Escape to Black Rock Bay

Chapter Three

“No! Don’t touch her!” I scream at Donnie as he reaches for Ellie. I had been sleeping in her room every night since he creeped in drunk once night and tried getting into bed with her. Ellie had screamed and told him to get out which was by some miracle loud enough for our mom to wake up from her drug induced sleep and asked him what he was doing in there. He feigned innocence and said he thought he was in the bathroom. No one in their right mind would believe that but my mom seemed to buy it. Even so, he and my mom fought well into the morning, screaming at each other and throwing things. I sat up and held Ellie and covered her ears. The screaming, fighting, and throwing things were a normal behavior between mom and Donnie, as was him beating my mom into submission. But only a few months later, this was the second time he had attempted to violate my sister and I wasn’t having it. “Your mom is knocked out on her pills and there's no way she'll hear you this time," he sneered. He clearly thought he had the upper hand but I was ready for him. I sprayed him with pepper spray I purchased after the last incident and I hit him over the head with an empty whiskey bottle I had swiped from him a few weeks back. Ellie was screaming and I was panicking on the inside but I just grabbed her and ran out of the house. We walked around aimlessly for a while and ended up finding a park to crash at for a few hours. We sat there in silence, surely wondering if we could go back. We had no money, no clothes and no plan. Ellie was so scared she wouldn’t stop shaking. “It’ll be okay Elle. I won’t let anything happen to you,” I said as steady as I could. “I’m so scared Isla,” she said with her smallest voice. “Here,” I said as I took off my most prized possession and gave it to my sister. “No Isla I can’t,” she said as tears formed into her eyes. “Yes you can. Dad gave it to me when I was scared and now I’m passing it on to you. He said ‘Anytime you feel lonely or scared you can remember that I’m always here in your heart.’ And now you know that I will always be here for you no matter what.” That seemed to calm her down enough to talk rationally about our next steps. We decided to go back and tell our mom everything that happened. We made our way home just after dawn knowing she wouldn’t be up for hours. Once she got up and we told her about the last two incidences, she was in denial and said Donnie would never do such a thing. At that moment, he came into the room and just stared at us, seemingly recovered from last night’s events. Mom asked him point blank if our story was true. “Are you trying to f**k my daughters Donnie?” She said angrily and he yelled at her, “No f**king way you crazy b**ch! How dare you question me and my actions!” Ellie and I escaped the kitchen and listened from my room as they fought for hours. I was convinced my mom would believe us in the end. Once the fighting stopped, I went to find my mom. She was out back smoking a cigarette and nursing a black eye with an ice pack. “Mom are you okay?” She looked up startled. “No and it’s all thanks to you and your sister’s lies,” she said in a menacing tone. My mom had her downfalls but she had never talked to me like that before. I was taken aback and just looked her dead in the eyes and told her, “ He’s the one lying mom and I think you know it.” We just stared at each other for what seemed like forever when she finally broke the silence. “ Run along and check on your sister,” as she lit another cigarette dismissing me and our conversation. I stood there dumbfounded for a minute and realized that we could never trust our worthless mother again. “Dad would be disgusted with who you’ve become,” I said with as much repulsion and disrespect I could muster. Without waiting for a reply, I turned around and ran away as angry tears fell down my face. Ellie and I were going to get far away from her and Donnie and rid ourselves of them for good.

I woke up with a jolt as I hear Ellie screaming, “Hey a**hole! Next time plan better!” I start laughing and Ellie looked at me apologetically and said, “Sorry Isla! That d**k cut us off and almost ran us off the road!” I chuckled and said, “It’s all good. I needed to get up. Where are we anyways?” I looked around and the vegetation had definitely changed. “We’re about 20 minutes outside of Boulder and just about out of gas.” Perfect timing I thought to myself. “Sweet. Let’s find a gas station and some lunch, I’m hungry.” “I saw a sign for a gas station a few minutes ago so we should be coming up to one here any minute,” Ellie said and sure enough it popped up right as she said it. We pulled in and got out to stretch our legs. I look over at Ellie who is raising her arms above her head stretching and I can’t help but feel like I’m looking in a mirror. We are Irish twins, which means we’re born less than a year apart, and people mistake us for actual twins all the time. We both have petite builds at 5’3” tall, with long sandy brown hair and piercing green eyes, like our dads were. We also have similar facial features. We both have heart shaped faces with small noses and full lips. Ellie’s brow is slightly more pronounced than mine and I have bigger boobs. Other than that, we share clothes, shoes and pretty much everything in life. I felt lucky that our parents had us so close together so we could share everything. Dad used to tell us that was his idea because he always wanted twins and we were better. He loved us so much. I am even more thankful for him now that we’re all each other has. I can’t imagine going through all of this alone.

I gave Ellie another $100 bill from the stack and she ran in to pay for the gas while I pumped. I was happy to get in and out quickly after what happened this morning. There was a Taco Bell in the same parking lot as the gas station so we grabbed that for convenience. We used another $100 bill to pay for our food. The more bills we could break up front, the less likely it was that we’d be tracked by the money later on. We finished up our lunch, hit the bathroom and got back on the road. Our final destination for the day was Colorado Springs which wasn’t far. It would be an easy drive but it was the most important leg of the journey aside from actually getting the money. If we couldn’t secure our new identities everything we’d done up to this point would be useless. I say a silent prayer, pleading that everything goes to plan.