Her Heroes

Chapter One

I can't believe I'm saying this but for once, I appreciate the fact that my fosters are druggies and alcoholics. It makes life easier when they are both passed out or clubbing. It means I get left alone, and being left alone is the one thing that keeps me alive.

I flipped the pancakes at the stove as an old radio played in the background. It would seem like a cute, quaint home if it weren't for the old liquor bottles and amber-colored pill bottles laying around the house. Or the fact that everything was a varying shade of some stain that came from someplace that some people never cared to try and clean. I sighed, was my life miserable, yes, did I wish I were dead with my parents, yes. But, since I was alive, I was going to survive this hell-hole and create a life for myself. First, though, I had to survive today, tomorrow, and the next day.

Harsh footsteps came down the hall before stopping in the slim entryway to the kitchen. "Is the food almost done, beautiful?" I shivered at his gruff voice and nodded, quickly plating the food and squeezing past him to put it on the table in the attached room. The man grabbed my hips from behind and I froze. "Every day you get so much prettier," he traced the curve of my hips, "it's a shame that you have all those scars you know? But hey, I think they make you look even better." He turned me around so I was looking at him. His tall form dwarfed my own and I cowered away, trying to melt into the table that was helping entrap me between his piercing eyes.

"Neil stop tormenting the girl, you will have all tonight to," my foster mother, if I could even call her that, sauntered into the room, her hips swaying back and forth.

Neil, aka my foster father, licked his lips and nodded his head. "You're right as always my love." She walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his hips, before planting a sloppy kiss on his lips.

"What are you still doing here girl? Go clean our bedroom or something." She threw a glass, that was sitting on the table, to the ground, shattering it into a million crystal shards. "Oh, and while you're at it clean that up too." She sneered at me before taking a pancake and feeding it to Neil, her eyes shrouded in lust and still bloodshot from last night's events.

Rolling my eyes, I knelt on the ground and began to pick up the glass shards, watching as the crystal pierced my skin and formed a red curtain over my caramel palm. As I continued to watch it pool in my hands, I didn't realize that the fosters were behind me until it was too late.

"Aww, look, Neil, the poor girl is bleeding... what should we do?" I looked back at them and saw the wicked smirk that haunted me late into the night pasted on her face. Getting off the ground, I dropped the shards I was holding and took a slow step back. Neil was too fast and grasped my wrist before I could get farther, sobriety was something that worked well for him, on the rare occasion he was sober that is... and sadly this was one of them.

"Not so fast beautiful, we should stop that bleeding before it gets any worse." His meaty hand wrapped around my thin wrist as I struggled against him, trying to get away before it was too late. "Now, now, that isn't any way to treat the people that took you in, is it now?" I stopped fidgeting as I watched the she-devil put a pan on the burner and begin to heat it. Realizing what was about to happen, I began my futile efforts again and fought against him.

"Enough" his gruff voice roared, causing me to freeze. "Rachel give me the pan." The she-devil handed him the heated pan and he took it in his other hand. Looking at me he showed his yellowing and crooked teeth. "This is what happens when you don't listen Naida." He turned the pan over and pressed the flat side to my hand. Tears rained from my eyes as he held my twitching hand flush against the pan. My head tilted back as I gasped, frantically trying to block out the pain.

"There, now was that so bad? You see we just wanted to help, and now the wound's been cauterized." Rachel, the she-devil smirked as the pan was lowered from my hand.

Once I was in the clear, I took off down the hall, only stopping when I was far enough away that I could inspect my hand. Deep, red welts covered my palm and the smell of burned flesh punctured my nose with its putrid scent. Dried blood remnants were left where the pan had stopped the bleeding. Shaking my head I clutched my hand close to my chest and crept slowly down the hall and to the small crawlspace.

Carefully, I opened and shut the door, closing myself into the darkness of my secret room. I would need to leave its safety soon and go to my actual room, or should I say closet. Kneeling, I felt for the small lantern I always left beside the door.

Upon finding it and turning it on, I sighed, happy to be away from the step-monster and her measly husband for a moment. They normally wouldn't bother with forcing me to have a wound cauterized but I must've really spurred them on today. I had been late this morning, and last night they both forgot that I was a mute. Being a mute had its ups and downs, one of the downs being when the fosters were too high or too drunk or in too much ecstasy to remember that I stopped talking almost a year ago, on my third day of living with them.

***

I sat up with a start.

Quickly, I crawled to the door, being careful not to put pressure on my burnt hand. Unlatching the crawlspace door, I peered around the living room before emerging fully and looking out a window. Shit, it was well past dusk. Neil would be in my room any moment now. Shutting the crawl space door, I hopped around on the wood floor to avoid the creaky spots before approaching my bedroom door.

I struggled to take a calming breath at the sight of the light shining out of the small crack left open. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to stand tall and I pushed open the door.