We woke up to a warm sun and the singing of birds. This would have been a nice morning if I hadn't been raped last night. I was still laying on Joseph's chest when he told me to wake up. The wind in my hair felt nice...I'm glad that I can escape to the roof to find refuge.

"Joseph.....what are we going to do now?" I asked him as he stroked my hair.

He looked at me with a pondering face. "Well...we have to make sure that mom is okay first."

I almost forgot about what dad did to mom last night. The memory of her spread across the floor like road kill....halfway on her way to death made me shudder with fear. She did nothing wrong...So why did dad beat her?

we sat up and started to make our way to my window when all of a sudden...it occurred to me. Why didn't dad just open the window and climb up to the roof last night? I knew that he was drunk but...I didn't even hear him fall out of the window. When I looked over to see if he was on the ground, all I could see was the hard, green grass...No dad.

Joseph helped me into my room and closed the window. My door was still open from last night and I wanted to see if mom was still there. When I looked into the hallway...all I could see was the lonely, white walls that make the hallway...the blood stains of my mother's beatings were still on the floor...But my mother was gone...

Joseph and I made our way around the crime scene and started to examine the rest of the house.

"where could mom and...the rapist...be?", I said to myself.

we examined the whole house didn't find a single trace of mom or the rapist. I also started to wonder, "How long until the cops come to investigate the crime scene? What if the neighbors heard me screaming last night?"

(if they did, they would of most likely called the cops on us and this whole situation would be over in a matter of minutes)

The rapist's car wasn't in the drive way so he must have gone off somewhere and took mom with him.

"Christina, go get yourself cleaned up, I'll take care of cleaning the house." Joseph said as he got a broom

The house was pretty messy after the rapist's rampage last night. So I went up to the bathroom and took a shower. The water felt nice on my bruised body. But my voice was hurting so much from screaming that I couldn't sing. So I cried...not just because I got raped my my "father" or because my brother accused me of sneaking out and getting my "tattoo", but because all this happened because of me. I don't even know what I did wrong.

As I got out of the shower, I looked into the mirror again at my mysterious birthmark. It was still there...in the exact shape of a diamond.

"Now I guess I'll never know how I got this birthmark.", I sighed sadly.

After I went around the crime scene to put some clothes on, I went downstairs to help Joseph clean up the house. He was still in his footy pajamas as he was putting the pots and pans above the counter top in our kitchen.

I started to sweep up the broken plates when a thought came to my mind.

"Maybe my birthmark has something to do with all this chaos...because mom and...the rapist...we're fighting last night because of me...well something about me."

As I Finished clearing away all the broken plates, I also started to wonder about why the police didn't come to my house last night.

"Joseph?" I asked.

"Yes?" He replied as he put the rest of the dishes away in the cabinet.

"How come our neighbors didn't call the cops last night?"

He stopped and pondered on that question for a little while until he found his answer.

"The Conrad's family is on vacation in Hawaii, the Allen's family is visiting relatives in Alabama, and the rest of the neighborhood is either old geezers or the deaf." Joseph said.

"Well, that's why the police wasn't called" I said with a sigh.

"Well if the neighborhood isn't going to call them, I'm going to.", I said as I stormed over the the phone on the wall.

I picked up the phone and dialed the numbers 9-1-1.

"Uh Christina?" Joseph cooed as he looked at the phone.

"Not now Joseph.", I replied as I tried to listen for the phone to ring.

"Ah! Why isn't the phone ringing!?" my patience was losing itself.

"That's because the cord has been cut..." Joseph said as he pointed to the cord.

I looked down and he was right...the cord had been cut in half...

"DO THEY NOT WANT ME TO GET HELP?!?!", I yelled as I threw the phone down in frustration.

"There's no need to get pissy Christina, I'll just use my phone.", Joseph said while trying to calm me down.

I followed him into his room to help him find his phone since it might be in a pile of clothes. He looked to his night stand and found his phone, he picked it up and started to dial 9-1-1

"Now we can call the police and get you some help." But as he said that he noticed something odd.

"That's weird, every time I dial the number, my phone doesn't turn on."

"Maybe because it is turned off you doofus."

"Ha ha very funny Christina."

But as he tried to turn on his phone...nothing happened...not even the low battery sign was flashing. He took off the case to find that his battery was gone!

"Okay...what the hell is going on here" Joseph questioned as he turned to me in fear.

"I don't have the slightest clue."

I went into my room to see if my phone had its battery...but the battery was gone. We went into our parents room to see if their phones worked...but the battery wasn't gone...it was the phone itself.

"So far, either all the phone's battery has been taken out or the phone itself has been stolen...this doesn't make any sense.", Joseph said as he pondered on this situation.

"Actually Joseph...it does make some sense...they don't want anyone to find out about my birthmark"

"Come on Christina, we don't even know if that's the real reason why this is happening"

"Just think about it Joseph, mom and..."dad"...we're fighting about me last night and they have never been this mad about me before."

"Okay...so...your point is?"

"None of this would have happened if I didn't get the mysterious birthmark."

"Why do you call it a birthmark if you just found it yesterday?"

"Would you rather let me call it a tramp stamp?"

"No"

"Then birthmark it is."

We sat on my bed in silence, trying to figure what we are going to do next.

"Well, it looks like we are going to have to wait until one of our neighbors comes back.", I said with a sigh.

"Couldn't we just go into town and get someone to help us? I'm sure that some one would believe us."

"Joseph...we live on the far side of town, there's no way that we could it before something else happens to us. I can't drive yet so its not like we could hot wire "dad's" car. We're sitting ducks in this house."

"Do you think that we'll have enough food to last us that long?", Joseph said with a worried look on his face.

"With the amount of food that you eat, I don't think that we will have enough food to last us two days!"

I started to laugh hysterically as I said that.

"Christina!"

the look on his face said that he was not amused, but I still kept on laughing as if nothing had happened. Then he started to laugh with me...for the first time in years...my brother was laughing with me and not at me.

As the laughter subsided, we started to think seriously about this.

"We can't contact anyone so we can't even order food"

"That's why we have a computer Joseph...we can order food online these days too."

"Alright Ms. know-it-all"

"Joseph!"

As I was about to pounce on him for teasing me...the doorbell rang. Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.