A few days ago:

Stephanie was on her way to school with Marilene. They had worked till late night to complete their group assignment at Marilene's. Both were quite tired.

Stephanie's body weighed down under the heavy weight of her bag. 

Suddenly she bumped into a person and in the process her ipod fell out of her sweatshirt's pocket. It was very precious to her. It was the last gift to her from her parents. She looked down at her belonging. It didn't seem damaged. 

"Look where you go dipshit.", the guy replied.

Even though Stephanie wanted to snap at him for his language she was too tired for a fight. She simply muttered a feeble sorry without looking at him and bent down for her ipod. The guy swiped it away with his feet. The ipod simply glided away and came to a stop after hitting a rock. There was the sound of a small crack.

"Hey you crazy?", Marilene exclaimed. She quickly went and picked it up. "What the- Steph there's a crack."

Stephanie's patience was at a countdown. If she snapped she might even kill the guy. She knew the tactics. Her fighting was at least enough to protect her from the local street guys.

"You paying for that or should I make you?", Stephanie told the guy, her eyebrows raised. There was a maniacal smile looming on her face. The guy sensed it too as she saw his eyes twitch.

He was about her height and had ridiculous perm on his head. 

"Well, sorry doesn't cut it ya know", he said mischievously as if there was something going on inside that empty head of his. Stephanie leaned closer to him and spoke as seductively as she could speak.

"Say you want a piece of me huh?"

"Now you don't wanna do that with her trust me.", someone warned from behind the curl head. Stephanie was quick to notice another guy with him. He was laid back, tall, had dark hair and dark skin. She smiled at him.

"Hey Nathan. Fancy seeing you here with this curly boy!", she called out to her former neighbor. He nodded his head at her and gave her the warmest smile that she had seen in days. People didn't smile at her like that anymore. Except Marilene of course!

The curl head took Stephanie's chin under his fingers and averted her eyes from Nathan to make her eye contact with himself.

"Apologize", he hissed.

"Already did", Stephanie replied calmly. A calm Stephanie was a dangerous one.

She slapped his hand away and bowed before him.

"Now Your Highness I need to go. You really do stink by the way. Perhaps it's because there are unwashed fledglings in that nest on your head."

Then without a second glance she started to walk away. Marilene trod along with her with a slight shock on her face. It wasn't a common thing to see Stephanie control herself.

"I've heard a lot of bad stuff about you.",curl head shouted out.

Marilene held her hand firmly as Stephanie stopped in her tracks.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

The curl head started to walk towards the girls. 

"I have heard that you killed your parents and disguised it as a mere missing people case. Probably dumped them off somewhere good. Or did you feed them to the wild animals behind your house."

Let me feed YOU to the animals.

The curl head now stood in front of them. He sneered at Stephanie not knowing he was about to press buttons that were best left untouched.

"No wonder your brother ran off. Don't wanna live with a murderer. He was pu-"

He could not complete his sentence because Stephanie was on top of him ready to give him Death's kiss. She punched him in the face, stomach and kneed him in the groin. Blood was spurting out of his nose and mouth.

Marilene and Nathan literally dragged her off him. She was yelling and spewing unholy words at him. The curl head simply held his face in his hands, groaning in pain.

Stephanie screamed at him.

"You know nothing about me you litt-"

But her voice was muffled by someone from behind her. She turned around in anger just to get  shocked. For a moment it seemed as if the sinking Titanic had fallen on her. In fact, she wished it had.

It was her aunt. Smiling and glaring at her at the same time if something like that was even possible.

"Stephanie I always told you to stop fighting. Why don't you listen? Now go to school. I'll wait for you at home.", her aunt cooed to her softly.

Stephanie quietly walked towards her school. She knew there were a lot of unspoken words under that smile. Words like I'm going to beat you to death.

*

"So are you going to tell me about what went between you both?", Chris asked, snapping her out of her daze.

"I beat him up badly because he insulted me. That's it." Stephanie answered with a shrug. 

While Chris simply started to laugh, Steve looked at anywhere but them.

"So that's why you wouldn't tell us how you received those ghastly marks on your face. Mum thought you were into drugs and what not!", Chris wheezed.

"Thank God that angelic aunt stopped the crazy head else I was dead for sure.", Steve muttered.

"Yeah angelic", Stephanie scoffed softly to herself. Chris caught that but said nothing. For now at least.

Sure enough. After that incident she didn't return home for three days and whenever she did she used to sneak into her room through the pipelines. One day she got caught while sneaking in and the usual stuff happened. Her cheek had a long gash and her body was brandished with amazing new bruises.

Next day, she met Chris and now here she was.

" I should call Marilene. She will be worried I was not in school today",Stephanie said reaching for her phone in her pocket. It wasn't there. It was missing.

With a jerk Stephanie realized these were not even her clothes!

"Where are my clothes?", Stephanie asked shakily. Her breath was ragged. 

"Oh! They have been washed. Your clothes were a mess and your ribs needed to be checked too so they are most probably drying.",Chris replied with a shrug.

"No I mean-", Stephanie took in a deep breath. "I mean who changed them?"

"Does that matter?", Chris smirked. 

Stephanie's lower lip trembled in panic. The fact that anyone could have seen her naked was simply disgusting. Not because of shame but because of all the bruises and wounds filling up her body. She couldn't stand that thought at all.

Chris saw her eyes starting to glisten and his face became all serious.

"Hey! I was joking! My mom. She changed it for you. I didn't see anything. Not even your bellybutton. Gosh! It was Steve who did all the dressings and healing. But that was all professional. He is studying medicine so it was nothing that you think!",he said all too quickly. He didn't want to upset her.

Stephanie glared at him for a moment through her watery eyes.

"Phone.", she demanded.

"It's fine. Marilene is in school so she won't even pick your call up.", Steve sighed. 

Stephanie was confused. She thought she had been unconscious till the next evening. 

"How long have I been out?", Stephanie asked.

The two brothers exchanged glances. There was some tension in the air. Finally Chris looked at her and replied nervously.

"Stephanie, it's been two days since I brought you home"

"Wow", Stephanie said. There was nothing else to say. Chris gave her her phone from the nearby shelf. Someone had charged it up for her. She found 50 missed calls from Marilene since that night.

"Don't worry I explained her everything yesterday.", Steve told her. There was a hint of sympathy in his voice. She didn't deserve it after she beat him up.

It wasn't his fault.Everybody thought of it that way disregarding the fact that she had been ten or twelve when the incident took place.

There was a sudden buzz and a message. She opened it and her hands started to shake on reading it.

The message read :

Come home darlin'. I'm missing you. Regards, AUNT.

*****

A/N :

Okay bye! > <