A/N: I own nothing and no one featured in this story, or the Tarantino/Rodriquez universe. I make no profits from this or any fics written or posted.
So everybody be cool. You... be cool.
Synopsis: An extension of Seth's destructive lifestyle, Kate braves the intensity of womanhood alone. Seth grows increasingly cruel and unpredictable; unsure of what role to play in her life; be it: father, brother, teacher or captor. The line between hostage and ally blurs, as Seth tries to distance himself from the temptation of becoming a deviant Richie would have been proud to smirk at.
Like most books that should be shelved after the story has been told, Kate Fuller was not so quick to seal the bindings and place her story somewhere in the back of her mind like all her other memories. After all, she had only just begun to spread the pages of a new chapter. The words of her story had not yet been lost to circumstance; any more than the unforeseeable chain of events which lead two brothers, selfishly dedicated to one another's patrimonial strides for more, had left her completely alone.
Kate had been a complacent girl; oblivious, naïve to a fault but always grateful. She had family and faith; she had love. Even still, in an instant, she had lost more than she ever even knew she had. She blinked and opened her eyes to nothingness. A life of privilege, wide-eyes, family and love: stolen from her. Carnage trailed behind her like a chain binding her to every horrific moment she'd ever endured. She would never be free. The stains of yesterdays blended together in a fog, chasing in long shadows; fear and regret hot on her tail.
Time passed and the emptiness filled with phantom aches Kate could no longer satiate with prayer. Her existence no longer revolved around what she had lost, but rather: what had remained. She had the scars: reasons to lie to strangers about how such a delicate girl could acquire them. She had the nightmares: an excuse to stay up late and greet the sun; and no one to tell her it wasn't okay, or passed her bedtime. Most of the wounds had healed though the evidence of some would never vanish. A nervous habit riddled in self-hatred kept her tearing at the gashes, picking out the homemade stitches and clawing at raised scabs until they sank into the raised pitted, defacement of new scars.
Kate tried crawling out of her skin, bleeding beneath her clothes, hoping to somehow vacate her being. No one would see, or notice, and if they did: no one would say anything. She knew this because she knew no one cared. No one cared about the lies her father told about her mother. No one cared about the bullies who tormented her brother. No one cared about her family being taken hostage and disappearing entirely. And no one cared when she was the last of them left standing: battered, bloody and exposed. The feeling of filth and never being able to scrub the blood, guts and gore from her own flesh made her panic, sick and ashamed; like everyone could see the gore but she no longer lived in a world where anyone cared enough to wipe the blood from a little girl's brow. That was her world now: filth and survivor's guilt.
Despite it all, Kate didn't pity herself; though it took a great deal of time not to. Eventually, she came to realize it was fate. It was the hand she was dealt, for worse or worst. Blaming God, her father or the Goddamn Gecko brothers wouldn't change anything; even if that's all she wanted. She herself yearned to be different. She didn't see herself as sweet, homegrown "Katie-Cakes" anymore. She didn't have a Preacher to be a daughter too. She wasn't a playful sister, Mama's girl or the chaste girlfriend of a church-boy another life would have permitted her to marry. She'd never have been enough for her mother to live for. She'd never be strong enough to fix her family. She didn't have one anymore and the guilt of finding relief in that was her own dirty, little secret that ate at her from the inside out.
Kate was different, indeed; and in a sense, wanted to be known as such. She wasn't much older but she was wiser. She didn't know what tomorrow brought but understood the twists of fate that allowed her to breathe, after it had extinguished so many others, were all that kept her alive anymore anyway. Her ever-loving heart had become distorted, blackened and rotted from within her chest. There was no love left in her. She felt owed a punishment for a crime she couldn't put her finger on but knew she had committed all the same. Still, she counted the marks on her body. They were real. She endured the nightmares, because they too were real. The cheap motels, the pools that reeked of too much chlorine and burned her eyes under the hot Mexican sun, the desert sand caught in her hair: it was all real. The Massacre at the Titty Twister: that was all too real. There was no solace, no sound sleep or painless moment for Kate.
There was only Seth.