Author's Notes: Oh dear... This came out as terribly, terribly dark. I was intending it to be dark, but wow, is this dark. For any of you who have been following my collaboration Stage Lights, this is Jay, I wrote this fic on my own. Leigh was drowning in Bela feels when she heard the song and it gave me the idea to write a songfic. The song is Blown Away by Carrie Underwood, and I recommend you give it a listen before you read. I'm warning you right now, it's pretty freaking dark. Rated M for implied and stated non-consensual pedophilic incest, as well as the demon deal that led to her father's death. This will not be pretty, but I feel like it was something that had to be written. I hope it's a good read for a oneshot songfic, so leave a review and tell me what you think. The time jumps around a little bit, but it's pretty easy to follow.
Blown Away
Dry lightning cracks across the skies
Those storm clouds gather in her eyes
Abby laid on her side on the soft sheets, bitter tears streaming down her face and soaking into the pillow. Every part of her still hurt, and she cradled her bruised wrists gently, wishing she could get ice to soothe them. But she couldn't get up and go get ice. That would mean leaving the room and walking down the hallway, and walking past her daddy's bedroom. And there was no way she was doing that.
Resistance only proved futile, but that never stopped her. She fought him every time, until she didn't have enough strength to keep fighting. And every time he won; every time she tried to fight him off he would overpower her. She was just a thirteen year old girl.
At that moment, Abby hated the world. She hated that this was happening to her and not someone else. It should happen to some terrible person who deserved every bit of it. And she would gladly pass on her burden. If only she could.
Huddled underneath her blanket, she heard the crash of thunder from outside her window. Painfully pulling herself up into a sitting position, she reached for her discarded nightgown where it lay on the edge of the bed. It was newly torn from her father's rough hands, and stained with a spill of his whiskey. Slipping it on anyway, she stood up slowly, ignoring the discomfort in her legs and thighs, and what lay between.
She made her way to the window, pushing it up and throwing the shutters wide open. A trickle of blood ran down her left leg, and she wiped it away with the edge of her nightgown before returning her attention to the outside world. Black clouds broiled in the evening sky, blocking out the moon and turning the ambient light of the moon into a dark, ominous shadow. Another lightning bolt flashed, but she could see no rain. The thunder struck a moment later, and it was almost as though Abby was looking in a mirror.
Her very own storm had been brewing for quite some time.
Her daddy was a mean old mister
Mama was an angel in the ground
That fateful day was full of black.
The coffin was black, the dirt was black, everyone there was dressed in black. And yet, there was something more than what met the eye that was also black.
Abby's future was indeed black.
She stood stone still throughout the entire funeral, watching as they lowered her mother into the ground. Her father had been distant since her mother's death, but on that day, it was as though he was separate from the entire world. He walked away the second the ceremony was over and they started filling the dirt in, and Abby silently followed him to the car and sat in the backseat.
On the way home, he stopped at a liquor store. Came out with a bottle of whiskey and then downed a quarter of it right in front of her, and then continued driving.
That was the first time he took up the bottle. That one moment was the start of it all crashing down around her.
The label on the bottle was black.
The weatherman called for a twister
She prayed blow it down
When the little girl sat down next to her on the swing, Abby had no idea what was about to happen.
"I could make it stop, you know," the little girl told her.
Abby was startled. How could this girl she didn't even know have any idea what was going on with her, let alone be able to stop it?
And then the girl turned toward her, and her eyes were red.
All it took was her soul. And she'd have ten years. Ten glorious years to live free from his torment. She couldn't help but make the deal.
Then, when she walked into the living room, and her daddy was asleep with the whiskey in his hand; the TV was tuned to the weather channel. She saw the storm system brewing, and the tornado warning flashed across the bottom of the screen.
Was this how the demon was going to make it stop?
Abby nearly shocked herself when she realized that she didn't care.
There's not enough rain in Oklahoma
To wash the sins out of that house
The first time he did it, he drank an entire bottle of whiskey first.
He was always drunk when it happened. Abby wondered if he would have started if he never drank. But thinking about things like that didn't make anything go away, so she never dwelled on it.
He called her his little girl, his beautiful little girl, but the things he did to her made her feel ugly. And filthy. When she fought him, it only made him rougher. He pushed in further, making her cry out in pain. She nearly always bled from the force. She always had bruises.
That first night, the second he stumbled into her bedroom, she was scarred.
There's not enough wind in Oklahoma
To rip the nails out of the past
Nothing could ever repair the damage he'd done. Nothing could ever fully wash away the blood and dirt, or heal the bruises. The emotional damage would never be forgotten. She was scarred inside and out, forever.
Realizing that there wasn't any way that her father could atone for what he'd done was one of the reasons Abby made the deal. He would never stop. He was too twisted to stop. Too drunk and twisted.
So she did the only thing she could do. The only option she had, presented to her on a silver platter.
If nothing could ever change what had happened, the least she would do was make sure it stopped.
Shatter every window till it's all blown away
Every brick, every board, every slamming door blown away
Huddled in the basement, she could hear the nasty wind ripping up the house. Everything that was in it, every door her father had slammed, every piece of furniture, every little part of that place she'd once called home was being ripped apart and blown into the sky.
The cellar door rattled, straining against the tornado's power, but the thick metal bar she'd put into place held. She was safe. Her deal was working, not the way she'd intended, but it was still working.
Abby pulled her jacket around her just a bit tighter and waited.
That house hadn't been a home for a very long time.
Till there's nothing left standing, nothing left of yesterday
Every tear-soaked whiskey memory blown away
Climbing up those stairs was one of the most memorable moments in Abby's history. That moment when she pulled the metal bar out and shoved open the cellar door, walking out into the hazy air, to turn around and see that the only things left of her house were the foundations.
Her father was gone forever.
Something told her that she should be upset that it was her fault, but she shoved it aside. He deserved much more than what he got.
She wished that the twister could have taken away her memories. But that part of her was still standing, and always would be.
She walked through the foundations of her broken home and onto the front lawn, looking around. The houses in her neighborhood were placed far enough apart that hers being the only one to be hit by the twister wouldn't look that unnatural, especially with the trail of destruction on the actual street and on her property it left in its wake.
And even if it did look unnatural, it's not like she cared.
She walked down to the sidewalk and her foot smacked into something hard, which skittered across the pavement.
It was an empty bottle of whiskey.
Her father's hand was still attached.
She heard that siren screaming out
Daddy laid there passed out on the couch
The alert for the area was on full throttle, a loud alarm pealing through the neighborhood to warn people to take cover. Abby heard it, and knew that it was time.
She got out of her bed, walking down the hallway and down the stairs, seeing her father still asleep in the living room. She stopped.
Could she really do this? Abandon her own father to be swept up by the tornado that her demon deal had conjured?
The reasons why she made the deal in the first place came back to her, and she did the only thing she could do.
She walked right past her sleeping father and out the back door.
She locked herself in the cellar,
Listened to the screaming of the wind
Some people call it taking shelter
She called it sweet revenge
Shatter every window till it's all blown away
Every brick, every board, every slamming door blown away
Till there's nothing left standing, nothing left of yesterday
Every tear-soaked whiskey memory blown away
It was finally over. All of it was over. Gone with the wind.
When it came time for the funeral, her neighbor, a family friend, came over to help her get dressed. She brought a dress with her, and a veil.
Abby took one look at the black garments and tossed them aside. She went into her closet and took out a dress.
The dress was white.
Everyone at the funeral looked at her, but only she knew the real reason why she wasn't wearing black. She was wearing white because it was the white of her purity, of her innocence, that her father had forever stained black with his tainted hands.
If only one thing about her could be white and pure, it might as well be her dress.
She looked around, seeing all the people dressed in black, looking down at her and pitying her, saying things to each other like "She's so young," and "That poor little girl." If only they knew.
This time, when they lowered the coffin into the ground and started to fill the dirt in, Abby stayed to watch.
She watched every last grain as it buried her torture forever.
There's not enough rain in Oklahoma
To wash the sins out of that house
There's not enough wind in Oklahoma
To rip the nails out of the past
She didn't know where the name Bela came from. She supposed it came from her own sense of beauty, how she withstood everything her horrid life threw at her and came out on the other side. Even though she didn't actually think she was beautiful. Bela looked in the mirror and all she could think was ugly. She was ugly for what she did to her father. But she still couldn't manage to care.
Bela always remembered. Every day she thought about what had happened. She pondered multiple scenarios and tried to think of any other way she could have gotten her father to stop. But she always came to the same conclusion. The only way out was through her deal.
It didn't stop her from living to the fullest. She was the best damn thief that ever existed. She had more money than she knew what to do with, but it never filled that gaping hole in her soul where love used to live.
Bela Talbot didn't know what love was. She'd stopped loving anything the second her father entered her when she was thirteen years old.
Now twenty-two, she had less than a year left. Until the demon came to collect. All she did was push harder. She had searched for ways to escape the deal, but nothing came of it. Eventually, she just stopped trying. She had lived her life, her ten years without that torture, and soon she started wondering if it was all worth it.
That last night, when she heard the snarling hellhounds closing in on her, and thought about what was going to happen next, she realized it wasn't worth it.
But there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.
Shatter every window till it's all blown away
Every brick, every board, every slamming door blown away
Till there's nothing left standing, nothing left of yesterday
Every tear-soaked whiskey memory blown away
Blown away