Part of Me

03

TRIGGER WARNING: Abuse
03

__________________________

"You'll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine."
-John C. Maxwell

"BEATRICE!" I hissed, snatching the food from her little hands. "What are you doing?"

"I'm hungry," she said, and in that moment, my heart broke. Truly broke because I noticed for the first time how little she was. She was short for her age and I could almost see her bones because of how thin she was. I couldn't blame her for seeing food and wanting it because in a normal house, that's what you would do when you were hungry.

But this wasn't a normal house and we weren't lucky at all.

"What's going on?" Diane asked, her hands in fists on her hips.

Fuck.

"N-nothing," I replied, trying to hide the yogurt in my hand.

"Mhmm." She marched over to me and roughly yanked my arm out from behind my back, consequently spilling the yogurt everywhere. Her eyes widened in disbelief, though I didn't know why. She clearly already suspected. "Devyn Mackenzie Rico," which is not my middle name, by the way, "I have never been so disappointed in you. You're supposed to be an example for the younger kids! Now, here you are trying to coax her into stealing food with you?!" She knelt down to eye level with Beatrice. "Sweetheart, did she try to trick you into breaking the rules?"

I almost rolled my eyes at her theatrics. Beatrice looked up for me and I gave her a small, inconspicuous nod. "Y-yes," she mumbled, visibly upset about having to lie, although Diane took it as being visibly upset about being tricked.

She turned to me, disappointment blazing in her cruel blue eyes. "I don't understand what we've done wrong with you, Devyn. I really don't. We've tried so hard to give you a good upbringing so that you wouldn't join the rest of your generation in being a nuisance to society," she said calmly before her face contorted in such a way I thought her skin would just break apart and blood would spray onto my face. "Obviously you need a harsher lesson. Jason!"

My eyes widened and I put my hands on Beatrice's shoulders, ready to push her out of the room.

"No," Diane said. "She'll watch to teach her not to be like you." Roughly, she clutched onto Beatrice's forearm and ripped her from my grasp. Beatrice cried out in pain, but Diane didn't even notice. Or maybe she just didn't care.

Jason stumbled into the kitchen.

Shit. In that moment, I genuinely wanted to burst into tears.

The alcohol permeated off of his breath and his eyes were drooping. He staggered forward and would've fallen if it hadn't been for Diane catching him. "What do you want?" he asked.

His words were blurring together.

Tears seared into my eyes as I pushed them back. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of showing my fear.

"She needs to be punished."

I closed my eyes, bracing myself. My whole body went stiff as I tried to predict where he'd hit first and with what tool. Because that's what bats and fire pokers were to him. Tools, not weapons.

Pain conflagrated down my arm first. Then my leg. Then my stomach and I swear I heard a bone crack. I couldn't tell which bone because everything just felt numb at that point. It was almost like my body knew it was normal to be attacked like this, so it just shut down for the time being.