“Maddie,” I groaned, trying to hold on tight. But I needed to tell her. I needed to keep going.

“He spread my legs apart and used his finger first. I held back my scream, but it just seemed to make him angrier. ‘I’m gonna take the devil right from your tainted sinful flesh.’ And he did, because after his finger, he fully took me. He took me over and over, again and again. He came back night after night. He would slice my back with the blade, always counting to eleven. I never knew why he counted to eleven. Then he would fuck me. Fuck me until I couldn’t walk, then he’d leave me in the dark, naked and cold on the dirt; alone in the darkness.”

Maddie released a sob. “My God, Flame. I am sorry… I am so sorry…” But I wasn’t finished, my arms tightening so hard around her small body that Maddie gasped and looked up. “What is it Flame? What else could there be to tell?”

“My brother,” I whispered, feeling white hot pain rip through my body, “My baby brother, Isaiah.”

I began to tell her the worst part of all; about all of the evil. It was all too real, in my head. So fucking real, it felt like I was right back there. Right back when I was eight years old, and everything fucking changed. Right back to the fucking darkness, and I relived every minute…

I could hear him screaming again. He’d been crying for days. Something was wrong. It had to be wrong. But Poppa wouldn’t take him to the doctor, he didn’t believe in doctors. He said that the Lord would heal us if our souls were pure enough to be saved. But my brother wouldn’t stop screaming. I’d been listening to him scream for days as I sat in the hole, in complete darkness.

My body tensed when I heard the front door slamming open and my poppa’s heavy footsteps pounding across the floor. I could hear the rattling of bottles and I knew he’d been out to get more drink. My legs pressed together when I knew what that meant for me. It meant he’d be coming for me again tonight, or today, or whatever time it was.

I winced when I heard my baby brother crying again. Then I heard a crash and my poppa screamed, “Shut the fuck up! Shut. The. Fuck. Up!”

But my brother cried even louder, more and more.

Lifting my hands to my ears, I began to rock; counting to eleven as I rocked back and forth. Back and forth.

A light switched on upstairs, the painful brightness creeping through the small cracks in the door. When the light shone on my naked stomach, I looked down and frowned. I could see my ribs. My stomach had gone in, and my fingers looked small and thin.

I jumped as my brother cried again. I heard my poppa shout out, “I’m done with the two of you, ruining my fucking life. The retard and the one that won’t stop fucking screaming!”

My heart began to race as my brother’s crying got closer. My poppa’s footsteps came closer and closer, then the lock of the door above me opened, and I scurried to the side of my cell.

My nails scratched at the skin over my veins, just as my poppa jumped down into the dirt.

The light from upstairs flooded into my small cell, and when I looked up, I moaned. My screaming brother was in my poppa’s arms. Isaiah was bright red, and sweat covered his body. My poppa had a knife in his hand. When I met his eyes, he bent down and threw the knife at my feet.

It was the knife my mama had used on her wrists.

I stared at the knife, wondering what he wanted me to do. Walking forward, he put my brother down next to me. I stared at Isaiah and pressed myself further into the exposed dirt wall. I couldn’t touch him. I couldn’t touch him. I would hurt him, like I did Mama.

My poppa stood up and looked down. “You killed your mother, now you look after this screaming little cunt too. I’m done with you both.”

I panicked as he began to move away. “No, don’t leave,” I pleaded. I held up my arms for him to see the scratches and blood that I’d drawn. “I’ll try harder to remove the flames. I’ll try harder… I… I love you,” I whispered, and pushed my bleeding wrists out further.

But my poppa didn’t reply and he climbed out of the door, so drunk he almost fell. He drank more and more since mama died. “You two being born was the worst thing that ever happened to me. I could never love you. No one could ever love a sinner like you.” Then the door shut, trapping me and my baby brother inside. And then he started to cry. And then he started screaming. The noise from his screaming hurt my ears. But he didn’t stop. He never stopped crying.

Hours and hours passed and he didn’t stop. The light was still on upstairs, but I hadn’t heard my poppa since he left us down here. I was hungry, I was thirsty, but he never came back.

And Isaiah got worse.

When I leaned over, he was looking at me, but his breathing had changed. It was deep and slow, but his dark eyes, eyes like mine, were looking up at me, his thin arms reaching out.

My stomach ached as I said, “I can’t touch you… I’ll hurt you…” But he kept on crying. He kept on screaming until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

My hand fisted into balls as I fought the flames inside. As I prayed to God that they didn’t hurt him. But my poppa had been gone so long that I didn’t think he was coming back. Then Isaiah’s breathing became shallower, but I could still see him looking up at me. And I had to hold him. He was scared and hurt… like me.

I had to hold him.

Holding my breath, I let out a scream and reached forward, picking him up in my hands, then I cradled him in my arms.