“I hope you rot in hell.” I growled.
“You’re impossible!”
“For a smart man, you’re coming up with poor arguments!” I shouted, and I headed for the stairs.
“You’re grounded for speaking to me that way!”
I let out a hard laugh as I turned around to look at him. My eyes narrowed at his dark eyes behind his glasses.
“You’re seriously choosing now to be a parent? You’ve never been to a parent-teacher conference, a soccer game, or even celebrated a birthday, but you’re going to ground me now? You make me sick. You’re killing Madeline and me; we can’t take it much more. You need to leave us the hell alone and stop dragging her around like a pet poodle. Haven’t you done enough of that already? She’s thirteen years old, hasn’t the world seen enough of her?”
“This is the perfect time to be showing her off. She’s not only the first successful human clone, but she’s lasted for thirteen years! She’s hitting the years where the reproductive systems start kicking in. We’ll have to see if her reproductive system works like a non-clone teenager; it’ll be interesting observing her.”
My face scrunched, and my grip tightened on the railing.
“So, what, you’ll breed Madeline?” I could feel my blood boil as my whole body heated up.
“Of course not, just to see if she is like a normal human-”
I ran up the stairs away from him, stomping as much as I could to stop my ears from listening to this sick man. I couldn’t bring myself to hear his explanation. I opened the door Madeline’s room. It was the same room my mom had put her in when she was a baby.
Her mattress had a thin sheet on it with a multi-colored blanket. Only a couple more weeks, and I’d have a car, then I’d get her new bedding. There were a couple of her books sat on the solid wood dresser next to her bed. I found it on the curb of the street. The dresser’s bottom drawer was lopsided while the other three tended to get stuck. Though it didn’t matter about the drawers since I think only one and a half of them were full.
With the door against my back, I couldn’t see her. She had to be in the closet. I could hear my father fuming downstairs with his loud steps pacing, probably waiting to come and find me to finish the argument, so I knew I had to hurry. I opened the closet door to see her curled up into the tiniest ball she could get herself into in the corner.
“Madeline, it’s me, and I need you to come with me. Please come on,” I saw her green eyes peek up from under her eyelashes at me.
I gave a small smile as I put out my hand for her to take. My nerves started to race, wondering if I would make it before my dad came up here. Her small hand reached out for mine then I pulled her up with me. A gasp escaped from her lips. Quickly I yanked her to the window and opened it, noticing that the screen was still there. Cursing to myself, I unhooked the metal clips, quickly hearing my father’s angry steps heading up the stairs as Madeline shook next to me. I smiled as I saw her screen fall to the ground with a soft crashing sound on the grass.
“Do you trust me?”
I turned to look at her, hearing his steps getting closer.
“Are you seriously asking me that?” Madeline’s face looked scared, but disbelief was making itself known, making a small smile form on my lips.
Bending over, I swung one leg out of the window, so I was straddling the window, then I completely jumped out of the window. I then stumbled a little and then fell backward. Quickly getting up, I stood by the window, waiting for Madeline to jump. With a quick look behind her, Madeline hesitantly did the same as me. Then with a loud thud, she gasped and pushed herself out of the window and into my arms.
Placing her down on her feet while holding her hand, we ran for our lives down the street, hoping he wouldn’t try to follow. Man, our neighbors must think our house was a reality TV show.
4
Madeline
"Sawyer, where are we going?" I finally asked after waiting for some of his anger to cool off.
Sawyer took a deep breath. He let it out slowly, then gave our interlaced hands a tiny squeeze before letting go. I felt horrible standing next to him and not knowing what to do after everything he has done for me. I looked at the ground as the sensation of stupidity and guilt started taking over my stomach.
"Don't worry about it; I want you to ignore what he does. He's a jerk."
I wish I had his courage. At least half of what Sawyer had would be beneficial at times. Like against the people in school, and especially Dr. Vodola. I stared at the ground as I shuffled my feet to keep up with his pace. I gulped nervously, trying to find all the right words to comfort the main person in my life.
"Sawyer, sorry to get off-topic, but where are we going?"
Sawyer came to a halt leaving, but I had taken a few steps before I noticed. I turned around and looked at Sawyer confusingly. He gave a small laugh.
"I don't know."
I gave a small smile at him that he returned. I walked over to Sawyer and put my arms around him. Leaning my head
