Stephanie Steele

Bethanna could feel the life draining from her ten year old body. His hands squeezed her neck so hard that her eyes were starting to bulge and her tender chocolate skin beginning to bruise. She felt light headed and she could feel herself slipping into unconsciousness. She stopped struggling and relaxed. It didn’t hurt any more. All the pain and fear suddenly went. She felt calm and weightless like she was floating. Everything around her was growing dark. His face was now a blur.

Images flashed across her vision. Her baby sister’s tiny fingers curled around her own little finger the day she was born two years ago, her holiday last year with her parents at the Spanish Villa and the big swimming pool, the overly large stuffed bear her daddy had bought her when he came back from a business trip, the purse of money she’d dropped down a drain and couldn’t get back, falling off her bicycle and scrapping her knee and elbow, and a thousand other memories from her short life.

She couldn’t remember how she’d got to this place she was now. Those memories weren’t there. Her mind had been foggy, like she was trapped inside a huge bag and couldn’t get out. It was all so confusing. She remembered the animals; the bear, eagle, deer. She remembered the rat the most.

The rat had hurt her. It had tied her hands with something hard that dug in her wrists. She’d felt it’s claws ripping her clothes, felt it’s horrid breath on her face, and it’s wet slobbering kisses. She’d screwed her brown eyes when he’d put that thing in her mouth and then down below. That was the thing that hurt the most. Not the jumping on top of her or the slap in the face or the punches in her tummy. It was the thing he put inside her that made her cry the most.

The rat had laughed when she’d cried and called for her mummy. He’d made strange noises when she screamed when he hurt her, like he enjoyed hearing her scream. She remembered a punch in the face and was sure he’d broken her nose. She’d heard the snap and tasted the blood before she’d blacked out. She blacked out several more times and when she had awoken from the last time that was when he was choking her.

She closed her eyes for the final time. It felt like she was falling asleep.

A cruiser landed in a blackened alley. There was a pause before a pair of shiny black shoes got out. They stopped, the wearer listening to see if anyone was around, then walked to the rear. The wearer rubbed the leather of one shoe against the calf of the other leg to buff the surface, and opened the trunk. Something heavy was taken out and dropped on the ground with a dull thud behind some garbage bags. The shoes got back in the cruiser and left.

The black hair of a Bethanna blew gently in the night breeze. A beer bottle fell from an open garbage bag and landed upright like it had been placed beside her.

She was naked and on the inner thigh of her skin there was a mark. A small heart shaped stamp and a name in the centre. Leon.