Chapter One
I curled up, just tried to protect myself while they kicked me. It still hurt incredibly, every kick against my back or my shin...What had I done to them to deserve this? They didn´t talk anymore. A few minutes before they had insulted me, pushed and threatened me, but now I was just lying on the ground waiting for it to be over. Tears streamed down my face but I didn´t say a word, didn´t want to give them this satisfaction. It was terrible enough being someone´s victim again.
I heard engine noise. The others seemed to hear them too, because they disappeared as swift as they came, leaving me alone and injured lying on the ground. I tediously got up and immediatley wanted to lie down again - it just hurt so badly. But I had to get away from here. Didn´t want to get run over. Further tears streamed down my face as I trudged myself to the roadside. Motorcycles. They stopped, the drivers having seen me. Please go on...don´t look at me... I thought. But life always seemed to have a strange kind of humour. One of them finally addressed me.
"Everything okay?" he asked. I only could nod. "Just..." I had to oppress a sob. "Just fell a little badly, everything´s okay." Why couldn´t I just stop crying? It was so embarrassing. But somehow it didn´t matter anymore. I got up fully. Walking was painful and standing was even worse, but I would survive. As the one who addressed me wanted to prop me up, I jumped back and promptly fell on the ground again. "Zed, call an ambulance." the man said. "No, please, it´s okay. Really." Limping I passed the three men, walking down the mountain road. I just wanted to go for a walk, but it never went like planned, did it? "I don´t believe you should just go on like that. You have to get this patched up." the oldest one of them said. "No, thank you, but it´s really okay." I didn´t believe I was very convincing, but to be honest I didn´t care. I just wanted to go home...but I had left it behind two weeks ago in England. Then just somewhere else, far away from these incredibly curious guys.
Keep her there a bit longer, I´m on the way!
What was that? That voice? Where did it come from? Well, I just had to go on, step by step...dammit, it just hurt! And suddenly my inner strength collapsed, the pain gripping me completely by now. I didn´t care where I got or what happened to me. Nobody cared, everywhere I just was the victim, nobody would miss me. They should do whatever they wanted, at least they seemed to care, something completely new for me. I sat down on the ground and waited. Someone sat beside me, but I couldn´t see anything due to the tears. One of the others took my glasses and put them in his pocket.
"I´m Uriel, the other two are Trace and Zed. My brother´s on the way, he will patch this up for you, okay?" I nodded and sobbed, which lead to shifting my weight. It hurt and I started crying like a fountain. I was feeling sick, it should just stop finally, everything hurt, I wanted to go home. "I want to go home." I wasn´t able to say more. "You can go home soon, okay?" Uriel said. "But I don´t have one anymore..." I´ll never understand how they could understand anything through my sobs, but they did. Why? Why did this have to happen to me again and again and again? Somebody else arrived next to me. "Ouch, what did you do to get these?" Who was this? At least he seemed to have humour. "That´s our brother Xavier, he´ll help you." I didn´t trust these people. Careful I lifted my head and moaned as it hurt terribly. As Xavier wanted to touch me, I cringed. Nobody would just touch me so easily. "Hey, don´t be afraid, I really just wanna help you." But I couldn´t, I just couldn´t let him touch me. As I started crying again, Xavier took his chance and touched my face. It was pleasantly warm and somehow the pain really got better. Surprised I lifted my head again. "What...What are you doin`?" I asked. "Don´t worry, it´s okay." It was so warm since the pain was gone...and before I even could realize it I fell asleep.
I opened my eyes. Where was I? "Come on, the rest you´ll have to go by yourself." Trace told me, then put me down on my feet again. My circuit was really in a bad condition and I felt sick. I tumbled. Without further ado Trace proped me up, lead me up the way to the house. To get a little distracted from the pain I looked around me. It was warm, smelled pleasantly and everything was cleaned up. Dream house. The bath in the house was great, everything just was...great. Impressive. Different. I admired the atmosphere, the sorted chaos with all the things from so many different countries.
Xavier helped me out of my jacket and the shoes, then led me into the bathroom while Trace and Uriel went back to the people I could hear chatting in the living room. I was close to crying again. Cautious I sat down on the stool Xavier handed me. I didn´t really know what he was doing, but as he was done I felt better. And Xavier seemed to be very tired. Someone knocked on the door. Trace. "Do you wanna call your parents so they can pick you up?" For Christ´s sake, no! How should I explain this to them?
"No, thank you, I´ll just go now so it won´t be neccessary." "Oh please, come eat with us." A woman came in. Too many people in too little space. She looked nice, but I also could be wrong. I didn´t want all of this anymore... "I really just wanna get home..." I whispered. "Well, okay, then go call your parents sweetheart." I would never get used to those nicknames some english people tend to give. I just nodded tiredly and followed her to the phone. Thank god I already knew our new number. It took a while until someone picked up the phone. My motivation on going back sank with every second I had to wait. Because we had visited so many countries, we had a huge repertoire of languages we could communicate in, but as we originally came from Germany we mostly talked German.
"Hello?" It was so great hearing my mother´s voice... "Hey Mom, I got lost a bit and then fell so I´m a bit injured, but some people were there and they patched me up and stuff and they said I could eat with them, can I?" I heard her sigh. "I don´t like the thought of you being with complete strangers. Why are you even with them?" "Please, Mom! I think there are some kids from my new school." That trick clearly worked. "Well, I didn´t plan on cooking today so I think it´s okay. But be back in time!" "Of course. See you." She hung up, and I handed the phone back to the woman.
"What lie did you tell your parents?" I raised a brow. Who was that? The girl was just so pretty and looked so cute. "You just lied, although I couldn´t understand what you were saying." "I shall eat with you if it´s okay, my mother would be glad if she hadn´t had to do the cooking today." I answered. "Which language was that?" "German." "You come from Germany?" By God, who were all those people and why were they here? I nodded again. "Of course you can eat with us, doesn´t she Karla?" the sweet girl asked, speaking towards the kitchen where the woman had disappeared a few seconds ago. "Of course, come in! It´s nearly done." I wasn´t really hungry, just needed the time, but well, at least I could sit down.
I´ve never seen so many people sitting at one table. Somehow it seemed surreal, but I´ve lost the connection to reality anyways. "That´s Zed, our youngest, with his girlfriend, Sky. Over there we have Yves and Phoenix. You know Xavier already, right? Then we have Will, Victor, Uriel and Trace - did they introduce themselves already?" Karla explained. Wow, if I just got it right... the boys all were their children? I never had experienced such a big familiy. My own always had been very...contemplative.
"I´m Karla and that´s my husband Saul." They both seemed to be nice and worldly-wise, looking at each other with strong love. I put aside the things they remembered me of. "And what´s your name?"asked...who was this again? "Rylie." "Isn´t it a boy´s name?" "It´s possible for both sex." I tried the food. Not like at home, but still good. Everywhere there were some conversations. I felt really excluded. And as the conversation´s topic went towards me, I suddenly got very shy.
"What´s happened to you, Rylie?" I lowered my head. "Just fell down." "You don´t have to lie. You don´t get all these injuries just by falling, Rylie." Sky said. I shrugged. "Maybe I got beaten up a bit." I heard some of the guys swear, Karla admonishing them. "Obviously." Victor finally said. "You have to go to the police." Trace said. "That´s not neccessary. I couldn´t tell who´d done that." "You still can´t let them get away with this!" "Why?" "I´m sure you remember a few details that could help getting these..." he stopped as he saw his mothers` warning expression. "That´s just too much expense." "Just because of this attitude criminals often get away!" Why was he so mad about this? "They had their reasons." I said and went to the sink to clean my plate, but Karla got up immediatly. "No, sweetheart, you don´t have to do this, sit down please." I handed my plate to Karla. "I´m sorry, but I think I have to go home now. Thank you for your help and everything you did for me. Have a nice evening." And then I hurried to get away from this ridiculously vivid family.
A/N:
Hello :) Thank you for reading this!
This is my first English fanfiction! The original is written by me, too - of course in my native language- so if you accidentially also visited the website where the original is published and thought 'Oh, I know this!' it may be because of the fact that I just translated my own story to make it accessable for more readers since the Joss Stirling community seems to be very small. Which is very sad, admittedly. Still, if you find this story elsewhere, please tell me to make sure nobody copied my ideas.
So, I hope you liked this first chapter and will continue reading. Nevertheless, I love useful feedback, so if you have anything to add like any mistakes, things you don´t understand or any ideas of how you could imagine the story to go on, please don´t hesitate to tell me. I won´t bite, pinky promise! What do you think of Rylie by now?