Night had fallen.

Emer was curled up in a foetal position on the thin mattress on the floor of his 'bedroom'. He didn't own a blanket. The fan wasn't turned on - it hardly ever was, for he didn't have money to spare for electrical bills.

But tonight, despite the small room and the still air, he was shivering, and in pain.

It wasn't the first time this had happened.

But, for all his agony, he didn't regret a single thing. He knew he'd done the right thing, saving Em from them. He was able to take their punishments. Always had.

His clothes were hanging in tatters off his pale frame. They had been reduced to mere scraps of cloth, barely clinging on to each other.

His ribs ached. Likely one or two had been broken, or at least been bruised pretty badly. The gashes in his cheeks had long since clotted, but he hadn't had the energy to wash himself; all of it had been spent just dragging himself back to the shop. Dried blood caked his face. His swollen eye throbbed.

His hand flopped limply from his wrist - broken. His ankle was sprained. He had had to hobble home, in the grips of pain the whole while, one arm holding up the other so his wrist wouldn't agonize him.

This wasn't the worst they had done to him, but that didn't make it any less pleasant. The consolation was that he had finally done something right, gone with his instincts and saved the innocent Em.

He was missing Em.

A couple years ago, he had watched helplessly, a scared twelve-year-old, as they had murdered his parents. They had taken him in after that, claiming that they had saved him from a life of being juggled from foster home to foster home, of being without family - for they were his family now. They demanded respect and gratitude and obedience from him.

He did their bidding like the coward he was.

In the five years he had been with them, he'd never had his own voice, never even been able to grieve his parents openly. Many a night he had cried himself to sleep, and would wake up with his heart weighted down and seeing only blood, blood, blood.

All the cruelty he had been forced to carry out for them - they served to add fuel to the flames of his anger. He had to keep a tight lid on it, for they punished at the merest whim for any perceived slight.

He had never had a friend, no one to talk to. The past five years had seen him through much loneliness, anger his only constant companion.

Now he longed for Em.

For her to come back, to talk to him, to take away his pain, at least for a little while, in this cold, dark night.

His eyes slipped shut, and he slipped into blissful unconsciousness.