Mated to a Phoenix

(Yamilet) I let out a sigh as I looked out the window from my room. The sun it's slowly starting to set, and it’s raining but not as hard as it was earlier or last night. I used to love the rain when I was in Puerto Rico with my grandma. I love hearing the rain on the metal roof and the Coquis singing at night. Excuse me, where are my manners? My name is Yamilet Vazquez, and I’m ten years old. I was born and raised in Yauco, Puerto Rico. At least until I was eight years old. My grandma raised me until I was nine years old before she passed away of old age. I don’t know anything about my parents except that my father was killed by a stray bullet, and my mother became a drug addict after I was born, so grandma took me in. Grandma always made sure I had everything I needed and made sure I always went to school to be someone in life. She always said, ‘whatever you choose for a job or career, make sure you give it all you have’. So, I gave it my all in school as well. Every day for one hour, grandma taught me English. When I was eight years old, grandma sold her house, and we moved to the United States. She said it was to give me a better opportunity. I didn’t want it at first. I love being in Puerto Rico. It could rain, and you would see kids out in the rain and never get sick. Here you get rained on a little and you’re as sick as a dog. Anyways, I wanted to go back, but I never said anything. I didn’t want to make things difficult for grandma. Then a few months after my ninth birthday, my grandma passed away in her sleep. Her lawyer said she left everything she had to me, but I couldn’t access it until I was eighteen and I wanted to leave it like that. Since the Department of Children and Families couldn’t find any of my family willing to take me in, I was put in foster care and for the past year I have been jumping from home to home and from group home to group home. This is the first foster home I have spent more than two months in and, to be honest, I hate being here. Aren’t we, the children in the system should feel and be safe with our foster parents or caretakers? Why is it that when something happens to us, the children, and we speak, no one believes us even when the evidence is on our bodies? My stomach growls loudly, snapping me out of my thoughts, and I look at the clock on the wall, seeing it’s close to dinner time. I hope I’m allowed to eat dinner today. I was punished because I got a C in Science, so I was grounded and left without lunch or a snack. I walk to my bed to put on my flats when my door bursts open and my drunk foster dad walks in and looks at me like I’m his prey. I froze for a second or two. Every instinct in my body is telling me to run… to find safety. Is he going to beat me again until I’m black and blue? I need to get away. I’m still healing from my last beating. Since he towers over me and is blocking my path, I jump on the bed to try and run out of the room, but even in his drunk state he is fast. He grabs me by my hair and pulls me so hard I land on the floor knocking the air out of me, not to mention my head bouncing twice off the ground. I gasp for air and as soon as I’m able to get air in my lungs I groan, clutching my head. My foster dad straddles and rips my dress off of me, leaving me in my underwear and bra. “Do you think you can walk around here seducing me and thinking I won’t do anything?” John, my foster dad says. What is he talking about? My dresses stop just above my knees and most of the time I’m in my room. I don’t get the chance to say anything as he forcefully pushes my legs open. Panic fills me and I begin to look around for anything to defend myself with. When he places his arm close to my face, I turn and bite him. “Arg. You b***h!” he screams and slaps me so hard that I see black dots in my vision. I spit in his face, making him move a bit and moved closer to my bed. That’s when I saw the vase under the bed. It was a vase I made in school one day and I wanted to take it to grandma's grave. John grabs me by my throat and begins to squeeze, but I could still feel his other hands trying to take off my panties. I reached for the vase and, without thinking about it twice, I hit John in the head, shattering the vase. This made him roll off of me and I took this chance to jump to my feet. Just as I was getting up, he reached for me, only to be able to scratch me and rip one of my bra straps. I run out of the room and out the front door into the cold rain, not caring I was only in my underwear. I don’t stop when I run into the woods. I knew he would be coming after me, so I continued to run. I’m soaked from the rain and cold, but I can’t stop. There is no way I’m going back there. I stop for a few seconds and look around as I try to catch my breath. I can feel my whole body shaking. I don't know how long I have been out here in the rain and cold, but the rain has finally stopped, which means I can’t stay here. I need to continue to run. Snap. The sound of a branch breaking made me more terrified and the only thing I could think about was what John is going to do to me when he gets his hands on me. I can’t let that happen. So, I continued to run as fast as I could. My legs are burning and they feel heavy. I tripped, falling on my hands and knees in the mud. The mud splashes, and I know there is mud on my face now, but I don’t care. I get back up and continue to run through some bushes only to come to a halt when I see two massive wolf like creatures. They are too big to be wolves and one of them is standing up like a human would. They both sniffed the air and the one that was standing up right gets on all fours before stalking towards me. I should be petrified, but I’m not. I prefer to die, be mauled by massive wolves, then to go back to my foster parents. The two wolves stop in front of me but one of them walks around me and sniffs before a growl leaves him. The wolf sniffing around me returns to the other wolf and growls again. The one that growled is black with golden eyes and the front right paw is white, and it was bigger than the other. The other wolf is light brown with a white underbelly. “I have been through too much in just a year, especially these past couple of days. If you’re going to kill me, go ahead” I said, clenching my fists as if they could understand me. I really must be insane, but I don’t want to live like this anymore. So, I close my eyes and wait for my death. ***