When you think all is forsaken, listen to me now,
Alls not forsaken, you need never feel broken again.
Sometimes darkness can show you the light.
The Light by Disturbed

Speeding east she chainsmoked and shivered, trembled and shook Remy was unable to calm down completely. She listened to "Blackbird" by The Beatles way too much and made the decision she had been avoiding. If she had gone there first...but she didn't. Now she really had no choice.

The prodigal daughter was going home again, after almost eight years of estrangement. Home was where they had to take you in no matter what, that was how the saying went right? They wouldn't shut the door on her would they? No, her father wouldn't.

As the miles passed and she traveled west to east, she vowed to get her shit together somehow, be a good example for Jenny and not someone that existed on the fringes of her life anymore.

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly."

When she showed up at her parents house three days later, after stopping in a motel to sleep one night, only to have nightmares all night long, with a healing black eye and a fresh one, all cut up and bruised her father had begun to cry. He took her in his arms and for the first time since she left that monster floating in the pool to die she cried too.

She had cleaned herself up as best she could, but she must have looked awful still, there was only so much a shower and a little make up could do anyway. It was what it was.

Remy didn't know if her father was crying because she looked so beat up, or was he glad to see her, but she found that she didnt care, didn't care about so many things now. From behind him Jenny stood on the stairs sobbing, and her mother, and that just made Remy cry more.

Her father, who had always been in her side had taken one look at her and disolved, sobbed, huge wracking sobs and Remy was undone by the love raidiating from him, he loved her. It was almost too much to bear. Then he wrapped her in his arms and said, "Welcome home sweetheart, we missed you."

/

Her room was still there waiting for her, just the way she had left it right next to Jenny's and soon she fell into a routine. After she had healed physically Remy got a job at the local wall mart, just something to pass the time as she figured out her next move. She thought about going to college with Jenny, they made plans together.

Jenny had been small when Temy left and now she was almost all gwon up, so much time wasted; but she was there now. It wasn't too late, she had lived and she wasn't going to squander her good fortune again.

She bought clothes, and a new phone, but she was healing mentally at a slower pace.

Remy made peace with her mother, they had some sort of unspoken understanding now, now that she was an adult, and not running off to get married at seventeen. She had grown up it seemed and her mother knew that. She allowed her mother to be a mother, to help her now. Finally, Beverly wanted to help her, and she didnt feel so out in the cold anymore.

Something had changed. It wasn't perfect but they were trying.

Remy knew that they had seen her at her worst, knowing somehow that she had barely made it home to them. That five more minutes either way would have changed her fate, somehow they knew it had been a close call.

It was ok.

She tried not to think of it, of him or what happened too much, only when she had to and she worked hard at closing the book on that horrifying chapter in her life. It was over, dead and buried, like he was, if God was good. She didn't call Sylvia and Sylvia didn't call her, and that was fine, but disturbing. Sylvia had known, she had some idea what he meant to do, Remy was sure of it. Sylvia had been her friend she thought, but she hadn't warned her about him, and that made her complicit in what had happened.

But she had to let that go, she would go crazy if she didnt.

She spent a lot of time listening to music on her Ipod, gone were the days when she would turn up her music to be annoying, her earbuds did her just fine, and all her music; specifically, "The Light", by Disturbed.

"It's not a blight, but a remedy."

The only reminder was on her right inner thigh, he had carved MAC there, his name, to mark her forever as his, then sucked her blood like a vampire. Three weeks after she got home she had gone to her old friend from high school's tattoo joint, a la Lisbeth Salander, and had him ink over the cut name to make it permenent and add a knife and ice pick next to it. Now it was with her forever, his name on her thigh, like Lisbeth's rape chain around her ankle; although she could never wear a bikini again or shorts, it needed to be there as a reminder that she had lived through this.

"An unforgivable tragedy, the answer isn't where you'd think you'd find it.
Prepare yourself for a reckoning, for when your wold seems to crumble again.
Don't be afraid, don't turn away.
You're the one who can redefine it, don't let hope become a memory."

She spent a lot of time in the backyard on her days off, listening to music and laying in the sun, reading. She had started to meditate and do yoga at the advise of her therapist. She drank herbal tea; but peace was not her friend...yet, but it was coming. In therapy, she accepted that she had been a victim, and hadn't consented to anything that had happened to her. Despite what her body did, or her reaction or feelings about him, he had assaulted her, drugged her and finally she accepted that. It had not been her fault, and she had not wanted it. It wasn't her fault, never had been.

But that had taken months to process through; peace would come one day.

Outside on the deck on warm days, Remy read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, again, twice. She had a kinship with Lisbeth Salander now. Years ago when she first read the book, about among other things, a woman who gets revenge on her rapist, she'd had no idea what the book would one day mean to her life, and it was always her favorite. Even before.

Now she related to Lisbeth on a whole new level, and she sometimes felt bad ass like her, on good days. They were similar in size, small framed women, living on the friges of society, and they both dyed their red hair black. Now, she had something else in common with the fictional character she loved, she didn't want to but it had happened.

Remy was in treatment for Hepetitis C, he had given it to her, like a creul parting gift, but so far she was HIV negative. Thank God for small favors, right? Yes, you're damn well right and she hadn't been pregnant, thank Christ. Thinking about that made chills break out all over her skin even months later, thank Christ.

Hep C wouldn't kill her right away at least, and that was something to be grateful for. Maybe they would find a cure in her lifetime, there was always hope.

She stopped dying her hair and soon it was her natural red again, she liked it for now. She was starting to like who she was becoming, and sitting in the room she once felt was a prison made her feel free.

Ten months later

Summer was coming again, and she actually looked forward to it, she looked forward to a lot of things now, she had been changed by what she went through, and it had been a good change, from something so horrible.

She and Jenny were eating pizza that night; she would always remember it, pepperoni and peppers, their favorite and pepsi cola from Portofino's, the best place in town. It had been just like any other night from their childhood, or the months that she was home now. Family time was something not to be wasted now, life was precarious, especially for some people.

It was just an ordinary night, they had planned to watch movies and be silly together; they had missed out on so much and were rarely apart now. They chatted together about Jenny being accepted to college and Remy was thinking more and more about going to school.

As she shoved her second piece of deliciousness into her mouth the phone rang on the table beside her, she looked over at it and it said Utah...but...she hadn't called Sylvia at all since that night months ago. Were the police looking for her now? For murder? She snatched the phone up and took a deep breath, they could come arrest her in South Carolina, she was never going back there again.

"Sylvia?" She hissed.

There was a pause, and then the voice that had been haunting her for months was there, the voice of her nightmares; she knew that timbre anywhere. Shocked, she held the phone to her ear and listened to the reason she woke up in terror, still unable to stop screaming. The reason she was now in therapy and likely would be for a long time, the reason she suffered from PTSD and vomited if she heard the song, that song, that he sang to her, "You Belong to Me".

Her Mom still liked that old music and she hadn't told them what happened in Luna Mesa, she hadn't even told them she was there.

As far as they knew this was all because of Billy, so the old music still played and she died a little bit every time. It hurt her deep into her soul, but she had been afraid to tell.

How had he found her? How the fuck had he not bled to death?Drowned?

"No," No, no, no, no ; you're supposed to be dead!

"Been thinkin of you Remy..." He crooned into the phone, "Been thinkin of you a lot."

She was underwater, struggling to breathe, unable to reach the surface all over again and that song, -oh god-, she could hear it now in her ears, hear his voice saying the words to her, "You belong to me." She could feel his hands all over her again, his touch along her skin. Her heart sped up in her chest behind the tattoo he had admired; it was going to busrt out of her chest from fear.

Jenny held her pizza and watched the transformation come over her sister, it frightened her and she sat rooted to her seat at the table as Remy decompressed before her eyes. Remy was breathing hard, almost like an athsma attack and Jenny didn't know what to do.

"Found your cell phone in Sylvia's driveway a while back," He whispered into the phone, into her ear in that menacing hot way he always did, "Jerked off to most of your Instagram pictures already, got to love social media."

She couldn't speak.

"Your hair is red again, I approve." He was Hannibal Lechter calling Clarice Starling in the most horrific way.

She had changed it all, put a fake address on Facebook, unlisted phone number...how had he...

"Forgot you had a sister..." He continued and right in front of her Jenny watched Remy's face go white, as if she had seen a ghost, she had.

She gulped in a breath, he was on top of her again in her mind, touching her, making her feel things she didnt want to feel. It felt so real, the room spun, and she looked down at her feet, unable to shake the vertigo; she was sick to her stomach. If he touched Jenny she would rip him apart with her bare hands.

"Don't you talk about her," She cried into the phone and she could see him smiling in her head, that devils smile, "Don't you fucking ever...I'll kill you, motherfucker. I'll fucking kill you, do you hear me? I. Will. Fucking. Kill. You!"

Mac did smile on the other side of the phone, Remy always made him smile, and his dick ache, throb; just the thought of her. She was still full of fire, maybe more so now, he loved that fire. I. Will. Fucking. Kill. You.

"Been there done that haven't we Remy.", He answered.

What had Shakespeare said? "Though she be little. She is fierce." It was A Midsummer's Night Dream wasn't it? Yes and wasnt that just what she was, his Midsummer's Night dream that still walked the earth.

In a gadda da vida baby, don't you know that I'm lovin you.

"She's hot, not as hot as you, but she looks like a younger version of you, sweet as sugar." He paused, "Be seeing you Remy, don't let the bastards grind you down ." He whispered and then she threw the phone against the wall.

You liked it.

The End.