The Girl From The Woods ~ Natasha Romanoff × Adopted Daughter

2.

Tilda's POV:

After a few seconds, which feel like minutes, he drops his grip on my neck. I look at him in astonishment and he spits in my face.
"What are you looking at me like that for, you stupid brat?" I wince, close my eyes and prepare myself for the pain.

I expect him to start hitting me like he always does when I look at him. Seconds pass and I still feel nothing. 'Am I dead or why is nothing happening? I ask myself. I slowly open my eyes again and see Dave slowly sitting up. I don't want to push my luck any further and decide not to look him in the face.

"Don't think I feel sorry for you and that you'll get off so easily. I need you for later and I need you unharmed." This sounds a little ironic, considering that I have injuries all over my body from him. The few bruises wouldn't even be noticeable now.

But I'm not complaining, I'm grateful not to be in any more pain than I already am. "What are you going to do to me?" I'm not going to lie, I'm fucking terrified. Usually Dave won't leave me alone and uses every opportunity to harm me.

Dave finally walked out of the basement and left me here on the cold floor. A few minutes later I get up myself and walk towards my bed. If you can even call it a bed. To be honest, it's just a few layers of cardboard and blankets.

I put it together a few years ago when Dave started locking me in the cellar more and more often and I realized that I was going to spend more time here than I would have liked.

I lie down and pick up my teddy bear. His name is Barry. My mother had given it to me for my 5th birthday and said that it would protect me from everything and everyone. Fortunately, I was able to take him with me the day my father killed my mother and then took me away.

I hug Barry and cover myself with a little baby blanket that my father had given me at the beginning. The first few months that I was with my father were actually nice under the circumstances.

He hadn't beaten me yet or locked me in the cellar. He had set up a room for me with a bed and clothes. He gave me enough to eat every day and sometimes we would even watch a movie together at the end of the day.

But over time he changed and he started to stop watching movies with me. Then he locked me in my room more often and gave me too little to no food. Finally, he started hitting me and locking me in the cellar.

So now I'm lying here with my teddy and my blanket, looking at the ceiling. My gaze wanders slowly around the room, hoping to find something exciting to occupy me for the next few hours.

My gaze falls on the small window, which is half underground and barely lets in any light. From inside, I can see lots of trees outside. Since I've been here, I've never really been outside again. But from what I can see from the windows, I can tell that we are somewhere in the middle of a forest.

The house is surrounded on all sides by big, old spruce trees. There's even so much snow in winter. It's several meters high. I used to play in the snow with my mother until we got cold and then we had a hot chocolate in the house. I miss my mother very much.

As I continued to look out of the window and think about my mother and all our fond memories together, I noticed that the window was slightly open. Normally you can lock all the windows in this one and Dave always made sure that all the windows were closed at the end of the day.

He must not have closed the window properly yesterday when airing the room and he must not have checked it in the evening.

I quickly go to the wall where the window is and try to get up there somehow. Because we are in the basement, the window is quite high, unlike the other windows in the house.

I tried as hard as I could to get to the window, but without success. I get frustrated and kick the wall with my foot.
"Ouch, not a good idea," I mutter to myself and look around the room again.

I find a small, old wooden chair in the corner and pull it towards the window. I make sure I carry the chair as well as I can so that I make as little noise as possible.

When I get to the window, I stand on the chair and can finally reach the window. With all my strength, I manage to push the window open so that it is completely open. "I've done it, I can finally leave!"

I quickly get down from my chair and run to my bed. I pick up Barry and blanket and walk back to the window.

Getting out of the window is a little difficult as I'm still quite small despite the chair. I look around the room one last time to make sure I haven't forgotten anything, which is unnecessary as I don't have anything except my teddy and blanket anyway.

I carefully throw Barry and my blanket out of the window so that I don't hurt them. I hold on to the frame of the window and slowly but surely pull myself up.

And then the time has come. I'm outside. I quickly grab my things and run away from here as fast as I can.