I remember it like it happened yesterday even though it actually happened 8 years ago. I was 10 years old--almost--and I was scared.

It had been almost 2 years since the Zoo and Stepmonster was having fun reliving that fateful day. I waited until I knew he was asleep, and then pulled out the duffel I had slowly been packing for the past month, stealing chips, bread and unopened Peanut Butter. I'd even managed a couple quarters here and there, and had successfully stashed all of it under my bed without anybody finding out about it.

A couple nights before the two-year "anniversary" of The Day at the Zoo, I slipped out my window and down the apple tree, then ran a few blocks and got on the city bus. I wanted so badly to sleep on the bus--I trusted it and its customers so much more than I trusted anyone in my house--but I couldn't miss my stop or it would take me all the way to the main city. While that may sound like a good idea for a runaway, it's also lots easier for them to find you in the big cities with the big police forces ready to make a buck finding the Missing Child that has a gigantic price on her head. But that's for another story.

The city bus stopped a few streets from my brother's apartment, leaving me out in the early morning sunrise. The sun on my back should have warmed me up, but it sent a shiver down my spine instead and I hid in the alleyways to get to the apartment. I needn't have worried--nobody was out and about yet and my "parents" would not be up for another six or more hours--but the past two years had made me paranoid of my own shadow.

I finally made it to his street and hid in the shadows until I spotted the door to his apartment, studio #410. It was then that I finally dared to enter the early morning light, but only to run across the street (right in front of some cars, but, fuck, maybe that would have been better) and hide in the shadows again before rushing up the outer stairs and knocking loudly on his door. I'd hoped I woke him up with my stomping up the last few stairs, but after having waited for the door to open for what felt like forever, I had to be a bit louder.

He had finally opened the door to his apartment and I zipped inside and shut the door behind me before he'd even processed who I was.

"Philena!" He had exclaimed. I remember his tone being filled with surprise, with an aftertaste of confusion. I had looked around his apartment, finding little nooks and crannies. I saw the door to his bedroom and another to the bathroom. As soon as I had exited the entryway, I stepped into his living and dining room. There was a couch, a recliner, a coffee table, and a clunky old T.V. that I remembered from when Dad was still alive. It sent a pang of sadness through me, but I was too wired from my trip on the bus for it to bother me much longer.

I laid the duffel next to the couch and perched myself on the arm of it, attempting to calm my breathing before look up into the eyes of my older brother. His eyes are so much like my own and yet, as I saw then, they are brighter, less shadowed by fear and shame. Those eyes softened as they looked at me that day and they allowed a couple tears to escape as mine flooded and the dam broke.

Garrett is one of two of the only people I've ever cried around and he knows it. He takes his job as older brother very seriously and though he's never at the house, he knows everything that's happened. Well, everything from before, anyway.

He held me at arms length as the flood turned into trickles and eventually was all dried up. His eyes traveled over my face, then found the bruises and scars on my arms. I bit my lip and lifted my shirt just enough for him to see the worst of the bruises, a baseball sized bruise on the right side of my stomach. His eyes widened and then narrowed and I thought he was going to hit something. Fear and paranoia made me think he might hit me. He must have seen that in my eyes, because he took a deep breath and his eyes showed hatred instead of anger. He hadn't calmed down and he hadn't relaxed, but I could tell that he wasn't going to hurt me--he wanted to hurt Stepmonster. He even told me such.

"Philena, I would never lay a finger on you--not to harm." He pulled me close and held me a tad too tight, but I said nothing. It had been too long since the last loving hug I got and I savored the warm feeling of knowing he cared. He then asked who did this to me and my eyes hardened into what I now call my "Take It" expression. I left his hug and went to my duffel, unzipping it and finding my few drawings. I handed them over--without preface, without explanation, without care. At the time, they were nothing to me. Just drawings of events I wished had never happened.

He looked at the first one and his jaw dropped. I had them in chronological order--whenever the event in them took place decided the date. The first one in the pile was The Zoo. I had decided to incorporate a sign that said "Men's Bathroom This Way" pointing to the left, towards a man and a little girl. The girl was on her back and the man on his knees. The girl was crying and the man was in ecstasy. The second one in the pile was of my ninth birthday party, minus the party. The third and last one was a new one and when he got to that one, I looked away. I could not meet his eyes when he finally set them down. I cringed away from his touch even as I craved his love, because I knew he would never hurt me the way Stepmonster has, but the past two years had made it difficult to trust anybody.

I felt bad, showing him those, because he took a couple days off work then and allowed me to stay and sleep in his room while he slept on the couch. I felt horrible, because I woke him up every morning around one o'clock with my screams of terror and cries of pain, forcing him to rush to his room and wake me from my nightmares. Neither of us thought anything of it when those two days were silent. I didn't even guess that Stepmonster was taking the time to contact people to look for me and then when those people gave up their search, he came for me.

A knock sounded around dinner time the third day, prior to the third night. It sounded normal, like perhaps one of his neighbors was knocking, asking if he was okay, so he went and opened it. The face staring at me from outside was Stepmonster and I froze in eating the birthday steak Garrett had bought for me, my blood running cold and a whimper escaping my lips. He had shoved past Garrett and taken my wrist before I knew what was happening. I lost track of what was happening until we got to the house and he dragged me under the stairs to the closet hidden there, then I tried to fight. He gagged me and shoved me inside, closing the door behind him and locking it, so I couldn't get out.

He punished me so bad that night that it truly was the two-year anniversary of The Zoo. I, thankfully, don't remember many of the details of that night as vividly though. If I did, I don't think I would be alive right now to recall this to you.

***To read on what he did to her, refer to Not A Stranger. The next one will be Philena: Running Away at Twelve.