My Crown for Your Heart

The little girl shifts and clutches the thick blankets to her chin, her eyes determinedly closed. If she closes them hard enough, picturing the large expanse of the sea, imagines diving into its depths and dissolving into nothing, perhaps then noone would find her. Everyone would forget about her and noone would hurt her anymore. She hears a rustling sound and steps slowly shuffling towards her room and squeezes her eye shut, her entire body beginning to tremble. She begins to fake loud snoring noises, realistic and perfected through practice, desperate to convince him to turn around. It worked once before. Her eyes snap open in dismay when she hears faint scratching noises at her door and terror seizes her heart. She jumps up, blankets falling to the ground. Darting across the room, she grabs her box but it is heavy and takes all her strength to push it across the room and against the door. He has heard the commotion and abandons stealth to loudly jam his pick into the lock and rattle the frame with his effort. She gasps and stumbles back as the lock pops open, tripping on her long shift and sprawling on her backside. She sees now, the box is not enough, he is going to get in. She rushes at the door and puts all of her strength and weight into holding it closed. There is a brief tense silence as he pushes to get in, grunting with effort, and she pushes back and then the door flies open, hitting her cheekbone as she sprawls on the floor yet again. Her stepbrother steps into the room and at his dark twisted look of fury, she almost regrets causing him so much trouble this night. Surely her would have terrorized her only a little and gone back. With growing horror, she sees that the anger, and is that betrayal, that she did not let him in happily, had pushed the focused light in his eyes that she dreads so much. He licks his thick lips and is looking at her exposed thighs as he shuts the door behind him. He smiles and she is chilled. Surely she will never be warm again. He moves towards her and she leaps up, intending to run and put her bed between them but he grabs her flying hair and jerks her back to him. She shrieks and turns, biting and jabbing and pinching to get free but he smacks her across the face so hard she tastes blood. Her eyes are swimming with tears and he drags her and pushes her onto the bed. "You filthy undeserving w***e! Noone is coming for you." Tears run down her face, he is right. Her mother had bothered herself to check on her only once when she woke up screaming from a nightmare, and had merrily left right after confirming she wasn't being murdered. They did need her to ripen afterall, she recalls in her mother's exact words, so they can sell her to the highest bidder. She tries to scramble away to the other end of the bed but he grabs her leg, yanking her towards him and smacking her with the back of his hands. Her vision swims. "I have tried to prepare you, you would have enjoyed laying with me but you have never been grateful. I am going to treat you like the little b***h you are." He hisses in her face as he grabs the hem of her shift and rips it in two. His attention moves to her body and he surveys her before squeezing her flat chest painfully. He grunts and yanks her leg apart, leaning back to fumble awkwardly at his breeches. A thin slice of drool slides off the edge of his mouth and lands on her bare thigh. One finger still fumbling with his buttons, he reaches behind her to pinch her bottom hard and she sees red. What has she ever done to deserve this? She has done everything her uncaring mother has ever wanted, she has endured the dead flat assessment of her stepfather's eye with grace. Her breath heaves as she struggles beneath the weight of the unfairness she is buried beneath. She will not----- Cool air brushes her skin and her stepbrother looks at her in shock and pain, water dribbling out of his mouth. He spits a large mouthful on the floor, gags and spits another mouthful and then he is coughing and gagging and scrabbling at his throat with his fingers, leaving thin bloody scratches running down. He falls heavily on his knees, his face reddening and his hands still fluttering at his neck and starts vomiting water. She looks down at him, shock immobilizing her. He falls to the floor, retching and choking, vomiting water, his whole body convulsing , trying to expel the water that seems like the entire sea is bubbling within his body. He reaches a hand out to her, the most piteous sounds emitting from his throat. She jumps up, looks around helplessly, not understanding what is happening but knowing that her stepbrother is going to die if she does not do something. She should go and call their parents but she hesitates. Surely a world without Cognac is not too bad a world. She eyes him, water is still pumping from his mouth, his face is blue and his eyes are bloodred, making her think something must have burst in there. He makes horrible wheezing noises and gags continuously. The smell is horrible. She is not sure what she should do but she grasps the hand he has been clawing the floor with, trying to grab her leg. For a breath he is blessedly silent, and then her whole world explodes with red.