She's been here before and she knows how it works. Let the girls beat you up. Take it lying down so they don't hit any harder. It's an initiation and she's been through it too many times to count and she knows enough now to keep herself rolled up tight with her head down and her hands clasped over it.

The girls always go for the hair.

The slapping and punching and scratching and kicking are bad enough but the hair pulling… Sometimes they don't stop until they have too, until it comes off and they're left standing there holding a clump in their fists.

The thing is though after you've been smacked down and ground into the linoleum, all is supposed to be cool. The girls never hurt you again. Any of the boys so much as look at you cross-eyed they rally together to kick his ass. It's never been like that with her. Because she never accepted their hands offering to help her get to her feet, never leaned on their shoulders on the way to the infirmary. Never accepted that she was "in" now, never wanted to be "cool" with the other girls, never wanted to be friends with the ones who had pounded her nearly unconscious. Maybe that's why they kept doing it. Maybe they hoped that she would finally give in, finally take their hand, weakly shake it, and then lay into the next new girl. She doesn't know why she never did, why she insisted on spitting blood onto their shoes every time, telling them to fuck off when they tried to be nice afterwards. Life at the orphanage would have been a lot easier all around. No more fighting, no more "welcome back" slugfests when she returned from yet another failed adoption. Maybe even a little protection from Bruce.

She got back too late for the girls to get her tonight. Everyone was already asleep when Mrs. Foggerty led her to the girl's wing, showed her to her bed as though she'd forgotten where it was. Four times gone, four times back again and they always put her in the same one. Ninth bed from the left right under the window. She hates that window. Sunlight in her face the second the sun comes up making it impossible to get a full night's rest unless she adopts the sleeping schedule of a five-year-old which is risky if everyone hates you.

She shifts uncomfortably in her bed, cringing at its familiar squeak and Deborah's soft snoring in the one next to hers. They're familiar sounds, like the ones in the hallway. The footsteps trying to be quiet, the muffled jangling of keys, the wheezing breath of the asthmatic janitor who roams the halls at night and occasionally pays her a visit. He will tonight. She expects it like she expects a hand clamped over her mouth in the morning as they drag her off the bed and onto the floor. It's always the same, every time.

She's heard some of the other kids talking before, the ones who have been here for as long as they can remember, the ones who keep getting adopted only to be sent back for whatever reason. She's heard them say that it's almost comforting being back here. That they think of this place as their real home, the families they leave with just vacations that sometimes last a few years. Technically she's in that same group since she's been bounced around more times than a rubber ball, but she's never felt like that, never been relieved to be back or even disappointed really. She just went where they put her and tried her best not to get in the way.

That had been one of the reasons why she had been sent back the first time. They'd said she wasn't opening up enough, that she was "too quiet". The There's something wrong with this one implicit. The next couple tried to use her as a tourniquet for their hemorrhaging marriage then decided it wasn't working because she was too old. A baby was what they needed to bring them back together, not a five-year-old who was already a little off.

She's still a little bitter about that one.

She had liked their cat.

And then there was the couple who kept her for a year and then sent her back without any apparent reason. This third return to the orphanage was when the beatings started to move beyond the occasional push and scratch to full on attacks with fists and teeth. She was eight then and considered old enough to fight back. She did and lost a baby tooth prematurely as well as a handful of her hair. That's the year she perfected the cannonball/fetal position.

The Bennett's adopted her three years later. She was with them for four and a half months before they had to send her back. She hadn't expected to stay long anyway, it was weird that they had even wanted her. Any kid older than five isn't likely to be noticed by wannabe parents who always scope out the babies first, but they came straight to her. She had been alone as usual reading a book about horses when Mrs. Bennett ("Call me Julia honey…") sat down beside her and started talking to her, asking what she was reading and did she like horses 'cause they had a horse and she could ride him whenever she pleased and wasn't her hair pretty and how old was she and did she like babies. Deborah had been eyeing her all the while. She had pissed her off that morning for some reason or another and rather than deal with the consequences she had looked into Julia Bennett's blue eyes and said "This is Black Beauty, Ah've never seen a real horse 'fore so ah don't know how to ride one but ah'd like to try someday an' thank you but ah think it's ugly an' ah'm 'leven an' babies are okay most o' the time". It was the most she'd said to anyone her whole life and it seemed to do the trick.

The Bennett's already had a little boy, but Jed was away on business a lot and Julia was a writer who needed time to herself. And she didn't mind it, being the babysitter instead of the baby. She liked Julia. She liked her blue eye shadow and glossy lips that were always smiling and even Toby was okay. He didn't cry as much as the babies at the orphanage.

On her first day at her new school a boy teased her about her hair, and she socked him. All the kids pretty much left her the hell alone after that except for one boy who was always looking at her funny, hanging around her in the playground, walking her home even after she told him to fuck off. She never even thought of him as her friend until he showed her his favorite place in the whole world. She'd rolled her eyes and said it was just a dumb old tree with a tire hanging off it but secretly she'd thought it was just about the coolest thing she had ever seen. It was right next to the river and you could swing that tire right over it if you wanted to and jump off. It was quiet and far away from everything and the grass seemed greener and softer and the sun warmer and brighter than it was anywhere else. It was perfect. She thanked Cody by letting him be her friend, by not telling him to fuck off anymore. By letting him kiss her.

She'd woken up hours later lying on top of him, her cheek against his cheek, not remembering falling asleep. Her only thought had been that she had to get back to the house because Jed had said she could go play as long as she was back in time for dinner. It had been dark, and she had known she'd be in trouble, so she told Cody she'd see him at school tomorrow, and when he ignored her, kept right on sleeping in that sweet greener-than-green-even-in-the-moonlight grass, she hadn't tried to wake him. She wonders if things would have turned out different if she had. She wonders if he'd still be alive if only, she'd gone to get help instead of going home which hadn't worked anyway. She'd gotten all confused, somehow ending up at his house. His momma and daddy had taken her home and were real careful around her, asking if she was okay, if she saw the person who had attacked her and Cody. They had no idea that she had been the one responsible, that she was the reason their son had slipped into a coma.

She spent the next month in a kind of limbo herself, staring off into space for hours at a time, flipping out when anyone came near her. She'd sleepwalk and wake up at the river, and sometimes in Cody's bedroom. She'd talk to herself, have conversations where she answered for both sides. It freaked out the kids at school, so she stopped going.

The Bennett's decided to send her back after they found her in the kitchen this morning wrapping her arms and hands in plastic wrap. They told her, "We care about ya honey but… sugah… we don't know how to help ya… We don't know what to do…" They told Mrs. Foggerty, "She's been traumatized by the attack on her an' her friend an' she's developed deep psychological problems that we're not equipped financially or emotionally to deal with."

Or something like that.

So she's here again. And for the first time she isn't apathetic about it. She's glad. Toby will be safe. All the Bennett's will be safe. Those girls though… Deborah… they're going to be in for a surprise tomorrow morning.

She looks at her hand painted blue by the moonlight spilling in from that damn window. It looks like anyone's hand. She curls it into a fist. Like Deborah's hand. But it's not. It's something else. Something dangerous.

The door to the girl's dormitory opens with a slow creak and that's familiar too.

She watches him close it behind him, watches his hands groping the darkness, searching for the edge of the bed, searching for her. She knows what she's supposed to do, what she's done before, clamp her eyes shut, feel her body go rigid as the sheet slowly slides down down until it's replaced with Bruce's big, callused hand cupping her ankle. He always starts with her ankle. And then his palm molds itself to her calf and then slides up up to her thigh. She's supposed to turn her head into the pillow then, feign sleep so she can pretend it's just another bad dream. She keeps her eyes open now. She stares at him and his hand hovering over her exposed flesh like a spider. She waits for him to call her darlin', to say darlin' wake up, waits for his hand to slip under her nightgown, his splayed fingers over her belly reaching up up…

She's supposed to be thinking don't touch me don't touch me don't touch me…

He looks up at her and starts when he sees she's awake and watching him. He wheezes a "Welcome home, darlin'" and his fingers spasm in anticipation of her skin. She smiles watching the twitching shadow on her foot.

And she thinks, Come and get it, sugah…