Please, check out my first ORIGINAL NOVEL! The Breaking of Poisonwood by Paradise Avenger. (Summary: People were dead. When Skye Davis bought me at a slave auction as a birthday present for his brother, I had no idea what my new life was going to be like, but I had never expected this. It all started when Venus de Luna was killed and I was to take her place, to become the new savior… Then, bad things happened and some people died. In the heart of the earth, we discovered the ancient being that Frank Davis had found and created and used to his advantage. The Poisonwood—)

Alright! The idea for this story comes from Anonymous xD so thank you very much! You didn't give me much to work with so I'll be just kind of going with the flow of this story!

Anyway, I have MOVED this story COMPLETELY to another site. You can find this STORY and all its subsequent UPDATES here: h*t*t*p :/ archiveofourown. o*r*g /works/1141975/chapters/2310610

I have the same penname there as I do here: ParadiseAvenger

X X X

The streets of Clow had never been a forgiving place: not to children who fell on its cobbled sandy surface, not to women flung into the heat by families or husbands, not to the urchins that lived in the gutter. The desert nights were freezing cold and the sun boiled blood in veins during the day. It was not a pleasant place if you didn't have a roof over your head, but Clow's people were kind and happy. Clow's ruler, Prince Li Syaoran, was also as kind and gentle as his people. He often walked the streets, trying to help wherever he could and offering assistance to anyone who needed it. He was a good man and would have smoothed the hardness of Clow's streets if he knew what was wrong, but the urchins in the gutter kept themselves scarce whenever he was strolling through the city. They didn't know him and assumed they would be carted off to a dark dungeon somewhere for tarnishing Clow's appearance.

It was on such a day when Prince Syaoran was walking through Clow that our tale first begins, but not with him…

This tale begins with the abuse of a street urchin called simply Sakura.

Sakura had lived on the streets of Clow since she was seven, abandoned by her mother and father and completely alone. She managed to survive by begging, eating out of the trash, and sometimes being given a meal by one of Clow's kind and observant citizens, but no one ever took her in. She wandered the streets for nine years, living in a ragged black coat and carrying everything she had in a worn knapsack. Life wasn't good and it wasn't easy, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

A friend of hers, a beautiful girl who called herself Chi with long platinum blonde hair, had been scooped up by a man just last week. Only Hell knew what he was doing to her in the confines of his lavish home when no one was watching, but at least Chi would be warm and fed. That was more than Sakura could say for herself.

Sakura sneaked around behind the houses, through the alleys and sewers that only other urchins knew of. The prince would be paying a visit to Clow's unforgiving cobblestone street today, so Sakura and every other urchin would be lying low until he was gone. She shimmied through a cut fence, scratching her face and catching her coat on the sharp metal, but it didn't really matter. The little scrapes wouldn't be seen under the filth that coated her skin.

"Oi! Xing-Huo, where are you?!" Sakura hissed once she reached the place where her little group of urchins always met. Slinking through the back alleys always called for strength in numbers lest one of the gangs catch you alone and unawares. Girls, especially at the tender age of sixteen or so, were the gangs' favorite prey.

Xing-Huo, Chi, Sakura, and Tomoyo always stayed together on days where Prince Syaoran walked the streets, but now Chi was gone. It was just Xing-Huo, Sakura, and Tomoyo now.

Tomoyo was a rough and tumble girl having been born on the streets to a broken family of five consisting of her exhausted mother, three brothers, and drunken father. Her father often beat her mother and, after he had struck her several times and nearly raped her, Tomoyo decided she could stay in her home no longer. She and her brothers split like a ripe banana and hadn't returned home since. Tomoyo was small and thin and cynical. She hated the world, frowned upon it with her red mouth and blue-grey eyes. Her hair was long and fine and as dark as silk, but she wore it in a ratty braid to keep it from growing matted. She was pretty, not Chi's gentle soft beauty, but pretty enough to attract too much attention from men. She had been pregnant twice already, and not by her own will, but had given up the babies for adoption. She couldn't support them and couldn't bear to kill them or leave them to die. Maybe Tomoyo had suffered the most.

Xing-Huo may have been better off. She, at least, had a father, but Fei-Wang was as big as he was mean. He often came looking for Xing-Huo, but she would never return home to his lighted bedroom and video cameras. (Fei-Wang dabbled in amateur pornography.) Like Tomoyo, Xing-Huo was pretty enough to star in Fei-Wang's home made movies, but had no wish to do so. She had long densely curled black hair and big innocent purple eyes and a soft voice. She still searched for the good in the world and Tomoyo often hated her for that. Chi had shared Xing-Huo's trust and so Sakura was the glue that kept the girls together without killing each other. After all, the world was to dark for them to be against each other as well as the gangs.

"Sakura, there you are!" Xing-Huo practically emerged from the wall, scaring Sakura half to death. "Where have you been? I've been waiting for hours!"

Sakura smacked her arm lightly and pressed her other hand over her pounding heart. "Don't do that to me! Pop out of nowhere like that! You just took ten years off my life!"

"Then she did you a favor," Tomoyo snapped and pushed through the fence behind Sakura. "You two are such morons. Quit being so noisy! The idea is to sneak around and meet secretly or have you idiots forgotten that?" Then, she shuffled through the big pockets of her smoky smelling coat and produced three sandwiches and an apple. "Here, I swiped these yesterday." She handed out the sandwiches and then they all gazed at the apple. "I snagged it for Chi," she confessed. "Guess I wasn't thinking."

No one said anything, each trapped in their own horror stories of what could possibly be happening to Chi without them. She was just so good and so trusting.

Sakura took her sandwich from Tomoyo and handed the second to Xing-Huo. "Just put if back in your pocket. We can cut it up later," she said flatly without looking at her companions. "Where are we staying tonight? It's going to rain."

Xing-Huo shrugged and bit into the sandwich. "I've got a holey umbrella," she offered.

"That's a good idea. We can stay in the church," Sakura said once she had chewed and swallowed the bite of food she had in her mouth. "High priest Yukito-san won't toss us out into the rain."

Tomoyo snorted. "Are you sure about that? I saw him cleaning out the church earlier for you-know-who's visit," she grumbled pessimistically.

"You never know until you try. Come on, let's go," Xing-Huo said and wrapped up her sandwich before stuffing it into the inner pocket of her coat and shouldering her bag. Sakura did the same and followed her and, after grumbling darkly, Tomoyo did, too.

The girls slunk through the alleys like a bunch of stray cats, keeping quiet with practiced ease and keeping to the deep shadows cast by Clow's late evening setting sun. Sakura was the first to reach the bend in the alley where no speck of sunlight penetrated the darkness and, therefore, the first to be grabbed.

A gang had snuck up on them!

Tomoyo pulled out several knives and threw two of them. She wounded one man, but he wasn't the one holding Sakura so it didn't help her struggling friend. "You let her go!" She hurled another knife at one of the gang members – small cruel man called Spider – who was holding Sakura several feet above the ground by her hair. He caught the knife between two fingers, twirled it, and tossed it back at Tomoyo. She dodged, but barely.

Xing-Huo screamed and struggled as another two men grabbed her by each of her arms and twisted her wrists at dangerous painful angles. Tear pricked at the backs of her eyes, but she swallowed the whimper of pure agony that wanted to escape. "To-Tomoyo," she whispered only to have her arms jerked viciously behind her back.

Spider snickered. "You girls are so cute. Do you actually think you can get away?"

Sakura thrashed, tried to kick him, but he caught her foot and twisted it in the same way Xing-Huo's arms were being twisted. He twisted so hard that her entire leg bunched up as though the bones were about to break beneath the skin. Sakura whimpered. If he broke her leg, she could consider herself dead.

"Stop!" Tomoyo shouted. "Don't you hurt her!" She made the mistake of lunging right at Spider and was caught like a fly in his web.

"Tomoyo, right?" He asked with a sneer. "And this is Xing-Huo?" He glared at her with those cruel eyes of his. "You're Fei-Wang's little slut, aren't you? I hear he has a reward out for your safe return, did you know that?"

A fire lit behind Xing-Huo's eyes and her lip pulled back over her teeth in a snarl. "Fei-Wang is a bastard! I will never return to him!"

"That's okay, don't worry. We will return you," Spider said simply. "Boys, go easy on her. She's worth money unharmed, but these two," he paused to gaze at Sakura and Tomoyo up and down, "they're not worth anything to us. Do whatever you want!" Then, he tossed Sakura into the waiting arms of the gang.

She knew what sort of fate awaited her and Tomoyo if they managed to drag them back to wherever their lair was. On one hand, Prince Syaoran was out and about today so all of Clow was packed into the streets and they would hear her if she screamed for help, but on the other hand, they would expose themselves as street urchins. God only knew what would happen to them in a dungeon or in Prince Syaoran's possession.

Tomoyo was kicking and struggling. If given proper distraction, she would easily be able to get away. If Sakura screamed, the diversion would be set and Tomoyo could get away. There wasn't anything Sakura could do for Xing-Huo, even with a scream, but maybe Spider would scatter like a roach under too much light if people came running down the alley to see what the commotion was.

So, she made her decision, sacrificed herself for her friends—not a bad way to go.

Sakura opened her mouth and screamed as high and loud as she could.

"Shit!"

Something was shoved in her mouth, but the damage was done. She could hear footsteps racing down the alley and voices chattering to each other. The gang scattered like flies and Sakura saw Xing-Huo dash between two dumpsters to hide in the shadows. Tomoyo grabbed her under her arms and tried to haul her up, but Sakura's leg was hurt and she wouldn't be going anywhere. She knew that, so with a smile, she waved Tomoyo away. Tomoyo bit her lip, nodded once, turned, and ran.

Amazing how quickly things could just go to hell in a hand basket.

Sakura pulled the gag out and laid there in the mud like a used and broken doll. She hoped for the best and waited for the worst, as always.

People crowded around her, whispering and chattering about what was to be done. She didn't see a princely face among them, just an amber-eyed boy who peeled his shirt off to wrap it over her nudity though she didn't remember having her clothes ripped off.

"Jeez," the boy muttered. "Is she anyone's daughter or sister?"

There was a murmur and someone said, "She's a street kid."

"Shit," the boy swore and then hefted her up in his arms. Sakura couldn't help thinking that he smelled very good, clean. "Why didn't anyone tell me about this? Are there more of her?"

There was more murmuring and someone else, an old woman by the sound of it, muttered, "Yes, of course. Aren't there everywhere? Children that no one wants, that even the brothels won't accept, children from broken homes and bad situation. Street urchins, tramps, rogues, thieves."

The boy rumbled low in his chest and the people parted like the sea around him.

Sakura shifted in his arms and clutched at her leg. It hurt a good deal more than Spider's twisting should have made it. Maybe it was broken. She whimpered and pressed her hands at the place where it hurt the worst. She felt no break, but her hands came away sticky and red.

"Just hold on. I'm going to patch you up myself and then we're going to fix this mess."

Sakura's vision was swimming and then everything faded to black.

Now, most stories would decidedly skip to the place where the handsome prince saves his soon-to-be princess, but behind that glittering façade of golden sand and a kind prince, there was darkness in Clow beyond anyone's imagining, beyond anyone's worst nightmares. And into that darkness, Sakura had just unknowingly delivered herself.

She woke up in a bed which would have been nice had she not been chained to it. It was a four-poster canopy bed handsomely draped with silk and lace and the heavy velvet curtains were drawn closed. The sheets beneath her body were silk, slick and cool and soft, and the pillows behind her head were fluffy and crisp. She may have been in the palace, but she wasn't. She knew for a fact she wasn't because this décor was something she had seen only once before and was not happy to be seeing again.

It was the interior of Spider's house, his big lavishly decorated bedroom and his handsome bed.

Each of her limbs were tied to one of the four posters, keeping her legs spread and her body grievously unable to fight anything that may be coming upon her in the darkness of his murky house. It was raining outside, thunder rumbling and lightning flashing through the big bay windows that lined the room. Each flash illuminated the room, but plunged her unadjusted eyes into spots of color and light. If she screamed, no one would hear her.

Sakura shivered, wet her lips, and wriggled against the bonds that held her. Her elbow brushed some heated naked skin beside her and she froze. She had been wearing long sleeves and her coat and tight jeans and socks and boots and a heavy sweatshirt, but she could feel the sheet beneath her back and the slight draft that brushed her breasts. She worked up some spit and swallowed with some difficultly. The next crash of thunder had her ears ringing and the body beside her stirred from sleep. She found herself staring directly into Spider's big amber eyes and he grinned like the monster he was.

Sakura screamed, but no one heard her.

X X X

And I removed the original mature content that continued from that point due to the trolls. Please read this story and all its updates in its original version on Archive of Our Own.

Sorry, Anonymous xD, if it's not quite what you were expecting, but this is what I got.

Reviews, please, or Sakura will continue to suffer in Spider's evil hands!

(Yes, that's a threat.)