The walk back to his house felt so tiring. He knew it was late at night, but the good thing about his father and his wife was that they only would be bitching about image, not because they cared, and Tobias was used to that. He slid in, thinking no one would hear him.
"Where were you, brat?" his stepmother hissed from the top of the stairs. Tobias froze, his face paling and his heart beating faster. Usually, she'd just ignore him coming home late, maybe yell at him in the morning, but she never came to meet him at the door. Tobias slowly turned around, stuttering and sputtering as his stepmother stormed down. She was the standard for beauty, blonde hair, blue eyes that could kill you, and thinner than a toothpick. She was hauntingly beautiful, a snake behind a sheep's wool. Tobias just stared at his stepmother when she finally got him, and was finally able to speak.
"A-a circus, some of the boys dragged me out there-" A slap echoed through the house, with Tobias holding his cheek.
"You should've told them no, but of course, your too pussy to do it. We really should've just killed out off with that-" Tobias bristled at the slur she said, and next thing he knew, his stepmother was on the floor, looking up at him.
"You… pushed me? How… how DARE YOU!" She screamed and lunged at him. Luck must have been on Tobias' side that night, for some of the house servants came in and held her back, and tried calming her down. Tobias wasn't staying for that, he ran past and up to his room. He finally got there, slamming the door, locking it, and barricading it with a shelf. He couldn't stop his crying, his chest heaving as his breath left and seemed not to want to come back. He stumbled back, plopping onto the floor. He needed to leave, he knew. He knew that soon enough, that woman would kill him, and he'd be a dead, pathetic man. He curled up, thinking, the hell could he go? Then… it came to him, the offer, the circus, that stupid, stupid time-traveling circus. That was going to be his escape, he could feel it in his bones, like that feeling you get when you finally know why you're doing something. He stayed on that floor for a long while, dreaming a bit about how happy he would be, about what he could do there, but… his father would never let him leave that easily. Tobias was his father's heir after all, so why let his only son, his only child, leave at all? Tobias knew he needed to leave soon, very soon, or he'd be stuck in a life he hated, or dead.
"Tomorrow," He mumbled, finally crashing from the adrenaline of the fight downstairs, his eyes fluttering close.
"Tomorrow, I'll be free"