Marked

Darkness… a twisted visage with a cruel smile… sharp horns etched with symbols protruding from a forehead creased in angry lines… rough, clawed hands pushing her down, slicing ribbons in her flesh… No, no, please… rancid breath hot against her neck… legs shoved apart roughly… No! …pain and hot tears sliding down her cheeks… sobbing, thrashing, she wanted to get away… sinister claws raised above her threateningly… blinding pain as her abdomen was sliced open and she could only scream.

The shrill buzz of the drier finishing its cycle jolted Rosario into consciousness with a deep, shaking gasp. Her eyes were wide and sweat made her face damp as she put a hand to her racing heart. It felt so real. She lowered her fingers to gently examine the red, angry lines of her birthmark on her left hip, where she had just been cut in the nightmare. There was no blood – it was the same as it had always been, the curved lines raised slightly above the rest of her skin. The nightmares always felt real.

With a sigh, Rosario rubbed the sleep from her eyes and stood from her spot on the floor across from the washer and drier unit. She had only meant to sit down and wait for the cycle to finish its last fifteen minutes, but it had felt so nice to lean back against the smooth wall and just relax. Dutifully she started pulling sheets out, still delightfully warm, and folded them into precise squares. Laundry was one of the few chores she didn’t just endure, because she liked the smell of the freshly cleaned clothes and the way the warm linens felt in her hands. It was actually kind of enjoyable for her and she softly hummed a song a tune while doing it.

As she pulled out the last soft rectangle of fabric she heard the front door open and a deep masculine voice shouting, “Good practice! See ya tomorrow, bro!” The door slammed and Rosario froze mid-fold, the warm pillowcase hanging spread between her outstretched arms. She forced down the panic that was rising in her and hurriedly gathered everything stacked neatly on the counter, clutching the folds protectively to her chest. With her head down and her steps silent, Rosario rushed to the linen closet beside Ryan and Tracy’s room, putting everything away on the shelf. She then crept to the stairs and began to climb them, mindful of the few that creaked when they were stepped on. At the top of the stairs she nearly bounded to her bedroom, spun quickly and shut the door quietly behind her. The lock clicking in was reassuring.

Rosario rest her forehead against the cool wooden panels of her door and squeezed her eyes together for a few moments as she listened to the sound of Evan Cote trudging heavily up the stairs to his room just down the hall. He would be dirty and tired from the intense football practices that their state champion high school put on, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t take an opportunity to harass his foster sister. While his parents were home Evan seemed like a saint and his mother certainly treated him as such, thinking he couldn’t possibly do any wrong. In truth Rosario didn’t blame Tracy for her opinion, as the burly teen boy had kept his father from beating her for years. But Evan was far from a saint when they weren’t home.

When the door to his bedroom shut firmly, Rosario let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding and sagged against the wall. It helped to remind herself that soon she wouldn’t need a fake home and a fake family because in only a week she’d be a legal adult. In the meantime she just had to tough it out and deal with the situation since there was always some place worse she could be. Really, this wasn’t bad.

Quietly heading back downstairs, Rosario set about finishing the rest of her chores. She moved Ryan and Tracy’s comforter from the washer to the drier, put the dishes she had washed already back where they belonged, shook out the living room rug in the driveway, and swept the small foyer. With a knuckle pressed into her aching lower back, Rosario walked to the laundry room when she heard the drier’s buzzer go off again. She grabbed the hot, fluffy blanket from inside then some of the freshly laundered sheets and pillowcases, and brought them all into the master bedroom where her foster parents stayed.

Rosario had just managed to pull the second sheet over the king sized mattress when she heard Evan’s heavy footfalls enter the room behind her. Her muscles tensed but she finished tucking in the last edge of cloth, hoping that if she didn’t provoke him he’d just go away. He let out a throaty chuckle when she straightened and simply stood staring down at the bed, refusing to acknowledge him. “Are you ignoring me now, Cinderella?” Evan asked, using his dreadfully accurate pet name for her. Rosario balled up her fists at her sides, holding tightly to the fabric of her faded jean capris. He moved right behind her, so close that her long waves of deep brown hair brushed against his chest. “Gonna hit me, Cinderella?” He scoffed in her ear, tangling his fingers in her soft locks. She didn’t answer.

“Didn’t think so,” Evan stated smugly, then yanked on her hair so suddenly that she cried out and stumbled backwards against him. He had her hair by the roots now, holding her firmly against him. His free hand snaked up her right side, calloused fingers sliding over the smooth fabric of her thin grey camisole. “I like your tight body,” he practically growled, gripping her waist so hard it hurt.

Rosario fought to keep from trembling as his hands roughly explored over her clothes. Her eyes watered, causing the room to swim. When he shoved her, she stumbled into the edge of the bed so that she was bending over it and he moved forward immediately to start grinding against her rear. Tears leaked over her lashes and streaked down her cheeks, but she knew she couldn’t fight back. She had tried before, and that’s how she learned that Evan kept grudges… he did this all out of spite. Rosario had even tried to bring it up to his mother, who had once been so kind to her. She should’ve known better – foster parents always believed their real children over their fake ones. So she simply resigned and let her head fall limp against the freshly washed sheets, her bitter tears leaving wet spots.

Evan eventually left her alone in the room. Rosario slid down the edge of the bed and collapsed in a heap, sobbing quietly. When her tears were spent and all she had left were hiccups, she pulled herself up, slid her panties and capris back on, and finished making the bed. As she went up to her room, hot anger started to replace self pity, burning a hole in her heart. She slammed the door to her drab bedroom so hard that she thought she heard the doorframe crack. Then Rosario stripped off her clothes, flung them across the room, and stepped into the shower before the water even had a chance to heat up.

She must’ve been in there for an hour with her face right under the nozzle, letting the water wash away everything she felt. It had gotten scalding hot after a few minutes but by the time she shut off the flow it was cold again. Rosario wrapped a towel around her body and stepped out, immediately glancing at the clock. 8:37PM – Ryan and Tracy would be home soon. She sighed and rubbed her water-wrinkled hands over her face, glad she finished the task list that they had given her before Evan… well, before she was interrupted.

Rosario toweled off and then hung it up to dry, skin immediately prickling into gooseflesh as the cold air hit her. The chill was ignored as she stepped in front of the full length mirror hanging on her bathroom door and took stock of her reflection. Rosario was of average height but too thin for her own liking since she never really got enough nourishment. She could see the outline of her ribs and it looked disgusting to her, but beneath that was a flat stomach and hip bones that curved nicely. She wasn’t emaciated or unhealthy looking, just small enough that she would be comfortable gaining 10 pounds. Turning to the side, she looked at her small chest and buttocks with a sigh. They’d never get bigger; she didn’t have the build for it.

When Rosario looked to her face she smiled a bit and wondered if she looked more like her biological mother or father. Her complexion was naturally tanned but had become darker from being in the sun. Her deep brown hair was very long and had an unkempt look no matter what she did – it fell in natural waves that had a mind of their own so she usually kept it up in a ponytail. Full, pouty lips and bright green eyes rested in a pretty face, but there was a quality in her expression that had a hardened edge. Her smile disappeared when she saw that the years had made her look colder.

Humming to try and lighten her heavy mood, Rosario dressed in her undergarments, an old grey T-shirt with a green ’69 Camaro on it, and some warm pink sweat pants that tightened just below her knees. Then she pushed open her window to let the cool nighttime Cali air in and sprawled on top of the flower stitched quilt on her bed with a textbook from school. She cracked the heavy book open with reverence and flipped to the correct page, eagerly picking up from exactly where she’d left off the night before. Inside was Rosario’s passion and she had already read this exact text two years prior when she had first decided to take the Auto Shop class at Westbrook High. She found that she was fascinated by the way an engine ran, and from there it progressed into a passion for working on cars. Every year since then she had been in Auto Shop and even earned money on the side helping out her mechanic teacher, which was how she’d bought her old, faithful truck.

Rosario was totally absorbed in one of the paragraphs detailing a diagram of a drive shaft when she heard shouting from downstairs. She lifted her head to stare sadly at her white-washed bedroom door, knowing this meant the other two Cote’s had come home from the fancy dinner, and likely Ryan was drunk. He might just go to bed if everyone in the house was lucky. Rosario shut her text book, returned it to her backpack which was just beside the door, and crawled into bed after she flipped the lights off. She knew her covers would offer no protection, but she huddled under them regardless and squeezed her eyes shut tight. She didn’t pray because her prayers were never answered, but she hoped just as hard as she could that nothing else would happen tonight.

The yelling got louder and echoed down the hall. Tracy screamed once and Evan’s door slammed open, his footsteps loud as he rushed downstairs to make sure his mother didn’t catch the brunt of Ryan’s anger. Now the two men shouted at each other while the woman pleaded at them to stop. There was a grunt and the sound of something shattering, then all was quiet. Rosario knew what came next and began to tremble as uneven steps came up the stairs.

The door to her room burst open and the lights flipped on. Ryan yanked the covers off her bed and threw them on the ground in one motion, leaving her exposed to him. “Damn it, you little cunt,” he swore, breath stinking of whiskey as he swayed trying to stand in one spot. “You forgot to take out the trash.” Rosario knew that she had forgotten, because she usually took out trash last, but Evan had… she couldn’t tell that to them, she had already tried once. Ryan wasn’t mad at her for forgetting to take out the trash – he was just mad and it gave him an excuse to take it out on her.

Rosario cringed away from the man when he made a grab for her on the bed. “C’mere, bitch!” His thick fingers grabbed her hair and he pulled her over to him, then off the bed onto the ground. She was already crying when he crouched down, wobbling dangerously, and put his face right in front of hers. There was a glaze over his menacing blue eyes and a distasteful downturn at the corner of his thin lips. “So my family brings you into our home with open arms,” Ryan yelled, spittle flying out, “And you can’t even take out the trash when you’re asked to? Is that what you do when we give you food, and a home, and care for you? Ungrateful little shit!”

His fist went into her stomach and Rosario lost her breath, doubling over when he let go of her hair. She struggled to breath for a few moments before she finally gasped in a greedily. Ryan now stood above her, glaring down with hatred, and she knew he was waiting for a response. “Please, Mr. Cote,” she begged through her tears, “It was an accident. I’ll take it out right now.”

He let out a wordless yell and snatched her elbow, yanking her to her feet so hard she thought he might dislocate her arm. Then he snarled in her face, “Damn right you will, right fucking now.” Ryan pulled Rosario down the stairs, not caring that she stumbled and had to be dragged down the remaining few. She sobbed but didn’t dare fight against him – the less she struggled, the sooner he would stumble off to bed and leave her in peace. She just had to deal with hell until then.

Ryan brought her all the way to the trash can then threw her forward so she fell against it, knocking it over and causing some of the garbage to spill out. This immediately sent him further into a rage and he aimed a kick at her stomach, screaming, “Pick it up!” Rosario cried out in pain and scrambled forward on her hands and knees to right the trash can and put everything back in it. Her hair was again used to yank her to her feet and she wondered why it didn’t just all come out from being pulled so hard today.

“Take out the trash, you little bitch,” Ryan snarled. Rosario quickly pulled the bag from the can and tied it shut, crying silently while he yelled insults and obscenities beside her. Then she stumbled out the kitchen door and to the trash bin, throwing the bag away. Ryan didn’t follow her out – he was smart enough to know that beating your foster child in your driveway was frowned upon, but he stood in the doorway glowering at her with his arms crossed. “Come inside,” he commanded.

Something in Rosario snapped at that moment. She stared at Mr. Cote until he started to walk out and get her, then she turned and ran as fast as she could. The asphalt and rocks in the road hurt the bottoms of her bare feet, but she continued to run just as fast as she possibly could. Her truck wasn’t far, only a little over a block away. She never locked her driver door for a reason. It wasn’t always possible to grab her keys when she was in a hurry.

Rosario yanked open the heavy door, snatched her keys from beneath the seat, and hoped with everything in her that the old girl would start up first try.

She was running again. “Running towards my future,” Rosario whispered unconvincingly.