opened the door. There were blue and red light shining through the whole neighborhood. Our neighbors came out of their homes. It was eleven o-clock. Too late for this. 

I put my hand on my face, to block the lights. There was an officer in front of me. He was fat, and had wrinkles on his forehead. He wore a police suit. He wore square glasses. 

“Hello officer what can I do for you?” I asked. I felt embarrassed because all I was wearing were my pajama’s that had hearts on them. My hair was a wreck. 

“We have a matter that we have to talk to you about,” he said. His face looked grim. He told me something that shattered my heart. I broke down and started to sob. I felt the hot tears run down my cheeks.

“I am afraid to say we found your mother murdered, in an alleyway. She had a bullet in her chest. We will try to find the murderer of your mother, but-’

I slammed the door in his face. That woke up my dad. Oops. “What is your problem? I was sleeping,” my dad said still half asleep, and drunk. I just stood there and waited for him to fall back asleep. When I was sure he was asleep, by his loud snoring. I went up to my room. My sister was sound asleep. How was I going to tell her the news? Her and mother were close together, like you wouldn’t believe. In addition, the cops find the murderer. They are really hilarious. There were a group of murders in our town, they never found the murderer.

I went to bed. I decided to tell her in the morning, but there was something else I was going to tell her. I closed my eyes, that were heavy from the sobbing I had done. 

My nightmare started off like this. I was in an alley way. Somehow, I knew it was the alley way that my mother was killed. There was thick fog. I saw my mother running towards me. “Mom!” I shouted. 

She ran right through me, like I was a ghost. A man in a Ford truck drove up to my feet. I wanted to move, but I couldn’t. There was another man in the bed of the truck. He took aim with a handgun and shot at me. The bullet went through me. There was no pain, but I heard a scream from behind me. It was mother. “Mom!” I screamed, but I was unable to move. 

I woke up with a start. My sister was shaking me awake. “Sis! Wake up!” She said shaking me. 

“I’m awake…” I groaned out. 

“There was a note on the door…mommy is dead…” She said and started to sob. I sighed and held her close. 

“Sis…we have to run away…we’re not safe here,” I said as I held her close. 

“Where are we going to go?” She asked through her tears. 

“Away from here…but, I swear to you nothing will ever hurt you…no one, and nothing…I swear,” I said and started to cry myself. 

“I swear too,” she said. 

“No! You are far too little to protect me…don’t make a swear you can’t keep,” I warned her. “Take it back!” I said a bit harsher than I meant it to come out. 

“I’m sorry…I take it back…”

“Come on take what you need, only a few items, I will steal some food and drinks. Dad is still asleep, right?” I asked.

“Yeah…” she was already grabbing her stuffed horse. She named him brownie. “I need him…” 

“It’s fine…we’re are leaving for good…okay?”

She nodded. 

“Away from here…” I said softly to myself.