My legs are jelly, barely able to support me on my knees as I prop myself up on my hands. Suddenly, I forget how to go numb, and my body begins to quiver as I start crying, scared of what’s about to happen.

I let my head hang down as I feel Pike behind me. Nothing happens though. All I can hear is his heavy breathing. I stay in this position for a while longer and eventually turn my head to see Pike stroking his penis with an almost pained look on his face. He then lets go of himself and puffs out a heavy breath, saying, “I can’t do this. I can’t even get hard.”

Sitting back on my heels, I feel relieved, but that feeling is immediately snatched away, and sheer horror invades when Carl growls angrily. He knocks over his chair when he stands, metal clanking against the concrete, and suddenly the flow of life stops.

Slow motion.

Carl walks straight towards me, yanking his belt out from the loops of his pants. My heart goes frigid, pounding in solid hard beats that vibrate through my whole body. Pounding so hard I can hear it. His eyes are filled with a murderous glare, and Pike’s screams penetrate me as he charges Carl and slams his fist into the side of his face.

I can’t breathe, but somehow I’m screaming when Carl turns and knocks Pike straight to the ground with one single punch, followed by ruthless kicks to his side. Pike writhes in agony as he heaves, “Don’t you fuckin’ touch her!” over and over and over until his voice is no longer audible and his eyes glaze over.

When Carl looks back at me, he unzips his pants and adrenaline kicks in. I’m on my feet fast, bolting to the stairs. After a couple steps, I’m brought to my knees as a piercing sting slices through my back.

THWACK!

A shrill wail rips out of me, and I look over my shoulder just in time to see the leather belt he’s holding come flying down at me.

THWACK!

Arching my back in pure agony, I scream out as tears spring from my eyes. The leather belt bites my flesh again and again before he forces me on all fours, pushes my face down to the cold cement, and rapes me from behind.

AFTER CARL’S ATTACK, Pike doesn’t come into my room for a while. All I want to do is die, just put myself out of this misery. I don’t even know how to understand what just happened down there. It all came so fast, and I’ve never experienced that much pain in my life. The pain in my back seemed to disappear when he started raping the one part of my body I never expected.

And now, I lay on my stomach with my face buried into my pillow as I try to muffle my sobs. My top is still off because of the stinging of my back. I’m too scared to look at it to see what he’s done to me.

“Oh my God,” I faintly hear through my cries, and when I lift my head, I see Pike looking down at me. He’s horrified, but I don’t ask why because I’m so humiliated.

He kneels beside my bed with a painful groan and lays his hand on my arm, stroking it with his trembling thumb. The side of his face is swollen and badly bruised.

“Tell me what I can do.” His voice is worried and his eyes are nothing but a display of his pity.

I can’t even think about speaking as my tears soak into my pillow.

He takes my hand, folds his fingers through mine, and holds it tightly, and the touch alone makes me cry harder.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he says with his eyes welled with tears.

My hand is clenched around his and I don’t let go for a long time. Eventually, Pike kisses my knuckles, and moves to stand.

“I’ll be right back,” he says and then goes into the bathroom. When he returns, he’s holding a wet towel. “I don’t want to hurt you, but your back is covered in dried blood. Just lay still, okay?”

I nod as he gently lays the warm, wet towel on my back. My muscles cinch up, and I whimper as my flesh stings. He presses his hand down on the towel, and I cry out, “Oww.”

“I’m sorry.”

“W-what does it look like?” I ask, but also scared to know.

“You have a couple nasty gashes and a lot of welts.”

“It hurts.”

He sighs and holds my hand as he carefully starts cleaning the blood off my back.

“One day, I promise you, that fucker is gonna pay for this,” he grits out and all I can do is nod my head as I start thinking about what it would feel like to kill him.

How sick am I? A twelve-year-old girl fantasizing about killing someone.

What’s happening to me?

A FEW WEEKS have passed and school has started back up. Carl hasn’t touched me since that day, but it was only three days later when I was back in the basement, forced into giving Pike a blowjob. Afterwards, I was tied up in the closet and left there for another two days.

Pike and I now sit out on the curb in front of the house. Bobbi is inside watching TV and Carl is still at work. Summer is coming to an end and the smell of autumn is in the air. You know that smell, the smell of death. I don’t know why, but I love it. Leaves falling to their grave on the chilled, damp streets, eventually to be covered in ice and snow when winter hits.

I listen to Pike as he rambles on about some girl who’s an upper classman at his school that keeps following him around. It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve always thought Pike was cute, and now that he’s almost sixteen, he’s even cuter, not that I have a crush on him or anything; it’s just a fact. But nobody knows how pathetic the two of us are. Sometimes I get curious as to how someone would react if they knew. I mean, could you imagine that girl asking Pike to tell her something about himself, and his response was, I’m almost sixteen, and, oh yeah, I have sex with my twelve-year-old sister. Yeah, people would definitely think we’re sick.

“Isn’t that your caseworker’s car?” Pike questions, and when I turn to look down the street, sure enough, it’s Lucia’s car.

“What’s she doing here?” I can’t stand my caseworker. She only stops by to check in on me a few times a year, so the fact that she was just here a month ago makes me a little anxious.

She pulls her car along the curb as Pike and I stand.

“What are you two doing out here?” she asks, and Pike tells her in a shit-mocking tone, “Oh, you know, just enjoying the lush scenery of this picture-perfect neighborhood that you thought would provide a nice backdrop for a wholesome upbringing.”

Lucia sends Pike a glare before saying, “You mind giving Elizabeth and I a moment to speak?”

“I’ll be in my room,” he tells me as he heads inside the house, leaving Lucia and me standing on the front lawn.

“Why don’t we have a seat?” she suggests, and we walk over to the front porch steps.

“What are you doing here?”

“I got some news that I needed to come talk to you about.”

“Am I being moved?” I ask, nervous of her response because I can’t live without Pike. The thought alone pricks my eyes with tears.

“No. It’s about your dad,” she says.

Pulling on that one tiny piece of hope in my heart that I’ve been able to hang on to, I ask, “Is he getting out early? Will I be able to see him?”

She shakes her head, and when I see her face drop, she takes that hope right along with it, saying, “I’m sorry. Your father’s dead.”

And that’s the moment when you realize that hopes and dreams are as fucked up as the fairytales.

I drop my head and watch my tears drop like heavy weights to the dirty concrete below my feet. They spread and seep into the porous ground where I’m sure they’ll find their home in hell. But they won’t be alone for long because my heart feels unbearably heavy too, like it could drop right out of me at any moment.