Krista just stood there, unmoving as she heard Ymir walk down the stairs, a loud "fuck me! She ain't half bad, now back to the game!" could be heard above Krista's soft sobs before the flood gates were opened.
What just happened? Why would she react that way? What did I do wrong? All these thoughts were whirling across the synapses in Krista's brain. With all these questions occupying all her conscious processing power Krista could just about muster the strength to stagger to the wooden door, attempt to open it and pursue her paid lover. The strength borrowed broke its limits and she collapsed by the door, sliding down to meet the carpet. The draught from under the door flowed over her bare form causing goose bumps to arise on the surface of her skin; she didn't know what to do. The threat given has happened to her before and it was the worse 6 months of her life, the man who threatened her was high up in the local gang and she was used as much as a social networking site. She knew the look in Ymir's eyes had more to it than enforcing rules, it almost seemed personal. Krista had found out from previous events that this was the type of repercussion equal to an atom bomb going off in your garden than a small frag grenade in the neighbouring street.
Tears that were long overdue began to form and trickle over Krista's cheeks, falling from her chin onto her lap. Alongside Krista's fear for the future, confusion over the past, and pain of the present there was an odd twang that accompanied the confusion. It was almost as if she had a crack in her walls against getting personally involved, that one command of treating Ymir like a lover didn't feel like something she had to force herself to do like all the countless others, it danced through her as if it were vintage wine poured from the bottle.
Krista had felt this way before, a long time ago when her life was at the tipping point of turning into the twisted, chaotic world it now is. Her childhood wasn't a nice one but it was better in comparison to what she had now.
The lynch pin to her world was her mother.
Before the fall Krista had a rocky home life but she was too young and immature to understand the nature of the problems her parents had with her and each other. All she knew for a fact was that 'daddy hits mummy and mummy didn't love her.' The only support network she ever had was her grandmother; she would look after her when things got too heated in the house which ended up being once a month or so. Her grandmother was the hippie type: long waves of silver hair, colourful silk scarves, wooden necklaces, and flowers everywhere. She always thought of her grandmother as the keeper of peace and nature. The blonde always distinctly remembered her Gran's glasses, big round things with blue tinted lenses but there was always a small chip in them. She went through several pairs and all of them had the same chip in the same place; the story goes that there were three bears and she had to fight them off to keep young Krista safe. When the glasses changed, the marks remained the same but six-year-old Krista would always ask how the small unnoticeable chip in the blue tinted glass emerged. A smile always bloomed on her grandmother's face as soon as she asked and eventually it only took "well… there were three bears" for both of them to begin to giggle and the story was never repeated again. She passed away when Krista was ten and a lonely girl's comfort went with her, she was on her own and felt the wrath of her father everyday with no reprieve.
The house pretending to be her home seemed dismal, smiles were a rare currency that was stolen as soon as it was forged and the source destroyed. Her mother's face was permanently taught in pain and when she saw Krista it turned into one of disgust. The grey eyes that held the emotion of a dead fish bore into her, relentless in their attack.
All acceptance from everyone who knew her name was lost to the ages.
She was a grounded bird who just wanted to escape the cage and learn to sing.
When she turned eleven, she was given two black eyes for the first time and a slash across her back with the kitchen knife. She walked into the front room to blow out her birthday candles and her mother refused to let her cut the cake, as soon as she started to leave her mother threw the blade at her. Luckily it missed her head but it skimmed her back tearing her pyjamas and her flesh. Five years later she still has a feint scar from her right hip trailing to her left shoulder blade.
By her twelfth birthday she concluded everything bad that could happen will. Once again she was in the front room on the morn of her birthday, her mother walked in with the same knife, presented it as if it were a gift meant for her accompanied by feint words of prayer and her wrists were opened up. Slashed across at the thinnest skin, tearing the tendons like broken violin strings then a deep line dragged upwards. The blade didn't travel so smoothly. It tugged on muscle as the blood begun to clot before bursting again as soon as the sharp metal passed by its supplier. The blonde couldn't recall much after that apart from all the white in the room being stained. They were too poor to afford wallpaper replacement, her gifts serenaded in her mother's arterial blood. The one thing her father did was pay for therapy, rehabilitate her so she would be "functioning".
Mid way through her fourteenth year on this planet she started work, most teens by that age had a paper round but she was doing different types of rounds. Her father never met anyone new, she didn't think he could bring a woman with a beating heart into his life let alone anyone who would condone of his way of income. A few women entered the house for 'night time' activity in which the young girl was forced to watch and learn how to please a man, her own private lessons and of course she had to pay for the service by using what she had learnt on customers. All this time she was going to school and acing all of her classes, even she found it miraculous that she was getting the exemplary grades she was achieving with all the devils work she was forced to do.
The blonde's year so far was quiet: she turned sixteen in January, she revised a lot for her GCSE's, she finished secondary school in July, she had prom which ended how she expected it, and now in late August got the results she wanted. None of that changed the fact her heart felt as if it were stolen and she was naked on her own floor.
Krista slowed her breathing, cycling the air and regaining control over her small form. Laying her hands flat beside her she rested her back against the door and spread her legs in front of her instead of leaving them in the heap that she had landed in. Quietly banging her head against the rough wood, tears that were threatening to leak from her eyes once again saw through their promise. Shoulders yielding to the demand of heavy crying, her entire body followed suit and began to shake. Krista wasn't a pretty crier, she was the type of girl who snotted everywhere and got the hiccups. She remained that way for a couple of minutes, only stopping her waterworks after her father yelled at her from downstairs to "shut the fuck up girl!" She knew where this would lead if she didn't do as she was told, once before she was beaten so bad that she had her arm broken in 5 places, her father didn't care, she was in so much pain that she screamed and when she didn't stop her father came up into the room and broke her leg so she would pass out, she was forced to walk to school the following day and then school took her to the hospital.
Drawing her legs closer she pulled herself onto her hands and knees, crawling over to her clothes. Pausing at each pile, she collected the removed articles and threw them to the bed. Once finished she made her way to the place where most men violate her. Gathering her strength she raised herself to her feet whilst her shoulders still threatened to shake and her knees to buckle from underneath her. One knee followed the other as they met the mattress, moving sluggishly to the middle of the bed. The twang the young woman felt between her legs had not yet left her, reminding her of what had happened with Ymir. She knew she had to get changed and go down stairs and continue to flirt, attempt to draw the customer back for another round or another visit on a different day, what Ymir had already said to her is that she was to get several repeat visits by the gambler but also others. She knew the brunette wouldn't say anything as threatening to her father but Ymir's mind was crafty and could easily make it sound like a business proposition, sound more formal in the way that these men tended to do. Of course her father would have to agree, it meant more income as well as more company and the better the opportunity to expand his own business; chance mingle amongst the bigger gangs and make his services available to them too.
When Krista's form was covered she once again had to force her head to remain high and her shoulders straight, to force her feet through the struggle of passing the doorway. She only wavered on the stairs but as soon as she was in eye sight she was the same old sultry girl.