The Voice Within

“What on earth are you doing here?” I hissed slowly through my teeth.

“I live here,” Chase answered bemused, as if the answer was obvious. But then out of the shadows stepped Kat, Danny and Justin. I gasped, this was all too much.

“So let me guess, you all live here?” I muttered sarcastically as one tear finally managed to escape my eye. On top of Liz being in hospital, Luke and I being stuck in some retarded foster home, and I had no idea where dad was, this was really all too much. I took one step back, looked briefly down at Luke, hesitating at the pure innocent look in his face, and I began to sob. It was the worst thing I could have done, but I couldn’t help it. I let my head droop into my hands as my back slid down the side of the front door so that I collapsed into a sniveling heap on the floor, and I cried.

“Look, Ronnie don’t cry. I know it’s tough, but it’s not that bad here, really. Look, the answer to your question, is that we do all live here, but...” Kat began as she slowly inched towards me, her arms outstretched in a lovely motherly gesture.

“Well I live just across the road with my foster parents,” Danny cut in and then immediately backed down once he saw the annoyed look of disapproval from Kat.

A small smile stole its way onto my face. Kat smiled too, “Come, I think we all need a bit of air, we were just leaving anyway.”

* * *
Chase’s POV

Chase pitied the girl. He really did. His careful blue eyes watched her as she quickly gave into Kat’s easy charm. When he looked at her he saw all of his friends; Kat, Danny, Justin and even himself. They had all been like her, broken in different circumstances, some of them left, deserted or hurt by their parents, and then dumped in a foster home, with no way of escape. He’d seen it all before. Yet there was something different about this girl. He soon realized this when Kat managed to persuade the girl to join them to a quick midnight trip to McDonalds. He watched, as she sat down in McDonalds and let her little brother fall back asleep on her shoulder. She sat in absolute silence at first, quietly taking in her surroundings. Kat fussed around her, telling her about us, how we all lived in the same foster home (apart from Danny) though none of us were actually related. By now, Danny had disappeared to the long queue in hope of getting some food. Justin had popped outside for a smoke, which left me. I could tell Kat wanted me to disappear by the annoyed glances she kept cutting at me, but I wasn’t going anywhere.

After a big sip of Danny’s coke, Ronnie finally opened her mouth to speak. In a quiet whisper, so that we could barely hear her, she told us her story, about her abusive father and how she had to get back home before he found out, otherwise he would go mental. She told us about Liz, the girl who Justin had chatted up yesterday before school. I saw Danny go white when he heard this, and he excused himself to go outside to talk to Justin. Justin wouldn’t be so happy when he found out, especially as I could tell Ronnie blamed him for what had happened to her friend. I sighed heavily, it looked like things were about to get a whole lot more complicated.

“So what are you going to do now?” Kat eventually asked.

“What am I going to do? Well I’m going back of course! Have you not been listening to anything I’ve been saying? My dad is going to kill me and Luke if he finds out where we are. We’ve got to go back now, before it’s too late!” Ronnie panicked her voice rising again.

“No,” I said firmly. Kat eyed me, but I didn’t stop. Ronnie was too scared to see that if she did go back, she would probably end up dead anyway, and then she would be gone. And for some strange reason that made me feel… anxious myself. “No, what your dad is doing to you is sick Ronnie. Can't you see, that by abusing you, he's already killing you, just slowly. If you want to protect Luke the best way is to go back to the foster home. You’ll be safe there.”

Ronnie looked taken back, but all the same she wiped her eyes, nodded once and started to put her coat back on. I couldn’t help but grin, until I caught Kat looking at me again.

“What?” I mouthed, playing dumb. Kat just shook her head. I knew what she was thinking, wondering why I was getting myself involved when I was normally the quiet one. The weird thing, was that I had no idea myself.