Disclaimer: If I owned Victorious, I'd be making episodes, not writing fanfiction.
A/N: Hey everyone! Thanks for your amazing reviews for my first story. They were all so sweet and supportive and they gave me the confidence to start my first multi-chapter fic! It takes place several months after TWC.
*I just want to give a quick trigger warning for hints of sexual violence in this chapter. There will be no graphic descriptions, but if you feel that this chapter might be triggering for you, please do what you need to do to take care of yourself. Feel free to message me and ask me about the content of this chapter and of the rest of the story if you're not sure about reading it, I just don't want to give any spoilers for any of the other readers. : )
Also, this chapter will probably be the only one in the story that includes both Beck's and Jade's POV. I felt it was necessary for this particular chapter but the rest of the story will be from Beck's POV only.
Beck Oliver sighed as he fumbled with his keys, leaning heavily against the side of his RV.
He'd stayed a little later than he'd meant to at Tori's, where he and the rest of the gang (minus Jade) had been watching movies and eating popcorn. He was exhausted from a busy week of late rehearsals and while kicking back with his friends had provided some much needed stress relief, all he really wanted to do now was fall into bed and sleep for a very long time.
Entering the RV, Beck closed the door and stood still for a moment as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. He was momentarily struck, as he often had been in the past six months, by how quiet and empty it was.
Beck was doing pretty well with the break up, but every once in a while, late at night when he was dead tired like this, he remembered how nice it had been to curl up next to a warm body at the end of the day and to wake up to Jade's sleeping face in the morning.
It was normal, he rationalized, to miss her from time to time. It was perfectly natural that he would feel a little weird about going from spending every waking moment with Jade to barely even speaking to her.
She hadn't been there tonight. Maybe she'd been busy or maybe she hadn't been invited because his friends thought it would be too awkward to have the two of them in the same room all night.
He knew she wouldn't have come anyway.
Jade had made herself scarce lately, eating lunch at different tables and avoiding group hangouts. Beck knew that neither of them would feel comfortable being around each other at the scene of their disastrous break up.
Not that they felt comfortable around each other anywhere else.
Beck felt a momentary twinge of guilt at the thought that his decision to end their relationship had isolated Jade from their mutual friends, but he reminded himself that Jade had always preferred to be alone anyway. Besides, she still hung out with Cat, just not usually with the rest of the group.
Everything had turned out for the best for both of them really.
Not bothering to switch on the lights, Beck dropped his bag to the floor and stripped off his clothes as he walked towards his bed, leaving them in a messy trail behind him on the floor.
He crawled into bed wearing only his boxers, purposefully stretching himself to fill the space from which Jade was conspicuously absent. He heaved a deep sigh and dragged a hand across his face, squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth to stop the momentary wave of something (pain, guilt, nostalgia . . . loneliness) that washed over him every so often when he fell asleep without her or woke alone.
The feeling eased, as it always did, and Beck squirmed into a more comfortable position, emptying his mind of all thoughts of his ex-girlfriend and falling into a deep sleep, a smile on his face.
Jade West was angry.
Livid actually, not that that was anything new.
She slammed the locker room door shut, the sound echoing satisfyingly through the abandoned halls, and shouldered the black duffel bag that held her dance shoes and training clothes. She'd stayed late at a dance studio downtown to work on her fouettes, something she was still struggling with, after promising her instructor she'd close up.
Jade was confident in her abilities as a singer, actor, and writer and while her dancing was certainly above the average at Hollywood Arts, above average wasn't good enough for Jade. She knew she needed to give herself every possible advantage in the unforgiving performance industry and the only way to do that was to excel at everything. She could not afford to have a weakness.
That was one reason Jade was still at the dance studio just after midnight on a Friday night. The other was that since the break up, Jade had found herself with a lot more time on her hands and in need of near constant distraction. So here she was.
Exhausted, frustrated, and out way too late in a bad neighborhood.
The studio employed some of the best instructors in LA, but it was more than a bit creepy after dark. The walk to the public parking lot five blocks away was poorly lit and filled with catcalling idiots and drunken morons stumbling home from the dive bar across the street. It wasn't that Jade was scared exactly, it was more so just annoying to have to stay on her guard the entire way to her car, dealing with clumsy innuendos and lascivious stares from frat boys, twenty something workers, and the occasional high school kid with a fake id.
Jade closed the heavy studio doors behind her, staying aware of her peripheral vision as she turned to lock up. She glanced down the (thankfully) empty street before tossing her shoulders back and lifting her chin in an effort to look confident as she began the walk to the parking lot, her fist clenched around the handle of her sharpest pair of scissors inside of the pocket of her leather jacket.
Beck used to pick her up from these late night rehearsals. He knew she could take care of herself, but he had always insisted it made him feel better to know she wasn't walking alone in such a bad neighborhood so late.
"Just let me pick you up, babe," he'd say, his eyes twinkling mischievously at her. "Otherwise I'll just worry all night and it is very possible that all my hair will fall out from the stress. You wouldn't want that, would you?"
There was no one to worry about Jade now.
Jade got along with her mom, but she traveled a lot for work and Jade's father simply couldn't be bothered to pick her up so late, especially from something as "frivolous" as a dance class. Regardless, Jade's father was on a lecture tour, her mom was in Switzerland at a corporate retreat, and her little brother was staying with Jade's grandmother in Redondo Beach. Cat probably would have picked her up if she'd been able to drive and if there was any way in hell Jade would ever allow Cat to pick her up in a neighborhood like this. And Beck -
Beck wasn't her boyfriend anymore.
Jade shrugged off her feelings of hurt and resentment. She could handle herself and anyone else who came along. She was Jade West. She didn't need anyone and she certainly didn't care that Beck's concern for her safety had apparently dropped off at the same time he dropped her.
She was about half-way to the parking lot when the back of her neck started to tingle.
Her senses suddenly on high alert, Jade listened to the heavy footfalls and stifled laughter of what sounded like two men treading behind her, one of them chuckling at the muttered comment of the other.
Jade's grip tightened around the handle of the scissors in her pocket as she began to walk just slightly faster, not fast enough to raise suspicion but just enough so that she might make it close enough to the strip mall ahead that they'd be afraid to approach her.
She heard one of the men say goodnight to the other before he stumbled across the street and out of sight. The second pair of footsteps continued to follow her at an uncomfortably close distance.
Just three more blocks, Jade thought to herself. Three more blocks and bright lights and convenience stores and regular people going home from their night shifts. Three more blocks and a getaway vehicle.
Three more blocks and she was safe.
Unfortunately, the man behind her seemed to notice the slight quickening of her pace. His footfalls became louder and she could hear his unsteady breathing hitch slightly.
Jade sped up again.
"Hey! Where you going so fast, baby?"
The words were slurred, but undeniably threatening. The speaker wasn't drunk enough to be easily evaded, just drunk enough to give him the courage to harass her.
Jade kept walking, facing straight ahead, her fingers clenched almost painfully around the handle of her scissors.
"Hey. Hey! What's your name? Bitch, I'm talking to you!"
That was all it took for Jade to break into a run, her combat boots thudding hard against the ground.
She heard the man behind her swear and start to run, gaining on her quickly. He caught up to her in a few short seconds, grabbing her arm roughly. Jade screamed, but they both knew that she was too far away from anything for anyone to hear her. As she whirled around to face him, he pushed a hand over her mouth, stifling her scream. He quickly pushed the arm he was holding behind her back and pulled the other to meet it.
Jade's scissors flew out of her hand and skidded onto the grass, where they lay useless and unnoticed by her assailant.
Deprived of her only weapon, Jade began to struggle hard against her attacker, adrenaline pouring through her veins like liquid fire. She continued to scream, though she knew it was useless, in case by some miracle someone happened to be passing by. She managed to knee the man in the stomach (a little higher than she'd been aiming) and he cursed, letting go of one arm.
She scratched, punched, and kicked as hard as she could before he finally managed to get a clean shot at her face, his fist meeting her eye and cheekbone with startling force.
Jade swayed slightly, stunned by the impact, and her slight pause was enough for the man to regain the upper hand. He managed to force her to the ground, becoming angrier and more violent the harder she struggled until finally his heavy boot connected with her ribs, winding her and sending a shock of pain through her entire body. A sickening cracking sound met Jade's ears, but she was too dizzy to place it.
Jade could feel herself fading, the pain making it hard for her to focus. Her thrashes and kicks became weaker and less directed. Her body pulsed with a pain that made her mind blank and her ears ring. The man chuckled as she attempted a last feeble punch against his chest. He straddled her aching body, the pain of his thigh pressing against her injured ribs causing her vision to swim. She was struggling to breathe.
As the stranger on top of her began to unzip his pants with one hand, the other all that was needed to hold her battered body down, Jade thought wildly, seemingly out of nowhere, of Beck.
But Beck wasn't here.
He wasn't coming.
No one was.
Beck jolted awake and looked around for the source of the blaring noise that had interrupted what had been a very deep sleep. His eyes slipped blearily over the clock on his nightstand which blinked 2:09 am.
He'd only been asleep for an hour.
As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Beck struggled to shake his head free from its cloudy dream state. He slowly identified the noise as coming from his pearphone and felt clumsily around in his covers for a while before his hand closed around it.
"Hello?" Beck answered, the word barely audible around a large yawn.
"Hello, I'm calling for Beck Oliver," replied an unfamiliar female voice.
"Yes," Beck answered incoherently, confused about who, other than one of his friends, would be calling him in the middle of the - well, he guessed it was technically morning but -
"I'm calling from USC Hospital. You're listed as Jade West's emergency contact. She is currently under our care."
Beck's heart thudded to a stop.