Warning: No real gore, but some disturbing themes ahead. May warrant a trigger warning. Rated a strong T.
Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone
But it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me
- The Beatles, Strawberry Fields Forever
It was pretty, she thought as she peered at the mark across her cheekbone in the mirror of the little bathroom. She tilted her chin forward to better catch the light from the dim bulb overhead. It was more like a collection of marks, a cluster of bright red irregular circles where the man's knuckles had collided with her cheekbone.
They looked like strawberries. Dull pink blobs underneath freckles of brighter red that showed clearly through her translucent skin. Later they would darken to blacks and blues, and then arc spectacularly up through a variety of yellows and greens before fading away. She tried not to think too hard about the future. Red was a whole lot better than green.
Sometimes the girl hated her frail body, how it bruised so easily, the way it had never matured and still made her look so much younger than she was. Not always, though. Not today. Dani shivered.
"Danielle!" The banging on the door made her jump. "How long are you gonna hog the bathroom? I need a shower!" She recognized the whining voice of her foster "brother", Lee.
"It's Dani," she called back, now feeling irritated as well as anxious. "Give me a minute!"
"You've already had a minute! It's my turn!"
"I'm doing… girl stuff! Lots of bloody things! You wanna walk in here while I'm trying to change tampons?"
"What? Gross! Fine, take all the time you want."
Dani listened to his retreating feet and muffled grumbling through the door, then sighed in relief. She'd only ever had light spotting, but the bigger girls loved to go into disgusting detail about their experiences in female hygiene. Dani had never been so thankful for her under-developed body…except maybe this afternoon.
The man who had come to visit hadn't seemed like anyone special. He wore jeans with a leather jacket, and expensive shoes that she'd noticed because she was curled up in the front hall, reading a book. They reminded her of a pair she'd seen Vlad in once; the nice leather kind that rich people called "casual". His thick black sunglasses seemed to eat up his face. He'd taken off and smiled. He'd said hello. She'd mumbled something back. The man's eyes hadn't smiled with him.
The foster woman, Vicky (not even the babies called her mom) had gathered up the three bigger girls and herded them into the back room, shutting the door. They'd stood together uncertainly as the man had looked them up and down.
Sara was the timid one; she'd shrunk behind Dani, even though she was a year older and four inches taller.
"Ages?" He'd asked calmly and with no real concern, like someone talking about different kinds of tile for their kitchen floor.
"Fourteen for blondie there, fifteen for the other tall one, and the scrawny one in the front tells anybody who'll listen that she's sixteen." Both adults chuckled. Dani scowled but made no attempt to argue; she'd long resigned herself to being assumed much younger than her cousin's age—her real age.
"Maybe she's just hiding under those baggy clothes of hers." The man pulled up her shirt and suddenly big, rough fingers were groping across her small chest. He did it so matter-of-factly and quickly that Dani didn't have time to react. She just stood there, mouth open.
"Nope, really nothing."
Her shirt fell back into place, and Dani was left shaking and hot from shame as the man went on talking to Vicki casually. "Pity with that cute face. Give her another year, and maybe she'll be some good."
Not even Vlad had…
"Now this one…turn around for me, sweetheart." He'd taken Sara by the shoulders and moved her in a tight little circle. Sara stumbled through the turn, wide-eyed and clasping her hands in front of her. The chipped pink dollar-store nail polish on her fingernails seemed extra bright against her white-knuckled fingers.
Dani finally found her voice and moved to get between the man and Sara. "Hey! Don't touch he—"
The blow knocked her to the floor, cheek stinging and involuntary tears welling in her eyes. He'd backhanded her without even turning his head.
Mandy muttered a curse, but at a sharp word from Vicki fell silent.
Had anyone bothered to look her way, they would have seen her eyes flash with green fire. Even that tiny use of ectoplasmic energy brought back that awful, dizzy, sick feeling.
Frightened, Dani yanked back on the power, pushing it down into her core, driving the shaky feeling away. She was just seconds away from melting at the edges like lukewarm ice cream.
"You'll have pretty clothes and better food," the man was saying. "I'll even give you money and you can buy whatever you want. That sounds good to you, doesn't it, Sara?" The taller girl stared at the floor, but she was nodding meekly.
It did sound miles better than this place, where meals weren't every day and even then there might not be enough to go around.
But Dani knew a little about men who liked to use people. This man was no different. Everything she knew about Vlad was telling her that going to wherever he wanted to take Sara would be bad. Really bad. But she couldn't tell Sara that here.
In the end, Dani never had the chance. Sara had only been allowed to grab a few things and her toothbrush under Vicki's watchful before she'd been hustled into the man's car. Dani had caught a glimpse of her through the tinted windows and Sara might have even waved goodbye, but she couldn't be sure. He'd told Vicki to feed the girls better, and then drove off.
Vicki had stuck the envelope the man had given her into her ample cleavage and waved them out of the bedroom, flicking on the TV before they had even reached the door.
Dani stared at her strawberry-marked reflection, studying it. Did she have a cute face? She'd always assumed she looked mostly like a boy, since she was the copy of one.
The girl tilted her head, and tried to see what the man had seen. Large, open blue eyes that were just a little bit green. Lips pursed with worry, tinted red from the lip gloss the other girl, Mandy, had given her in a fit of friendship.
Skin so pink-white it was almost transparent. Sometimes it did go transparent and greenish when her body started slipping, but right now it looked a healthy human pink.
A round, childish face with a pointed chin.
Dani had gotten older slowly, if at all. Maybe because her body was trying to stay small so that her core would have to work less to stabilize her. Or maybe just because none of them ever got quite enough to eat to feel full.
Dani paused, fingering the silky black strands that framed her face. She'd always loved her hair; she had been the only one of the clones really able to grow it in the first place, and the only one Vlad had allowed to grow it long. It had set her apart from her "brothers".
It was also the least likely part of her to go green and melty. Sometimes it would be the only thing outside her own haze of green pain that she could see. The dark fringe falling her eyes, reminding her of what—or no, who she was. Not some mindless piece of ectoplasm. Not a disposable fake. She was Dani. Unique. The only girl.
Daddy's little girl, her mind mocked her sourly, bringing with it that familiar sting. If she was lucky, she'd never see her "Daddy" again.
It was that last thought that made up her mind. Dani stood on her tiptoes and pulled open the bathroom cabinet. Her fingers danced over the razor left by one of Vicki's boyfriends, then landed on a small pair of scissors.
She pulled her long ponytail over her shoulder and, quickly so she wouldn't have to think about it too much, hack at it just above the band. A few seconds of working at it with the scissors and it dropped off in her hands. The rest of her hair sprang up around her ears in a wild poof.
Dani stared at the hank of black hair nestled in her palm, feeling exposed and strangely light-headed. She coiled it up and stowed it carefully in the pocket of her hoodie. Not because she was attached to it, she told herself sternly. It would be bad if Vicki found it in the trash later. It would make it easier to find her. Dani had to be long gone from this town by the end of tomorrow.
Dani picked up the scissors again and grimly set to work. When she was done she had close-cropped, awkwardly uneven hair; it stuck up in some places and in other parts almost showed her scalp. She looked like she had stuck her head in a blender and put it on puree.
Dani wiped off the lip gloss with the back of her hand and mussed up her eyebrows, then examined herself again. A little satisfied smile curled up the lips. Still faintly red, but it would fade.
"I look like a boy," she told herself. A young boy with a strawberry bruise and too-big eyes, who was more like twelve than the sixteen she was supposed to be. But that didn't matter.
Dani picked up the faded red beanie that she'd had for forever and pulled it down low over her ears to hide her handiwork. She picked up the clippings and dropped them in the toilet, flushing it, then rinsed the last traces of hair down the drain.
"Lee! Bathroom's open!" she called as she unlocked the door and headed for the bedroom. She'd grab her bag from under the bed and be gone before Vicki got done watching her TV shows. She wouldn't even wait for supper, even though her stomach was already growling.
"Finally," Lee grumbled, emerging from the boy's room across the hall and shuffling past her with a towel bunched in his arms. "Better not have left anything gross in there, Danielle."
"It's Danny," she said, though the boy had already shut the bathroom door and locked it. "Danny with a 'y'."
A/N:
Written for Becca's "Phanniemay" challenge on Tumblr. Day 1, Bruises.
I'm getting oddly political with these oneshots lately, aren't I? This is based on the very real occurrence of young girls being coerced and sometimes sold into prostitution in the US. I heard in an interview with the Beatles that the theme behind Strawberry Fields is something like a longing to return to innocence, so that's the reason for the title.
-Hj