Rain lashed around the little girl. Cutting drops
pulverized the dirt she had been thrown into, turning it into mud. The water
darkened her fiery hair to match the deep red of the blood seeping from the cut
by her swollen eye. Scrawny arms hugged stick-like knees to her heaving chest.
Bright green eyes stared in horror at the man raging before her, larger than
life. Her father.
She was beyond understanding his screamed words. Her world was nothing but fear
and pain. The only things she could do were cower, tremble and stare.
Something in the man's slate blue eyes snapped, and she was too helplessly
paralyzed to even think about dodging the sudden rain of blows. Instead, she
curled into a tight ball of terrified silence. Her body ached already, and this
added pain was nothing new.
Something in her side snapped, there was a crunch in her shoulder and a sudden
grinding in the opposite knee. Her back sent blinding agony to her brain as a
sharp throb began in her head.
Through all this, she did not cry. She did not scream. She simply lay there and
endured.
The man let out an enraged growl at his eldest's lack of response and snared the
child's thin arms in the vices of his hands. He lifted the small, broken body
from the mud and hurled her back into the luxurious mansion.
She landed in a pitiful heap on the floor. Dulled emerald eyes lifted to meet
steel, then widened.
This time, she did fight his hands as he tore the clothing from her body. She
whimpered quietly as he growled something about her mother and let himself free.
He crushed her to the marble floor and...
...she awoke with a strangled gasp. A woman now, her skin, paled with remembered
terror, was slick with a thin sheen cold sweat. The slender throat worked
convulsively to swallow the taste of fear. Brilliant eyes squeezed closed
briefly before she slipped from the arms of the man holding her.
Ordinarily, she would have paused to admire him as he slumbered, but at the
moment, she felt too dirty to by worthy of his attentions. So instead, she
strode silently into the bathroom, turned on the shower and stripped down. Door
locked behind her, she stepped under the hot water.
It soaked her hair, spider-webbing it over her back, her shoulders, and clothed
her chilled skin with warmth.
She looked down at herself. Her body was powerfully built, her arms and
shoulders tattooed with fierce dragons. All of her curves, graceful lengths of
muscles, were scarred.
And it all felt horribly, horribly dirty. Worthless.
She desperately scrubbed at her skin with washcloth and hands. So hard it turned
red and hypersensitive to the touch. Yet, she could not rid herself of the
dream.
Tears came. Her legs gave out. She sank to the tiled floor of the shower, hid
her face in shaking hands and let the pain yank the sobs out of her.