Soda's POV

I am woken with a start when the sound of a blood curdling scream breaks through my dream state of mind.

"Ahhhh!" Sky screams again at the top of her lungs while thrashing around in the bed. Her whole body is covered in sweat and her whole face is bright red. I feel her forehead to check her temperature and she is burning up. I then sit up and gather her up in my arms.

"Baby girl you're okay. I'm right here." I whisper in her ear while running my hand over her clammy forehead.

"Don't hurt me! Somebody help me!" she screams again while flailing her arms and hitting me in the face in the process.

"Shh, you're okay. I'm here, Soda's got you." I coo at her and hold her tighter to me while kissing the side of her head.

"Soda!?" she screams jumping out of my arms and swiveling her head back and forth frantically.

"Shhhh, I'm right here, calm down." I tell her softly and wrap my arms back around her pulling her to me.

"He hurt me again." she whimpers, turning around in my arms to face me. I know exactly who she's talking about, Carter. Even though she beat him in the rumble she still has these horrible nightmares all the time. It breaks my heart because there is nothing I can do to help her or make them go away.

"No, he didn't. It was just a bad dream baby girl. He can't hurt you anymore." I tell her and kiss her forehead and I pull back alarmed at how high her temperature is.

"Pepsi I don't feel good." she groans while holding her stomach.

"I know you don't but I'm going to make you feel better. Okay baby girl?" I tell her and push her forward slightly so that I can get out of bed.

"Soda..." she says trailing off.

"What is it baby girl?" I ask her turning around to face her. When I do I see that her face is green and she's going to throw up any second now. I quickly grab the bucket by my feet and hold it in front of her right as she throws up everything in her stomach.

"It's okay baby girl." I coo as I rub my hand up and down her back while she continues to throw up. I don't know how she can throw up this much when there's only like one meal in her stomach and she probably threw that up hours ago, so I don't know what else is in her stomach that is making her throw up.

"I'm all done for now." she says weakly while using the sleeve of her shirt to wipe off her mouth. At least that shirt will be going in the dirty clothes hamper after I have her take a cold bath while I remake the bed.

"Now come on baby girl, I'm going to get you in a cold bath." I tell her coming back into the room after rinsing out the throw up bucket and putting it back next to the bed.

"I hate baths. I already took one today. Why do I have to take another one and why does it have to be cold?" she asks weakly while pouting.

"I know you do but you need to take another one. You're covered in sweat and your clothes are drenched and it needs to be cold so that it will help bring down your temperature." I tell her.

"But the cold water is going to hurt these." she says but I don't understand what she's talking about.

"What do you mean? What is it going to hurt?" I ask her confused and kneel down on the floor in front of her so that she has to look at me.

"I can't tell you. Just forget about it." she says and hangs her head so that she doesn't have to look at me.

"Baby girl if you did something or someone hurt you again you need to tell me. Right now." I tell her sternly and tilt her head up so that she has to look at me.

"Nobody hurt me." she tells me. So that means that she hurt herself again.

"Let me see them." I tell her and hold my hand out for her arm.

"Let you see what?" she asks me acting confused.

"You know what I'm talking about." I say giving her a knowing look.

"No I don't." she says still acting confused.

"Baby girl show me the cuts." I tell her getting straight to the point.

"What cuts?" she asks still trying to get out of this.

"Please baby girl." I beg her and give her a sad look.

"Okay." she sighs and then unfolds her arms and holds them out to me.

"Oh baby girl why did you start hurting yourself again?" I ask her sadly as I run my fingers over all of the small cuts on her forearms. There is probably 10 on each forearm. How she managed to hide these from us I have no idea.

"I started last week." she says softly while trying to pull her arms out of my grasp but I don't let her.

"Why though? You don't just cut yourself for no reason. What happened?" I ask her still running my fingertips lightly over her forearms.

"He made me do it." is all she says looking up at me with tears in her eyes.

"Who made you do it?" I ask her although I'm pretty sure I already know that she's talking about Carter.

"Carter did. In my dreams every night he cuts me over and over again, branding me. If there are going to be cuts covering my whole body I don't want them all to be there because they did them to me. This way some of the cuts are done by me which means that I had control of it. I just want my body to be mine again Pepsi." she explains letting her tears fall freely down her face.

"Your body is yours baby girl, nobody owns it except for you. Just like nobody owns you, you are your own person." I tell her and reach up to wipe away some of her tears with the pads of my thumbs.

"It's not my body though, it's theirs and it always will be theirs. It's because these will never go away." she says pointing at the multiple scars covering her small body. Once again she leaves me speechless, I don't know what to say to her because nothing I say will make it better. Plus nothing I say to her will change her mind or her way of thinking. Her and Darry are the stubborn ones of the family and once their mind is made up about something then you can't change it no matter how hard you try.

"It is your body baby girl but I'm not going to argue about this with you. One because you are sick and two because no matter how hard I try to change your mind I won't be able to because you are too stubborn for your own good. You are going to have to do something for me though when Darry gets home from work." I tell her.

"What's that?" she asks me somewhat nervous.

"You're going to have to tell him about these." I tell her and hold up her forearms to show her the cuts that she did to herself again.

"No, he'll get mad if he finds out what I've been doing to myself." she says pulling her arms out of my grasp and shaking her head back and forth.

"No he won't get mad baby girl, he will be sad though that you started doing this to yourself again." I tell her sadly.

"I don't want to tell him though. If he finds out that I've been hurting myself again then he will make me go and see that therapist again and I refuse to do that." she says crossing her arms firmly over her chest.

"Baby girl I promise you that I will never let him take you to see that therapist ever again. You do need to tell him this though, it's better that he hears it from you instead of me." I tell her.

"You promise that you'll never make me go back to that therapist?" she asks again.

"I promise." I tell her and pull her arms away from her chest and hold her hands in mine.

"Okay, I'll tell him." she sighs finally giving in.

"Thank you baby girl. Now come on let's get you in the bath." I tell her standing up and pulling her up with me.

"I told you that I don't want to take a bath." she complains but follows me into the bathroom anyways.

"I know you don't but you need to. Plus it will make your temperature go down and you'll feel better afterwards." I tell her while I start to fill up the tub with cold water.

"Fine." she sighs unhappily.

"Okay now I'm going to go change the bed and put a load of laundry in while you take a bath. Just throw your dirty clothes outside the door before you get in the tub." I tell her.

"Okay." she says and then shuts the door behind me.

"Here Soda." I hear shouted and then feel clothes hit my back after the sound of a door shutting. I bend down and pick them up and put them in the pile with the dirty bed sheets while I finish remaking the bed. After the bed is remade I pick up the pile of dirty laundry and put it in the washing machine and start it.

"Baby girl are you okay in there?" I ask through the bathroom door while knocking on it.

"Yeah I'm all done." she says and opens the door.

"Do you feel better?" I ask her.

"A little." she says.

"Good." I say and kiss her forehead and I am happy that when I pull away her temperature isn't nearly as high as it was earlier.

"Can you braid my hair?" she asks holding a hair elastic out to me.

"Sure." I tell her and follow her over to the bed. She sits down and I sit behind her and start to braid her hair down her back. When I'm done I wrap the elastic around the bottom of it and then kiss the top of her head.

"All done." I tell her while standing up.

"Thank you. Can I go sit out in the living room with you?" she asks looking up at me.

"Yeah baby girl you've been in bed almost all day." I tell her. She smiles and holds her arms out to me so I bend down and pick her up into my arms and then carry her out into the living room. I sit down on the couch and she gets comfortable curled up on my lap while we watch Mickey while waiting for Darry and Pony to get home. About an hour or so later Darry and Pony both come through the door, both looking exhausted.

"How was school Pony? Did you win your track meet?" I ask him while continuing to run my fingers through Sky's hair because every time I stop she grabs my hand and puts it back on her head wanting me to continue.

"Boring as usually and yeah we won." he says smiling.

"How was work Dar?" I ask him.

"Busy we worked on another big house today. How are you feeling Peanut?" Darry asks sitting down in his recliner and looking at Sky.

"Better." she says looking at him.

"Did you eat anything today?" he asks her.

"No. Soda tried to get me to but every time I even took a bite of something I threw it back up." she tells him.

"Oh, I'm sorry Peanut." he says, we all hate it when Sky's sick.

"Darry, Sky has to tell you something." I say and look down at Sky.

"What is it Peanut?" he asks her.

"I don't know." she says shrugging her shoulders.

"Baby girl we talked about this, you need to tell him." I whisper in her ear.

"Tell me what? What aren't you guys telling me?" Darry asks starting to get slightly irritated that we're hiding something from him.

"Fine. I started hurting myself again." Sky says and sits up holding out her arms to him so that he can see the cuts covering both of her forearms.

"Peanut why?" he asks her sadly, standing up and coming over to us. He kneels down in front of us and starts running the fingertips of his fingers over the cuts.

"I wanted my body to be mine again." she says simply.

"What do you mean Peanut? Your body is yours." he asks her confused.

"No it's not, it's theirs. I mean every cut on my body is because of them, they branded me. I just wanted there to be something on my body that is mine, something that I had control over." she says sadly.

"Oh Peanut, I'm so sorry." he says pulling her to him and hugging her tight.

"It's okay." she says pulling away and shrugging her shoulders.

"No it's not, but you need to promise us that you will never do this to yourself again." Darry tells her sternly.

"I promise that I will try my hardest not to do this to myself ever again." she says. Darry opens his mouth to argue with her but I stop him.

"Thank you baby girl, that's good enough for now." I tell her and kiss the top of her head.

"Sky you have an appointment tomorrow at noon." Darry tells her while standing up.

"With who? It better not be that stupid therapist again because if it is then I am not going and you can't make me." she says sternly and crosses her arms firmly over her chest.

"No it's not that therapist, it's a different type of therapist." he tells her.

"What type of therapist is it?" she asks him confused and I too give him a confused look because he never talked about Sky seeing another therapist with me.

"You're going to see a therapist that specializes in eating disorders." he tells her.