I'm listening to depressing music at the moment, so excuse the dark and depressing bits (most of this chap).
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Tris tried to keep track of where she was being taken. But without being able to see, and with her limited knowledge of the waterfront, she concluded that she didn't have a clue as to where she and her captors were. She struggled against the man that was carrying her. He slapped Tris hard across the face. Even through the rough sack that was over her head the impact was enough to make her eyes water. She stopped struggling as he held a cold knife to her throat.
'I'd be still if I were you,' the large, brown haired man advised. The four men carried Tris to one of the worst parts of town. Because they kept to the rat infested alleyways, nobody noticed that they held her captive.
They went to a nondescript house. Tris could smell the alcohol and drugs that perfumed the air inside the building. The men carried her up the stairs into a dark, windowless room.
'Leave,' the brown haired man ordered the others. The men left through the only doorway, the dark haired man locked it behind them, before dropping Tris onto a filthy bed. He pulled Tris' arm above her head, making her cry out in pain as he jerked her arm. The terror was building up inside Tris; the fear overwhelming her. He quickly bound her wrist to the headboard, and repeated the exercise with her other arm. Only then did he remove the sack from her head. Tris pulled against the ropes tying her wrists, but they were too tight. She heard her captor walking about, though she could not see him in the dark room. The captor – called Rodent by his fellow street rats - looked at the young girl sprawled on her back across the bed. He could see quite clearly, although it was nearly pitch black, an ability given to him by the drugs he had long been addicted to. Rodent grinned maliciously as he thought of all the times people like her had double-crossed people like him. Now he would finally get his revenge. She looked so terrified; she was at his mercy. And Rodent wasn't feeling merciful.
Rodent walked towards her; he could smell and taste her fear, which only added to his excitement. Once again he held the cold metal blade to her throat. 'Make a noise, and I'll kill you,' he told her. He ran a calloused hand down the side of her face, to her neck. He could feel her trembling. Rodent smiled viciously; revenge was so sweet. He felt her tense, although the trembling continued, as he started to undo her dress.
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Sandry sat in a cane chair by the side of Duke Vedris' bed. He lay there, as still as if he was already dead. Sandry checked his temperature yet again, laying her cold hand across his fevered forehead. Sandry checked the bandages around his chest; the wound was still weeping. Sandry had listened to Lark talking to Rosethorn and Moonstream. It was an arrow wound, she had said. The arrow had punctured his lung, and would take a long time to heal, if it ever did. They did not know that Sandry had been listening through the doorway.
Daja peered into the room, 'You should get some sleep,' she advised. Sandry had not rested for about three days; with her work on the new weaving experiment, and now the Duke, Sandry could not sleep.
'I can't. I have to be here when he wakes up.' Sandry started to shake suddenly. Daja hurried forward and hugged her. 'What if he doesn't wake up?' Sandry whispered into Daja's shoulder. 'What will I do then?'
'You don't know what will happen. There's no point in asking yourself 'what if.' You have to be strong.'
'I know.' Sandry held onto Daja for comfort, tears rolling down her cheeks as she finally allowed her tears to over spill. Briar appeared, answering Daja's urgent mindcall.
'Sandry, it'll be ok,' Briar promised.
'You don't know that,' Sandry said.
'But you don't know that everything will go wrong,' Briar countered. 'We've been in enough bad situations before. You know you just have to keep going.' Briar knew that sounded hollow, but he didn't know what to say to Sandry. He never knew what to do when one of his housemates started crying. From his upbringing Briar had first viewed the tears as a problem for females to deal with, and normally ran away. But he was slowly learning that most of the time, just being there was enough.
'I hope Tris and Niko find the men who did this,' Sandry said fiercely. Briar raised his eyebrows at the venom in her words.
'I'm going to find them, even if Tris and Niko can't. I'm going to make them pay for what they've done to my uncle!' Sandry announced.
'Sandry, now really isn't the time to get all worked up about revenge,' Briar advised. 'Shouldn't you concentrate on getting your uncle well?'
Sandry looked at him, and the nodded. She would wait until her Uncle was well before she started her revenge. Daja sent mental congratulations to Briar, for diverting Sandry away from revenge.
They all turned around as the Duke moved. 'Sandry?' he asked blearily.
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Silent tears coursed down Tris' face. Her wrists were raw from her attempts to free them from the harsh bonds that restrained her. Her body and soul were hurt, her spirit almost broken. Once again she heard heavy footsteps, but this time Rodent headed towards the door. Hope built in Tris' heart, only to be quelled when Rodent yelled down the stairs, 'she's all yours,' to the other street rats. They climbed up the stairs and into the bedroom. Tris felt a hand run over her bare flesh.
They were all going to have.
All going to destroy her.
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Sandry stepped towards her Uncle. He smiled slowly up at her, taking in the tearstains upon her cheeks and the bags under her eyes. 'I see you've been mothering me again,' Vedris gently teased her. He was dismayed when she burst into tears again. 'Don't cry Sandry. Don't cry. I'm fine now.' He held his arms out to her and she fell into his them, hugging him as hard as he was her.
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Tris couldn't help it. As yet another man came into the room, she screamed out. Rodent immediately reacted by hitting her, hard, across the face. In that moment Tris lost consciousness.
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Niko yawned in exhaustion. He had followed the attackers for as far as he could, and had learnt more than he wanted to know about them.
He was nearly back at the eatery were he had left Tris. With a negligent flick of his hand he sent her magic back.
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Tris' magic rushed through her veins, burning. One of the men watched in wonder as miniature lightning bolts played across her skin.
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Sandry was talking quietly to her Uncle, when she felt a sudden burst of panic and pain coming from Tris. From the kitchen she heard Daja and Briar yell out 'Tris!'
As suddenly as it had come, the burst of emotion left. 'Tris,' each of the called out in mindspeech. There was no reply. They each sent out their own minds towards Tris, but came up against a barrier. 'She's cut us off,' Daja whispered in horror. What had gone wrong?
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Though Tris could usually control her magic, she was unconscious and was too hurt and upset to even notice that her magic had returned. A man put his hand on her; he fell back with a yell, his hand scorched by the lightning.
Then all hell broke loose…
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Niko reached the eatery. Tris wasn't there. Don't panic, he told himself. She may have gone inside. She wasn't there. He quickly probed with his mind, searching for her. He found her, unconscious and unaware that he was probing for her. He was blocked from her mind, something that had never happened before. When he 'saw' the other people that were there, he started running. And panicking.
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Without any control the lightning leaped of Tris, hitting everyone that was in the room. It fed off her panic and when it struck, it struck to kill, not to injure. Tris' hair blew in the wind that rushed to join with her magic. The door flew open. The men tried to flee. No man escaped, as a mini thunderstorm grew in the room. The only person who remained unscathed was Tris, at the center of the destruction.
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I hope you liked the story (that sounds so wrong, considering the fact that I've just written about rape, so maybe 'like' is the wrong word).
Hopefully the next chapter will be happier, but I don't know yet.
In case you were wondering where I got the story line:
I was doing a school project that involved researching rape. The statistics were shocking , only a small percentage of reported rapes are actually solved. But the statistics were not the worst things. The stories of survivors show that rape can ruin everything and destroy your life.
I thought it was a good story line to show the total destruction of innocence.