Trigger Warnings: Physical abuse and violence

(It is throughout this entire chapter, so if you would like to skip it, feel free to message me and I can give you a summary of the important stuff that happened)

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

I throw all my weight onto her and slam her to the ground. I stay on top of her, holding her down. But that is proving to be very difficult as she is surprisingly strong. Although my pure determination and adrenaline somehow successfully keep her pinned down.

I quickly risk a glance back towards the kids seeing them still trembling in the corner.

"Get out of here!!"

Scarlet seems to get over her shock and jump into action. She roughly and hurriedly pushes all the kids past the writhing Ms. Santina on the ground and over the fallen door.

When I finally hear all the little feet not pounding down the stairs and instead rushing through the front door, I finally give way, not able to keep holding her down. At least the kids are out.

As soon as she throws me off of her, she is on me again; Standing over where I am slumped against the wall. She grabs the collar of my shirt, pulling me up against the wall. When I am level with her, she doesn't waste a second before her fist hits deep into my stomach.

I breathlessly cough and my body naturally curls over while I try to catch my breath, but Ms. Santina doesn't allow me that moment to catch my breath.

Soon another flurry of several punches lands and I am then slammed up against the wall, hitting my head on the way and sliding down it.

Ms. Santina steps back slightly, with a pleased look on her face. That pleased look takes on one of rage and annoyance as well when she looks past the door laying on the floor.

"I am going to kill him." She seethes, and my fight or flight that is desperately relying on the fight aspect right now kicks in once again.

She begins to walk away from me and out the door and in the direction of the kids, but I will not let that happen. I push myself off of the wall, my head already spinning, however, it is spinning even faster with thoughts of how I can not let her lay a hand on the kids.

Rushing towards her much faster than anyone else in my state should be able to, I push her to the ground once again, but there is no hope that I would be able to keep her down, so I stand my ground above her.

"Don't you fucking dare." My voice is colder than I have ever managed before and Ms. Santina looks caught off guard and even slightly scared, just barely.

She stands up once again, and she is angrier than I have ever seen before. However, unlike her, I keep my face cold and don't let the fear that is most definitely there seep its way through.

Although, no matter how much I disguise my fear, it is still very much there, and it is only growing by the second. By the look on her face, I know this will not be good, and by the look in her eye, I know that I may never even make it out of this house.

I have been simply waiting for the day that she finally snaps, and I think this is finally the moment that I have been patiently waiting for. It is terrifying, but my determination to keep my siblings safe outways my own self-preservation

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Scarlet's Pov:

As soon as I get all the kids outside and onto the sidewalk, I instantly turn back towards the building. I saw the look on her face, it was more than just angry and I was terrified of what she would do. And Finnley is in there all alone with her.

I turn towards Benedict. "Call the cops."

"Scarlet, you know we can't, they w-" he responds, clearly torn himself.

"She is going to kill her! Call the goddamn cops, Ben!"

The realization finally seems to set in for Benedict as well, he saw the look on her face as well.

As soon as he nods, I instantly bolt back toward the dreaded orphanage.

"Scarlet!!" Benedict shouts after me, but his voice is lost to me by the time I burst through the doors and am already almost halfway up the stairs. However, the painful sounds and bangs coming from the top of the stairs only continue to get increasingly louder.

Once I finally get to where the door is laying on the ground, I quickly take in the scene in front of me.

Ms. Santina is going at it with everything that she has, and Finnley is barely hanging on. She is doing her best to dodge the hits, but she is getting obviously slower, appearing to be barely holding herself up, and definitely not able to hit back.

I sprint towards Ms. Santina, jumping on her back, putting my arms around her neck, and pulling her back with all my weight. Caught by surprise, she stumbles back, Finnley also stumbles on their feet, stepping back and trying to find their balance during their break from Ms. Santina's assault. They fall to the floor, slumped against the wall, not able to physically hold themself up.

Not having much weight and muscle myself, she is able to throw me off of herself and I roll onto the floor. However, I stand back up, standing my ground almost just as quickly as she took me down.

The only thought running through my head right now is that I am very thankful for the times Finnley insisted on teaching me some basics of fighting.

"Scarlet? What are you doing? You need to get out of here!" Finnley's strained voice shouts from across the room, behind the large woman that is slowly stalking towards me.

"I'm not leaving you Finnley!"

"You know... I have been looking for an excuse to do this for a long long time now." Ms. Santina says with a grin and a look in her eyes that tells me exactly what she is capable of.

She continues to slowly step closer to me where I am now frozen in fear. I hear Finnley weakly shout for her to stop as she tries to struggle to stand up but ultimately fails.

I back up to get away from her until I can't go any further once I hit the wall, but she only continues to come closer. I try to push off the wall, grab Finnley and get out of here, and then run, run as far away from here as we can. But as I try, Ms. Santina harshly pushes me back before I can even make it a step.

She has me cornered against the wall, so I use my only other option, I fight. I punch her with all the force that I have on the side of her neck and jaw, just like Finnley taught me. She stumbles for a second, caught off guard and clutching the side of her face, but she quickly gathers herself, and before I am able to react she lands a hit right into my ribs. She continues these hits and I try to block them and get away, but I am unable to do so and outmatch her, especially when she is this angry. With one of the last punches that she throws, I hear a sickening crack in my ribs and I crumple into myself crouching forward trying to shield myself. However, this does not protect me, it instead only allows for the opening that she was waiting for.

When I fall over, trying to catch my breath, a task that seems so impossible suddenly, Ms. Santina grabs my neck, pushing me against the wall, and clamps her hands around my throat even tighter, cutting off my breathing even more than before.

My chest heaves, begging for air, wordlessly pleading. My eyes go unfocused and everything around me blurs, the edges growing dark and slowly creeping in closer. My head fogs and my hearing is muffled. I can hear someone shouting something, at least I think I do. It is something I can either not make out or something my brain can simply not comprehend, it is suddenly far too tiring to think, but I can not tell which one it is.

My vision blurs, my hearing blurs, my feeling blurs, and everything passes in a blur.

I don't even notice when I fall to the ground, I don't even notice when the hands around my throat are gone.

When I finally notice that my ability to breathe is fighting to function, but slowly is able to drag in the air unlike before, I open my eyes, continuously blinking trying to rid the blurring that still lingers around the edges.

However, when I bring my eyes up, the breath in my throat gets stuck there once again.

Laying on the floor in front of me is Ms. Santina with a pool of blood slowly expanding from her body, and behind her, standing directly across from me, is a wide-eyed frozen Finnley, clutching a knife in their shaking hand.

Her breath is heavy and audibly shaky due to her whole body trembling. She slowly and cautiously brings her wide eyes that are pooling with tears up to me, we hold eye contact, fear, and terror swarming behind both of us.

My mind is completely blank, I don't know what to think, but I do realize one thing, she saved me, if it wasn't for them, I would be dead right now.

They look back down towards the knife that is clutched between their white knuckles and she gasps, almost like she just now realized what she did.

Once I finally collect enough breath to form words, I go to start to say something, anything, but before I can I am stopped when I hear pounding coming up the steps.

"NYPD!" I hear them announce as they rush up the steps.

I glance toward Finnley in panic, but they do not react, still just staring at the knife that they are holding in their hands, completely frozen and blank, but I can see the millions of thoughts swirling behind their eyes.

Before I can do anything, the police are at the broken-down door. As soon as they turn the corner and take in the scene they quickly pull out their guns and instantly point them toward Finnley.

One of them speaks in a disguised calm voice. "Put the knife down."

I try to speak up. "No, they didn't-"

The officer ignores and loudly shushes me. "Put the knife down now!"

Finnley slowly looks up and down the barrels toward the officers. Tear tracks stream down their face and their chest heaves for breath, hyperventilating. The knife limply falls out of their trembling hand.

As soon as the knife hits the floor, the officers start to slowly creep closer to her. She looks from them to me to the window and then back to me. I know what she is thinking, and I know that it is the only way that we may possibly be able to see her ever again. I nod so subtly that it is barely visible, and she does the same, but those nods hold so much meaning, an entire conversation,  promise, and apology all in one single nod that most would not even notice.

Just as the officers are almost within arms reach, Finnley darts toward the already cracked open window. Within only a few seconds, they had pushed the window open, leaped out onto the roof, ran across it, and jumped from it onto the fire escape of the building next door, and soon they had already disappeared from sight. Several officers rush over to the window, several of them already running down the stairs and out of the orphanage no doubt trying to catch them, and all of them shouting.

I lean back, slouching against the wall, and take a deep breath. I don't know what the future holds, but I will fight for it. Fight for one where we are all back together again.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

A/n - I'm sorry.

I know it is another cliffhanger... I'm sorry...