Blown Away

Let's see… I don't own James, the lyrics, and don't even really own the plot. I also don't own Allison (because she does actually exist – although I'm pretty sure she's younger) or Falco (Fox's predecessor). This story is inspired by "Blown Away" by Carrie Underwood and the lyrics are altered as needed. 'Kay thanks!

Did you know there were tornadoes in Minnesota? I didn't. But I'm from Florida. Their peak season in June and July.

Alison POV

It was a beautiful summer day in Minnesota, and me and my brother James Diamond were just hanging out outside. For some reason, everyone had decided to take vacations at the same time, and we were practically the only people in town. We lived farther on the outskirts though, since all our friends had nicer houses closer to everything, and our creaky house was all our drunkard of a father could afford.

The devil of a man was currently passed out in the house somewhere, which was why decided to go outside in the first place. Ever since our mom died, he'd never been the same. She was killed by a drunk driver and soon after started beating on James, blaming him and saying it was all his fault. He had never laid a hand on me in "violence", but that was almost worse. His touches toward me were sickeningly soft caresses in all the wrong places. However, I couldn't tell if the feeling of being dirty and violated and occasionally ashamed were worse than the days when I had to take care of my twin brother because he could hardly move without being in severe pain.

A sudden gust of wind blew my chestnut colored hair around my face. If not for the difference in gender, we would be identical. We had the same eyes and hair, and even the same lean body. We were even around the same height; he was just a few inches taller. I looked up at the sky and suddenly noticed that the clear blue was quickly being replaced with a sinister dark grey.

"Jamie, there's something coming," I said, carefully shaking his shoulder. He moaned softly and shifted a little, giving me a clear view of the shiny purple bruise on his cheek. I felt bad, remember the yelling coming from downstairs last night…

James and I were sitting in the living room on the couch when we heard the garage door open. We quickly looked up from the movie we were watching and met each other's gaze.

"Alison, go upstairs. Now," James ordered.

I shook my head. "No way. I'm not leaving you down here by yourself," I argued, already knowing it was a pointless argument.

"Please Alison? It will just be worse if you're here too. You know that. And I will not leave you alone with him. Please?" he pleaded.

There was the sound of a key jiggling in a lock and we knew we were out of time. "Go!" He insisted, shoving me up the stairs. You can come back down once it's safe."

I ran to my room and hid in the closet. There was a little built in trap door that no one except James knew was there, and it was perfect for hiding. The seams were practically invisible.

Suddenly, yelling filled the air. My father was saying the usual stuff: "It's your fault. If not for that stupid hockey game", "if you were a better player you wouldn't have been injured," blah, blah, blah. I've told James multiple times that what Steve Diamond was saying wasn't true, but I still think that a part of him believed it.

I heard my name, too, and I figured he was probably asking where I was. Not that he cares; he just wants to "play" with me. I shuddered.

The sound of a slap filled the air, and the yells and screams followed soon after. It was always horrible, to listen to, and I felt like a weak little girl hiding in my closet while my brother was beaten within an inch of his life.

It was quiet for almost an hour before I decided it was safe enough to go downstairs. Our rule was to wait an hour to make sure our father was asleep, but I hated to make James wait that long – especially since I couldn't hear his usual quiet moans.

I tip-toed down the stairs and saw my poor brother lying brokenly on the floor in the living room.

"James? Jay please wake up…" I begged, gently shaking his shoulder and brushing the hair out of his eyes. The back of his head was bleeding and there was blood trickling out the side of his mouth. He groaned and his eyes fluttered open. Hazel eyes met hazel eyes, and tried to pull him up into a sitting position. He watched me with unfocused eyes. It terrified me when he did that. I could never let him sleep after that because I was always terrified that he wouldn't wake up…

I felt bad that I had to wake him from his nap, because he's gotten maybe two hours of sleep in the past thirty six hours. However, I didn't really want to stay out in a storm.

I had finally gotten James awake when his phone went off. He looked at it, and tried to stand up to fast, resulting in him almost falling to the ground again. I steadied him, wrapping one of his arms around my shoulders and my arm around his waist.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Tornado," he slurred, and glanced nervously up at the sky. I hastened my pace, trying to ignore James hissing in pain, and we quickly made our way into the basement, bringing our yellow lab, Falco, down with us. The wind started screaming through the cracks of the house and I looked up the stairs nervously.

"What do we do about dad?" I whispered, not really wanting him to be in this small space with us. Our basement was just a little larger than your average walk in closet with a small bed taking up most of the space. The bed was just big enough for all three of us to curl up on.

James' eyes darkened as he looked up toward the locked door. "Leave him," he decided. "That man deserves it. Besides, he drank so much last night that we won't be able to wake him up."

Most people would think we were being ungrateful, leaving our father vulnerable to the storm, but I could just imagine what would happen if he was down here with us. He would take out James first. He would break his bones so he couldn't help me, but would still be able to hear my screams. He would either beat Falco or kill him, because even though he was old, he would still try very hard to protect us. Then he would come after me.

I was broken out of my thoughts by James humming. I loved it when he sang, and so did Falco. His voice was very calming. Although right now, he didn't seem to be humming a lullaby.

"Dry lightning cracks across the skies. Those storm clouds gather in their eyes. Their daddy was a mean old mister; Mama was an angel in the ground. The weather man called for a twister; they prayed blow it down," he sang.

"There's not enough rain in Minnesota, to wash the sins out of this house; There's not enough wind in Minnesota, to rip the nails out of the past," I joined in.

"Shatter every window 'til it's all blown away; every brick, every board, every slamming door blown away. 'Til there's nothing left standing, nothing left of yesterday. Every tear-soaked whiskey memory blown away, blown away." Oh how I wished that could actually happen…

I could hear the wind scream loud and see lightning flash through the small window up near the ceiling. James held Falco and I closer and continued to sing:

"They heard those sirens screaming out. Their daddy laid there passed out on the couch. They locked themselves in the cellar; listened to the screaming of the wind. Some people called it taking shelter; they called it sweet revenge."

We sang the chorus twice more, and then fell silent again. Falco fell asleep in James arms like a huge teddy bear, and I was pretty sure that James was asleep on me. His head was on my shoulder, so I couldn't see his face, but his breathing was heavy and even. Despite the situation, I smiled. Only the males in my family could sleep through the screaming winds of a tornado.

I don't know how long the storm lasted, but by the time we woke up the next morning everything was quiet. The sun was shining brightly through the little window, and the small clock on the wall showed it was eleven am. I shook James awake, and we slowly climbed the stairs to peek outside. What met our eyes was a bittersweet sight. Wreckage was everywhere with wooden boards thrown about every which way, and half the house was missing. The other few houses around us seemed to be in a similar condition. It was kind of nice, knowing we couldn't live in this nightmare of a house anymore.

We couldn't find our father anywhere. James thought he would have been asleep in his room or something, but that part of the house was gone, along with most of the upstairs and the kitchen and living room. Everything was either crushed under debris, or completely gone.

"Where is he?" I asked, starting to panic. He may have been horrible, but without him we didn't have a place to live. We were only fourteen! "Oh my God. He's dead. We're screwed! We're gonna be arrested! Or put in foster care! We'll lose Falco, and we'll be separated and never see each other again. Holy shit! We're orphans! We have no family! We're so scr-"

"Alison!" James cried, grabbing my wrists and effectively bringing my panicked rant to a halt. "We'll be fine. We just need to find someone to help us..." he trailed off, glancing around and noticing there wasn't a soul in sight.

"How the heck are we supposed to do that?!" I screamed, "No one is home! We're alone, and our father is dead and we don't have any family other than each other and Falco!"

I immediately regretted the words as soon as they came out of my mouth. There was no love lost between James and our father, but I guess hearing me actually say the words in a semi-coherent state were different than hearing them while I was having a panic attack. James' face turned really pale and his grip on my wrists loosened.

"Oh my god," he whispered. "He's dead…" he searched the ruins of the house with his eyes, as if our dad will just suddenly pop up somewhere. I watched his face as tears started streaming down his cheeks. "He's dead… He's dead. We're free. He's dead." He repeated the words like a mantra, the look of shock and disbelief still on his face.

I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him into a hug. What I had been put through all these years was horrible, but what James had been put through was almost worse. Out of the past three years, dad had only come at me three times. They were terrible, but James was always there. In the past three years, James had been beaten viciously almost every day and blamed for his mother's death. He was strong, and could hide the pain, but I know it still hurt.

He wiped his eyes and pulled away. "We'll go to Kendall's," he decided. "He's coming back home tomorrow anyway."

There was nothing we could keep from this house without the horrible memories attached to it, so we didn't even bother looking through the wreckage. We started the long walk to Kendall's house, and I had just gotten past the worst of the debris when I noticed James wasn't next to me anymore.

I turned around to see him standing where the living room used to be, right next to where the couch was supposed to go. I walked over to see him staring at a very wet and shredded family picture. Mom was laughing, Dad's eyes were wrinkled from his smile, and James and I were laughing while we chased a younger Falco around the park. It was a happier time.

I looked at James and noticed he had his lucky comb in his hands. It belonged to our mother, and she had given it to him on his birthday before she died. He cocked his hand back to throw it into the pile of rubble, but I stopped him just in time.

"Don't throw it away," I said. "It's lucky, remember?"

He smiled at me and tucked the object back into his pocket. We turned around and walked away from our personal hell-hole without a single glance back.

~BTR~

You could definitely say that the Knights were surprised when they got home to find us cuddled up on their couch. It took us all day to walk to Kendall's, especially with James still in pain from the other night. He thinks he bruised his ankle and a few ribs. We let ourselves in the house with the spare key around midnight, took showers, ate some of the leftovers in the fridge, and fell asleep curled up on the couch. We found some deli meat in the fridge and some bread in the pantry, so we just gave Falco some of that.

I was often jealous of Kendall and James' friendship. They've been friends since preschool, and all they had to do was lock eyes with each other and Kendall was running over to wrap us both in a hug. Carlos and Logan were like that too. All the boys were very close. Sure I had some girlfriends, but girls were definitely more complicated. Katie was sweet, though, and we had a similar bond. She ran over shortly after and joined in the group hug.

We explained what happened to Mama Knight and she took us in without hesitation. She was already a registered foster parent, so all she had to do was sign some papers and we were legally hers. It was crazy growing up with practically four brothers and a little sister, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

So I'm sorry this was crap, but I hope you liked it anyway. Please review! I love reviews! They make my life! Bring this New Year out with a bang! I love you all, even if you hated it, just because you even bothered to click on this story. I'm writing another BTR story called secrets now and I'm planning to have it up in the early New Year. Reviews will bring it faster! ;P

'Kay thanks bye!

~Nikki