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Being twelve was hard.
According to my father, I was no longer a child, I was a business asset. One to be bartered with and traded as property for him to obtain something he wanted more than me. Which could be just about anything else in the world because the man didn’t even like me.
I don’t think he ever did.
To test the fate I was already destined to anger, I walked around the estate, wandering farther than I normally would. Because, why not?
I was going to be punished anyway.
Might as well explore a little bit, even if I was cold as ice. The frilly white dress my mother made me wear to the old castle did little to ward off the fall chill, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.
The trees were the brightest I’d ever seen before, and I wanted to stare at them forever. We didn’t have trees like this in the city.
They were breathtaking.
As I wandered through an elaborate garden of Armarow Estate, I envisioned what it would be like to live amongst nature beyond the mystical castle walls. Would it be magical and exciting? Or would it feel lonely and isolated like everywhere else I went?
I bet it’d feel magical.
The adventure of the rolling hillsides sprawled out as far as the eye could see would lead me on such grand adventures. I just knew it.
I ached to live here amongst the polite staff and kind village people we met on our way in.
It was such a stark difference to the city, I ached to drown myself in it.
“Hit it.”
I froze with a foot raised in the air as the voice drifted to me through the trees. Slowly I lowered my boot to the ground and ducked to look through the dense trees.
“You hit it,” A different voice snapped back to the first. It sounded like a couple of boys, just beyond the first layer of trees.
I looked around me, looking for the best way to get away from the trees undetected, because something burned in my gut that told me I’d found the boundary of distance and behavior, and if I went any further, I’d cross it.
And I didn’t feel like being beaten today.
I turned and quietly stepped around the majority of the crunchy leaves trying to avoid the sticks to retreat when I heard a pitiful noise come from within the trees that stopped me cold.
Meow.
Hiss.
“Fucking just stomp its head in already, this is getting boring,” A different voice complained as a cold shiver crawled up my spine.
They were hurting a cat.
Before I could even think twice, I stupidly pushed my way through the tree line and stumbled into a clearing where the voices came from. The trio of teenage boys didn’t notice me, but as one of them raised his booted foot over the head of a tiny kitten I yelled. “Stop it!”
Three matching heads of dark hair and bright blue eyes snapped in my direction and fear exploded through my brain.
Run.
It was the first thing that came to mind, but it was too late.
I turned back towards the trees and made it only a step and a half before a set of hands tangled into my hair and yanked me away from the safety of the foliage and threw me to the ground in the center of the clearing. I landed in the dirt next to the cat that was tied by a collar to a stake in the ground, fighting with its life to get off.
“Well, well, well,” The oldest one sneered down at me as they circled me. He was the one who had grabbed me and threw me to the ground. “Who do we have here?”
The other two looked just as menacing as they walked around me, their heavy boots stomping in the dirt.
