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Description
Hi, I’m Natalie. Natalie Evans. I’m seventeen years old as of December first, and I’m a superhero.
You knew that? Oh, right. That’s probably because I got to fight alongside the greatest heroes ever to grace the covers of magazines and comic books alike, the Heroes of New York. Or, as they call themselves, the Avengers.
What I bet you don’t know about me is that I’m an agent for a secret government agency that deals with all the Area 51-like aliens and stuff. I also get to visit other realms, and I’m an honorary princess in one of them. Cool stuff, right?
Well, there’s a reason for all of it. And you’re about to know why. So grab some popcorn, and let’s go.

“...when I find you…”
In the closet, I held my breath. Joseph could be outside that door any minute now, and it was with all my strength that I was holding back a sob.
With my mother now dead from a heart attack, my step-father, Joseph Monroe, was left to care for me. He was a good guy and had made my mother happy when she was still alive, but it was once she had died that his skeleton came out of the closet: he was a recovering alcoholic. And my mother’s death had been just enough to tip him back into the black tar of his past.
He wasn’t a comatose alcoholic, either. He was a raging, emotional alcoholic that tended to beat me if he got into enough of a state.
Which returned me to my current situation. Hiding in the closet among my clothing and shoes, shaking so hard that my teeth clacking against one another as though I were cold.
“Hah!” He threw open the door, and I flinched back. Suddenly, after a short whistle in the air something smacked against my left thigh and I bit my lip to keep from gasping.
“She didn’t deserve to die!” he yelled as I continued to shield myself from the belt that he was swinging at me. “You weakened her heart; having you was too much for her to bear.”
“I… didn’t… weaken…” I gasped, before a particularly hard strike made me scrunch my eyes closed as a wave of pain overtook me.
“Listen to you!” he yelled. “You’re lying to yourself, Natalie, and you know it!”
“Mom didn’t want… me to… worry,” I gasped as he continued to aim for the bare parts of me. “Or you.”
He paused at this, an almost sober moment in the haze of all of the alcohol he’d consumed. Taking this distraction, I got to my feet and grabbed the end of the belt with which he’d been hitting me.
“Let go!” he growled, almost tugging the belt from my hands.
“No,” I cried, tightening my grip. “Joseph, you can’t-”
“I can, Natalie, and I will,” he replied. “She deserves to be here, not you.”
Shock alone made my grip slacken and he yanked the belt from between my fingers. He shoved me away from him and I stumbled, tripping over my own feet and falling to my knees.
He raised the belt over his head, and I curled up into a position, exposing as much of my back and shoulders as I could to avoid damaging any organs. Tensed, I was ready for him to strike when the front door slammed open.