Star Chapter 1

Looking through my binoculars for the second time to confirm my worst nightmare, I had a decision to make. I climbed down the tree and headed for the backdoor into the garage as quickly as possible. Truthfully, as dangerous as this was going to be, the decision was made as soon as I saw my six year old sister taking her clothes off in front of my father. It had been dark for a couple of hours and it was way past her bedtime. It was possible that there was an innocent reason for what was happening, but based on the fact that he had raped me when I was eleven, I wasn't giving him the benefit of the doubt. I just hoped I could stop him and that this was the first time.

I punched the number code into the back garage door to unlock it, patted our Alsatian dog Rocky as I passed him to climb through the dog door from the garage into the kitchen. As I rushed into the house and up the stairs, I took out a couple of pens and held them dagger like in each hand. I opened the door to Kayla's bedroom to find my father in the middle of taking his trousers off with Kayla lying on her front, naked, sobbing into a pillow.

My father turned towards me in surprise and anger.

“Kayla!” I shouted. “Come over here sweetie.” I said much more gently. When I shouted her name she turned her head to look towards me and after hearing my voice, started getting off the bed.

My father tried to reach out to stop her, but his trousers weren't all the way off and that left him unbalanced, so when he turned towards her and away from me, I shoulder charged him, knocking him onto the bed as Kayla was scrambling off it. While he was trying to sort himself out, I rushed with my naked sister out of her room and down the stairs. I looked back and couldn't see him yet. I guessed that he was going to put his clothes on before coming after me, which gave me a few seconds head start.

I pushed Kayla into the kitchen, shut the door, told her quietly to stay quiet and still, before heading out the front door as Robert, aka my father, started running down the stairs. I could have tried to run, but even if I could out run him, I would struggle to get back to Kayla and then he would definitely catch us, so instead, I gripped my pens and stood outside the front door waiting for him. I let the rage I normally kept so well controlled rise to the surface and faced a man significantly bigger than me.

Having opened the front door, we had about thirty seconds before the main alarm would go off, unless it was disarmed. Robert charged out the front door and seeing me waiting for him, went straight for me. I was quick. I had learned to be, so I dodged his arms, going low and to his left, stabbing his thigh with my pen and when he turned instinctively, bringing his hands to the site of his pain, I elbowed him as hard as I could in the face, aiming for his nose.

After achieving what I needed, which was to slow him down and make it hard for him to pursue me, I ran down the drive and into the woods. When I was sure he had lost sight of me I looped round and went back into the garage and through the doggy door. Kayla was curled up naked on the floor crying with a hand over her mouth to keep as quiet as possible. Seeing my head through the door, she looked up.

“Sweetie, we have to get out of here.” I said. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around her. She followed me silently. The main alarm didn't go off, so either Robert disarmed it, Wendy my step mother did, or they forgot to set it in the first place. I led Kayla away from the house and into the woods. She had no shoes on so it wasn't long before I started carrying her. I am only small so I had to stop often and it must have taken us hours before I reached my tree house with its air bed and sleeping bag. We both managed to fit into the one sleeping bag. I held her tightly, feeling her relax in my arms as she drifted off to sleep. I stayed awake for awhile despite my tiredness as my mind tried to process what had happened and what I would need to do next.

I woke as soon as the light was bright enough to disturb me knowing I had a lot to do today. My thoughts were that Robert would report Kayla missing sometime this morning, pretending that nothing had happened last night. I hoped I had hit him hard enough that he would have a black eye or something to stop him from wanting to face the police, but even if he did, I think he would still have to inform them. Which meant there would be a man hunt. They would have to include the possibility that she had run away. Robert would look very suspicious considering that the same thing had happened to his son three years ago. Not that that would help me. This tree house was some distance away, but would probably be within a search area and I didn't want any of my stuff found to suggest that I used it regularly. Which meant I had to clear it out this morning. There was also the possibility that they would use dogs to track my and Kayla's scent. To add to my difficulties, Kayla had no clothes. My small size would help us out a little bit, but my shoes wouldn't fit her and she would probably stand out as being ill dressed.

I felt overwhelmed, not for the first time and dealt with it as I had before. Deep breathing and trying to let it go. I have had a lot of practice controlling my anger issues that I had developed some great coping strategies. I thought desperately, trying to work out a course of action that would save Kayla. If they used dogs, we were sunk. They only way to escape that was to get far away and I couldn't think of a way to do that without drawing unwanted attention. If they didn't then I could use one of my hiding places. I couldn't expect a six year old to do that. No. I needed help. Except if I had help it would lead whoever was searching right to them, again only if they could track us. I couldn't look after a six year old, I could barely look after myself. So I needed help, but after the search had died down.

I felt Kayla waking up next to me. She turned herself around to face me.

“Morning beautiful.” I said to her.

“Err..morning. Umm... where am I? And err.. who are you?”

“You are in my tree house.” I thought about telling her my name wondering if she would remember me. She was only three when I ran away. I looked so different to how I used to that I decided that would only confuse her. “You can call me Star.”

“That is a beautiful name. You saved me. Daddy was... daddy wanted...” Then she burst into tears, so I cuddled her, stroked her, told her everything was going to be alright. I would protect her.

When she had calmed down I needed to ask her a difficult question. “Was that the first time?”

“Yes. It was my birthday. He told me I was old enough now to be a big girl.” I knew it was her birthday and that was, in fact, why I had been watching. I was going to leave a card for her outside the front door after everyone had gone to sleep. I'm just glad that she had left her blind up or I wouldn't have seen what was happening. “I don't want to be a big girl. Can you help me tell my mummy that I don't want to be a big girl?” She asked me in a heartbreaking voice.

“Oh, honey.” I said holding her again. I let go of her so that I could look her in the eyes. “What Robert was doing was very, very wrong. Being a big girl does not mean that. Now I need you to be brave, OK?”

“OK.”

“Do you remember your brother?”

“Yes. He sent me a card for my Birthday last year. It was so pretty.”

“He gave me your card for this Birthday and I was going to give it to you, but I left it in a tree. I'll make you one just like it later, OK. Robert, er..daddy, thought your brother, Austin, was a big boy and was very naughty with him, so Austin told your mother. Unfortunately, your mummy didn't believe him, so he ran away.”

“Daddy said mummy wouldn't believe me and that I had to keep it a secret or he would hurt mummy.”

“That is why we need to stay away from mummy and daddy at the moment.”

Kayla helped me squeeze the air out of the air mattress and I dressed her in some tracksuit bottoms, a T-shirt and a jumper. I had to roll up the sleeves and legs, but embarrassingly, not that much. I had her wear three pairs of socks so that my spare shoes looked like they would fit. I had a rucksack, patched with duct tape and I managed to fit everything that I normally left in the tree house, including my school work and two small rolls that were supposed to be breakfast and lunch. We walked down to a stream and then the hard work began. I carried my rucksack on my back and Kayla on my front and trudged in wet feet up the stream, trying to keep my eye out for any visitors. The woods were usually pretty quiet with occasional dog walkers who kept to the main paths, so I would be unlucky to bump into anyone else. I stopped to rest when I had to, usually when I could find a big enough rock for me to lean on. When I thought I had gone past my furthest hide out I exited the stream, set Kayla down to walk and headed to this small den that I had enlarged enough to give me a small hiding place. There wasn't room for the air mattress, but we could shove the ruck sack in and after I had taken off my wet shoes and socks we could get into the sleeping bag and shuffle backwards until we were completely hidden. I just hoped we were hidden enough and no tracks were left to give us away.

I gave both of my small rolls to Kayla, just telling her that I wasn't hungry and sipped water. It wasn't the first time and probably wouldn't be the last that I went hungry. At least there was enough water. We had drunk from the stream as we travelled and filled two plastic pop bottles. Kayla did complain of being hungry, but accepted that there would be no more until tomorrow.

We were both bored quite quickly so I told her a story about a princess called Kayla and she loved it. Eventually, she fell asleep. I stayed awake listening. I never heard anyone nearby and dropped off late in the night hoping for a better day.

The next morning was grey and a bit misty, but thankfully no rain. I hoped that they would have already checked the tree house and planned on going back to it. If I was on my own I would have stayed away for another couple of days, but with Kayla, that just wasn't possible. As soon as there was enough light to see by we started our trek back to the tree house. Since I didn't think we needed to go into the stream, Kayla walked most of it on her own.

I tried my best to stick to Kayla's pace despite being used to travelling much faster and it did make the journey that much longer. Still, we were both grateful to arrive back at the tree house. Inside, as I had hoped was a home cooked meal in a plastic container, a sandwich and two more mini bread rolls. Kayla ate the sandwich and then we shared the meal, saving the rolls for later. I checked that Janice was alone. Her husband's car was gone and there were no extra cars in her driveway, so I crossed my fingers and knocked on the back door.

Janice's POV

I was getting worried. First a policeman knocks on the door to enquire about a lost six year old girl and then I find the tree house completely emptied, with no sign of Star at all. I left the food there anyway and when I checked again in the morning it was still there untouched. Keeping Star's existence a secret from my husband and the rest of my family had been gnawing away at me for the last two years. It didn't help that John was a policeman. I was even contemplating taking anti depressants. Now that she had disappeared it brought into question all my decisions thus far. Had I done the right thing?

I had caught her going through my rubbish bins two years ago and managed to coax her into telling me her story. We then made a deal, no more bin diving and I would provide food. It really wasn't hard to cook a little extra and put it aside for her and then when I made John's lunch, I just made an extra sandwich for Star. I started having dinner rolls for tea and added them as well.

She told me that her father, the man who had raped her, had powerful connections and made me promise not to call child services. She was only twelve, but acted much older. Instead, to salve my conscience, we arranged for her to meet with a social worker I knew, somewhere with a lot of escape routes. I don't know what happened since the conversation was confidential, but a week after the meeting, my friend, Betty, the social worker, was killed in what was described as a mugging gone wrong. She was beaten to death.

It could be a co incidence, but I didn't believe that. Initially, I was scared that they would be coming for me. As time passed that worry faded. So I had done my best for Star. I surreptitiously insulated the tree house and put in plastic windows and a wooden door to stop the drafts. Then I supplied an air mattress and sleeping bag. After a few weeks I wanted to do more, so I started putting books and educational material in her house, as I called it. Star filled out some quizzes and I used that to gage what I needed to provide. She was a smart girl for her age and from what I could tell, was at the equivalent of a high school graduate at the grand age of 14. I bought clothes from a second hand store for her and communicated via a small book where we could both leave anonymous messages.

The one thing that I did that was a little bit naughty was I ground up a birth control pill and added it to her food. I have been doing that for two years now and she has never noticed. I tried to give her a pack of birth control pills but found that she didn't use them. I was scared that she would end up pregnant, which would be a disaster under the circumstances, and so decided to make that decision for her.

John went off to work and I was a bundle of nerves. To keep myself occupied I decided to do a full house clean and was in the middle of attacking the upstairs bath when I heard knocking on the back door. Hoping that it was Star, I rushed downstairs.

Authors note// This may not be posted as quickly as i am thinking of going back to my Who the Hell am I? story.