Hi everyone! This chapter will continue with Alcina learning the truth of Fredric's death. Also, I will put down that this chapter and a few others to come will have physical abuse in them. So read with caution. Again thanks as always for reading!

Chapter 11:

'Alcina.'

She smiled at the feel of him, fluttering her eyelids open to see him standing in front of her. A full orchestra playing on the stage while couples danced about on the floor. The men all wearing their best uniforms and the women in their finest dresses.

'Fredric,' she said, noting his hair pulled back in a pony tail and bringing out the color of his eyes. Just as he had worn as a little boy. The first time she had met him at the swing.

His lips stretched into a boyish grin.

'May I have this dance?'

'Yes you may,' she said, taking his offered hand and finding a space, the two twirled around and around. The music slow at first and then speeding up.

Alcina laughed with joy, the two dodging other couples as they completely took over the dance floor. Fredric dipping her and hoisting her up into the air, spinning her around and around.

'Fredric!'

He then brought her back down, and that was when she took control. Leading him along through a routine of her own devising, not noticing the light around them fading. The music fading. The other couples all standing completely still on the outskirts of the floor.

Breathing hard, Alcina slowed down and rested her head on his shoulder, when she felt something wet hit her cheek. Jerking her head back, she released a scream and stumbled backwards.

'Fredric?! Y-your head! What has happened to you?' it was then did it all come flooding back to her.

'Alcina.' She could hear his voice. 'Alcina.'

"NO!"

"Mother!" Helena grabbed hold of her mother, attempting to calm her down. Getting punched, smacked and clawed at as she settled her mother back down on the bed, while the doctor injected her with another sedative. "It's all right, Mother." Helena leaned forward and kissed her sweaty forehead, caressing her cheek with her fingers. "I am here. I am here…"

{-}

Alcina woke to the sound of birds singing outside a window, the warmth of the sun a welcome to her freezing body, but wait. How was this possible? Was the manor not burnt down? For the briefest moment her heart filled with hope. Perhaps it had been a nightmare.

"Mother?"

Alcina jumped at the sound of Helena. Her daughter rising out of a chair and approaching her.

"Helena?" her voice was so small; weak. "Where are we?"

Helena sat on the bed close to her.

"Uncle Roderick's manor."

Alcina blinked tiredly, her mind still in a haze from all the sedatives.

"You've had us all very worried."

Alcina stared at her daughter. She was so very pale; heavy bags underneath her eyes and she looked thin; exhausted. What had she done? Helena no doubt had been standing by day in and day out. The burden of having to take care of Josie and herself in the midst of all this chaos and tragedy.

Weakly she pushed herself up into a sitting position, reaching out and pulling Helena in close to her.

"Oh, my darling," she whispered, kissing the top of her head. "I am so sorry. I am so very sorry."

"Mother," Helena squeaked, burying her face into the crook of Alcina's neck, her grip tightening as she fought the emotions enveloping her.

"I love you, Helena," she whispered, feeling her daughter's tears hit her skin.

"I love you, too," she managed to get out.

The two remained in one another's arms for a long while. Alcina scooting back in the bed to allow Helena room to lay down next to her, she eventually drifted off to sleep. Leaving Alcina alone to once again think only this time about their now current issue.

'Roderick. He really took the girls and I in? Why? He is not the sort to do things simply out of charity. He does not have the kind of heart. So why?'

Three hours' later Helena woke to find her mother was still awake. Slowly she rose out of the bed and got out.

"Where is Josie?" Alcina asked.

"She was asleep in the guest room Uncle Roderick has given to us. I can go fetch her."

"Please do," Alcina said, anxious to see how her youngest was coping.

Helena left the room and returned fifteen minutes later with Josie. The moment their eyes met, Josie released Helena and threw herself into her mother's arms.

"Mother," she said, joyfully. "Mother you're okay!"

"I am," Alcina said, her spirit lifting to find Josie unchanged. Her same old self unmarred by the events. "And I am so very, very happy to see you." She kissed her daughter's cheek. "Have you been good?"

Josie raised her chin.

"Am I not always good?"

A laugh burst from her lips.

Helena started to smile at her sister's sass.

"What?" Josie said, placing a hand on her hip with indignance. "Why are you laughing?"

"Pardon me, pretty girl," Alcina said. "How have you been feeling?"

"Fine, Uncle Roderick has made sure I have been well tended to. He has had Phoebe tending to me and making me anything I want."

Alcina's face darkened.

"Well, I suppose I must thank him for all he has done," she said through clenched teeth.

Josie oblivious to the change in their mother's mood, Helena was fully aware of it and much more… She had never felt comfortable around her uncle, and being in his mansion made the feeling even stronger. The place felt more like a prison; the rooms their cells; the servants his guards who were always watching and listening to their every move and words.

Her ears then picked up the sound of /his/ familiar steps. She went rigid for a moment, watching as his silhouette appeared in the doorway.

"Well, well. We were unsure if you would wake up…, Alcina."

Alcina's grip on Josie tightened protectively, while Helena stood closer to her mother.

"Nieces, please leave your mother and I to talk. Phoebe has made fresh cookies downstairs and you may have as many as you like."

"Cookies?!" Josie leaped away from her mother. "Come on, Helena." She pulled at her older sister.

"All right. All right," Helena said, shooting a glance back at her mother, who nodded for her to go. "Josie! Slow down."

Roderick smiled as they left, closing the door and strolling further into the room.

"My condolences to you, Alcina. To have lost your home, vineyard and your husband—my brother, Fredric."

"I thank you for welcoming us into your home…," Alcina paused, never believing she would find herself in this position. "For watching over my daughters and nursing me back to health. I do not know how to repay you."

He clasped his hands behind his back, his green eyes that resembled Fredric's only in color. What she saw in those eyes was not warmth, but vileness. Hatred. Malice. The want and need to cause her pain.

"Oh you will repay me, Alcina," he chuckled, approaching the bed. "You see, all I have done has been to bring you to your knees. To humiliate you; ruin you."

"What are you talking about?" She said unflinchingly as he stood right in front of her now.

"The insurgents. The destruction of your home. Fredric's death."

Alcina felt as though something inside her cracked. How? Why? Her mind was spiraling. None of it made sense.

Roderick started to laugh at the havoc playing across her face.

"You refused my hand in marriage. Then you treat me like a dog," he grabbed her chin roughly. "You led me along and then humiliated me in front of everyone!"

"Get your filthy hand off me!" she smacked his arm away, and in return received a hard slap to the face. She could taste blood in her mouth from the hit, spitting it at him as he took a seat on the bed.

"Really Alcina?" he said, pulling out a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiping his face. "A woman of your noble status acting like a brothel whore, though I suppose that is the best you can do now, or there is another option I am going to present to you. So keep your damn mouth shut, or I will close it." He indicated with his fist. "Understand?"

"Yes," she murmured.

"Good, I will allow you to remain here where your girls will continue to get their education; Josie will receive her medication, and yourself I might add, but most importantly all three of you will remain safe from the rebels out there. Let me insert one last point. If you do refuse this offer, I will ensure your life out there is a living hell. Many of those insurgents are free from police custody, not accounting for the thousands of others still on the loose, and I have made sure they know you and your children. The minute you leave. All the protection you and the children are under now will be gone. No matter where you go. No matter where you live. There will be no safe haven for you three."

"You bastard," Alcina hissed. "All this time… All this time you had been planning this, because of your broken ego?" She snorted. "I see how you and Fredric shared that in common. Your pride has always been your Achilles heel, and that is what killed Fredric…"

She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears. Hot angry tears for Fredric leaving her in this hell. At this son of a bitch grinning triumphantly at her, while she sat with her forced white flag flapping in the wind.

"I take that as a yes?" he said, patting her cheek. His focus fixed now on the pearl bracelet on her wrist. "I expected you to make the right decision. You normally do…"

Alcina's eyes flashed with an animal-like rage in that second. His touch like an electric current and awakened something dark inside of her. A desire to kill. A desire to torture this man. All she remembered was blood on her tongue, her teeth sinking deeper into his hand. His large fingers suddenly wrapped around her neck and closing off her air.

She let go instantly, her body feeling very weak and getting weaker. His opposite hand on her breast and squeezing. Powerless to do a thing, she just stared up at the ceiling and waited for him to snap her neck, but suddenly she could breathe again.

Coughing and sucking in air, she blinked rapidly to clear her vision, she saw Roderick wrapping his handkerchief around the wound.

"I knew I would get push back from you, Alcina, but mark my words." He then tore the bracelet off her wrist, the pearls scattering to the floor. Smiling with victory upon his action. "That is the last time. If you ever do anything to disobey me, I will ensure not only you will suffer, but Helena and Josie, too."

{…}

Six years later:

Alcina had made one vital error. She had spoken out when she should have kept her mouth shut. Roderick had made a business deal. A bad deal that would cost him money.

The man's stupidity knew no end!

"Shh, Josie, just breathe."

He had not punished Alcina physically, but mentally and emotionally through Josie. He had ordered her medicine to be withheld for the next two weeks. Josie had been coping well, but soon her health was diminishing. Her skin had turned the color of wax, and the simple act of walking up the stairs left her out of breath and dizzy.

It was the start of the second week and she was bed ridden. Either sleeping or crying out for relief from the pain.

"Sleep, sweetheart. Sleep."

"I will give her a smaller dose of morphine," Helena said, now eighteen and acting as Josie's nurse, (her current field of study and practice). "This will allow her to sleep on her own rather than using the sedative again."

Once Josie had drifted off to sleep, Alcina rose off the bed and started to pace the room.

"Something must be done! She needs her medicine."

"I can speak with Uncle Roderick," Helena suggested.

"No," Alcina said sharply. "No, I much rather have you steal medication from the hospital."

"Mother," Helena's tone a warning, grabbing her small bag and checking the grandfather clock ticking over in the corner of the room. "I have to go. I will be back tonight."

"Yes, darling," Alcina said absentmindedly.

"If she needs more medicine, I left two syringes there. You remembered how I showed you? Mother?"

"Yes, Helena," she answered harshly, not even noticing her leave the room. Her mind spinning on ways she would make Roderick suffer.

{-}

That night Helena returned 'home' if she could even consider it that. She was welcomed by Roderick's butler, Argus, whom she inquired where her uncle was at the moment. He led her to the billiard room where she entered to find him seated with a whisky in hand.

"Ahh, Helena, how was work today? You look like you could use a drink."

Helena not refusing the offer, took a seat opposite him and drank a small intake before speaking.

"Uncle, I need to ask you something regarding Josie."

"Go on," he said.

"She needs her medicine. Her condition is getting worse and soon even with the medicine back in her system, she may not recover."

He took a big gulp of his drink, his usual sneer plastered across his face.

"Did your mother put you up to this?"

"No," Helena shook her head. "In fact my mother told me very specifically not to speak with you, but I am finding I have no choice now. Not because she is my blood, but from a nurse-patient relationship. Please, Uncle, I beg of you. Please allow Josie to resume taking her medicine."

"I admire you, Helena, truly. You have the certain way of speaking that casts no judgment. No bias. I suppose that is why you pursued nursing. You may be the spitting image of your mother, but you have all the characteristics and personality of a Stanislav. That reason being I will allow Josie to have her medicine again."

Helena was taken aback by her uncle's words. She had anticipated further argument. Hell, she had been planning three steps ahead. Considering all his arguments and her counters to his reasons. Perhaps she should have pursued a degree in criminal justice.

"Thank you, Uncle Roderick," she said, starting to rise out of her seat when he snatched her wrist. She didn't move. Waiting for him calmly when he handed her Josie's bottle of medicine.

"Will you be a dear and send your mother in here for me?" he said, releasing his hold on her.

"Yes, Uncle," she said, afraid of the look she saw on his face. The way his lips twitched. The intensity of his anger she had felt when he had hold of her, and adding alcohol into the mix. She was about to send her mother into a war zone.

'And that was his intention. His way of punishing me for speaking out. He knew I would be in this state of inner turmoil. Feel this guilt for sending Mother to be abused again…' She hadn't realized she was now standing in front of her mother's chambers. The door open just enough to see her sitting at the vanity and removing her favorite pearl earrings. She raised her fist, but could not bring herself to knock.

"Helena?" Alcina called out, noticing movement outside the door.

Helena cursed, slowly entering into the room.

"What were you doing, darling?" Her eyes dropped to her hand. "Is that? Did you?" Alcina rose off the chair.

"No, no I did not steal this," Helena said, biting the inside of her cheek. "I-I spoke to Uncle Roderick and he has permitted Josie to have her medicine."

Alcina stared at her in disbelief, which then turned to suspicion.

"What did he want in return?"

Helena sucked in her lips, the pills rattling inside the container due to her shaking fingers.

"He, um, he wants to see you in the billiard room…"

"I see," Alcina said, donning her night robe and walking to the door. She then came to a halt beside Helena, whose shoulders were now shaking with emotion. Alcina leaned forward and placed a kiss to her daughter's cheek, whispering into her ear. "Go and be with Josie; do not leave that room."

"Y-yes, Mother. I'm sorry, Mother…"

"It will be all right. Now go…"