The New Girl

Chapter 22- Marina

"Marina?" I whisper as I shut the door behind me. The lights are on so I assume she waited up for me. God knows my father wouldn't. By this time he'd be passed out on the couch surrounded by beer bottles and cigarettes.

"I told you not to wait up for me. It's 4:00am. You should be sleeping," I whisper as I set my purse on the hook and hang my coat up. I can hear the tv playing in the other room. I turn around the corner to enter the living room, curious as to why she wasn't responding to my scolding.

"Look, Marina. I'm sorry I wasn't home tonight, but come on. Cut me some sla-," I freeze and my breath hitches in my throat. I stare down at the figure below me lying on the living room floor.

The first thing I notice is the blood splattered all around the wood and the pool of red surrounding her head. Her wrists and neck are bruised severely. The left side of her skull was bashed in and misshapen. She didn't even look like herself.

I can't look away. I want so badly to, but my eyes won't let me. I try to take a step forward, but my knees give out from under me. "What a cliché," I hear my voice say in an empty, soft tone.

My mind can't understand what I'm seeing, but it's as though my body is well aware. Hot tears fall from my eyes and once they start they won't stop. I reach my hands out to touch her face. Her eyes are open and glazed over.

I brush my fingers over the bruising on her neck and move the blood stained hair away from her face. My hands slips and I feel the side of her skull that's been bashed in. It's wet and shattered and I gasp at the feeling of her crushed head in my hands.

How could this person I've known my whole life, this strong, beautiful person, be reduced to a smashed cantaloupe with its insides scattered all around?

I feel a wave of nausea rise within me from feeling her brain and bones in my hand and I quickly turn my face away, vomiting onto the christmas tree.

Marina had set it up all by herself. She was the only thing that kept our screwed up family together and now she's lying lifeless on the floor of a house she always tried so hard to keep nice and clean.

'Clean... She always kept it so clean... Oh god, she'd be so upset by this mess,' I think to myself. I stand up and stumble into the kitchen grabbing a bucket, a washcloth, and a sponge. I fill the bucket with soap and water, spilling most of it as I walked back into the living room.

I begin wiping up my vomit, then moving on to the blood splattered on the ground. I scrub so hard and for so long that I feel my hands seizing up. I can't stop the sobs from escaping my mouth as I clean and I can hear how loud I am.

Suddenly, I feel two hands place themselves on mine, stopping me from scrubbing any further. I look up to see my sister, pale and bloody, staring at me sympathetically.

"Marina?" I say confused. "What- How did you-," She shushes me and places her hand on my cheek. "I told you," she says and I furrow my brows. "What are you talking about?" I ask and she tilts her head.

"You did this to me," she says. "What? What do you mean? I've been out all night," I shake my head, trying to understand. "I warned you about dad. I told you he was getting worse. You left me here to die. You killed me," her face stays kind, but her voice is growing angrier and angrier.

"No I- I didn't know, I-," I try to defend myself, but it's no use. "It should've been you. You deserved this, not me. It should've been you. It should've been you," her voices echos as she lunges at my throat. I feel her hands wrapping around my neck. They are so tightly attached I worry my head will explode.