“Ella? What’s wrong?” I could tell she was trying hard not to cry. She was shaking so hard I was surprised that she was still standing. I wrapped my arms around her and walked her to my room. Sitting her down on my bed I walked over to the mini fridge to get her a pop. Popping the top on the cold red can I sat down next to her.

“Jaq, I have to go get my chores done.”

“Tell me what happened.” She shook her head and told me what happened without once looking at me. She just stared into her drink. This isn’t the first time Drizella has done something like this. I looked over her shoulder, cleaning up the blood and bandaging it. Each time she got more and more violent.

It’s time to put an end to this. I left Ella in my room sleeping away the hurt, not wanting her to get in trouble again I headed to Drizella’s room to do the chores.

“Jaq. Jaq!” I turned to find Henery running after me as I walked down the hall. I stopped and waited for him to catch up.

“How’s it going?” I asked as he fell into step next to me.

“We need to talk,” Henery said. I nodded and we walked passed the girls room and out to the track field. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. I didn’t know how to react or how to help.” Henery explained to me what had happened in the barn.

“It’s probably better that you didn’t help or she would have gotten it a lot worse later. Drizella’s getting worse. After Cinderella’s father passed her step mother and sisters started picking on her. At first it was small things like making her clean the house and pick up after the girls. Then the verbal abuse started. They told her she was fat, ugly, slow, stupid, and so on. Over the last year or so they started to get violent. At first she didn’t tell me. She would keep the bruises hidden under long sleeves and pants. Then one day they did it right in front of me. Drizella didn’t care that I was standing right there. I pulled Drizella off of her and grabbed Ella’s hand, I took her to my house and cleaned her up. I begged her to let me tell my dad, but she refused. I think she is scared of what they would do to her if she retaliated.” I could feel myself getting angry as I talked about it.

“Is there anything we can do?”

“Other than stay close to her. No, not without her consent.”

“Pheo was standing right there when it all happened. He didn’t help her at all but stood there in shock.”

“Like you, he probably didn’t know how to react. I’m afraid that Drizella might one day end up killing her.”