The clock ticked into the early morning, and Bulla just sat in her bed. She shoved the last grease-stained paper plate into her garbage can hours ago. Sleep evaded her, and her mind was too cluttered to dive back into her book. Vegeta's words echoed through her mind.

Like a common whore… a waste.

She hadn't said a thing since her mother closed the bedroom door, but her own words left a bitter taste in her mouth. She would have never dreamed of saying such a thing to her father, let alone yell at him. Many have died for less. For a moment she counted herself among the dead of his hands.

How many?, she thought, hundreds- yes. Thousands?- probably. A million?- I don't know. He probably doesn't even know.

Remorse and justification battled within her; it was a stalemate.

He proactively called me a whore, but still…, she thought, I AM NOT a whore.

Bulla caught herself grinding her teeth and forced herself to relax her jaws. Bulla drudged from the bed, red-eyed. Blue Bell's ears pricked up; barely distinguishable from her bed-head-fur. She was too hung over from reality to budge from her spot at the foot of Bulla's bed.

Bulla shoved her head under her bathroom sink faucet. Warm water scalded her neck and the back of her head. She dabbed a wad of shampoo on her head. She scrubbed vigorously and water rushed by her ears. Her heart raced and the bowl of her sink spun round and round. Memories of her training with Whis flooded her head. Despite her father's poorly disguised probing, she refused to talk about it earlier that day. Bulla intended to take her newfound feelings about water to her grave. She rehearsed the imaginary conversation in her head.

I'm sure Whis already told you about it, like I'm some sort of science experiment. Do I really have to spell it out for you: Gee dad, it went great. I almost fucking drowned, she thought.

A loud bang popped her halfway rinsed head up from the sink. Soap suds soaked through her makeshift gown. A loud clumsy thud followed. Bulla recognized this sound; for some reason, the cat threw herself from the bed instead of using her homemade kitty stairs. Bulla stumbled back into her room with her wet hair still dripping down her back. Shattered glass glittered all over the carpet. The glass French doors leading to her balcony were warped on their hinges. A baseball sized chunk of concrete sunk into her queen bed. Bell let out a rattled meow as she circled the plants dashed onto the floor and poked her head beneath the bed sham.

"What the actual fuck?," she said, stepping around the glass.

Piddling footsteps in the hall caught her ears. She threw open the bedroom door, expecting to see her brother. The steps were light and skipping, like his.

He's coming to see what the noise was, she thought.

"Hey, someone threw-?," she froze, realizing she didn't have an audience. The hall was empty, not a soul to be seen. Bulla quickly snapped the door shut after scanning both sides of the hall. She fumbled with the lock on the door before realizing her father crumbled the mechanism when he forced his way in. A heavy dread clouded her confidence. She yanked her desk chair from its spot and propped its wooden back beneath the handle without giving it a second thought.

"Stop," she scolded the scrambling cat for almost tripping her.

Bulla snatched her phone off her nightstand. She sent out a simple group text.

Mom;Dad;Bro;

Rock through door, please come here.

Her thoughts drifted to the hallway for a split second. Bulla plucked the concrete chunk from her bed with her cat swarming her legs. The low hum of the gravity room caught her attention. She pulled some knee-high socks over her feet, leaving them bunched up around her ankles.

Better than getting glass in my feet, she thought.

Bulla slowly wrapped her fingers around the balcony door handle. She jiggled it and found it was still locked. A sigh of relief escaped as she forced herself to step outside. She felt the cold veranda tile through her socks. The wicker furniture was untouched. Glowing city lights twinkled beyond the compound walls. West City bustled along without a care. Her grandfather's koi pond babbled with its gentle fountain. Bulla felt the GR's hum in her bones. The flush began to dissipate from her face.

"Growwl," Bell gurgled, taking a long glance back into Bulla's room. She rubbed her flat face on Bulla's leg, leaking drool from the corners of her almost toothless mouth. Bulla pulled the cat from her chest. Bulla mindlessly scratched the cat's neck as she pulled her phone from her shorts pocket. She looked down at the black glass of her bot-tech phone- no response yet. Bulla looked over the Veranda's rail. Her eyes traced the crumbled concrete below.

Probably kicked up from a GR power surge, she reasoned.

Bulla contemplated her next steps. She buried her nose into her phone again hoping to see a text notification pop up. She looked over the rail of her balcony and onto the domed GR where her father and possibly Trunks were obliviously punching at nothing. A primal urge told her to fly down and beat the door down until someone answered her…or came looking. She lifted her leg, but a potent mixture of pride and resentment kept her from hoping the rail.

Oh, not only would I be a common whore, but a cowardly, weak one at that- awesome, and when it turns out to be nothing, they'll yell for me coming out of my room, she thought.

Bulla gasped as cold metal locked around her neck with a single decisive click. A firm arm pinched her shoulder and wrapped across the front of her body.

"Don't move," a husky voice said.

Bulla smelled him before he spoke. He lacked the pungent body odor of an anxious man. He reeked of sulfur and ozone. Bulla thrashed like a fish in a net. He just squeezed her tighter, pushing the air from her lungs. He was stiff and sturdy like a brick wall. His breath chilled the back of her neck instead of sending a warm, ticklish tingle over her flesh.

You're not that much taller than me and a bit on the thin side, she thought.

This was not a big man, and she knew it. He wasn't this brawny predator she's seen in movies dragging women off to a quick demise. She figured he was a smidge taller than her brother. Bulla struggled in vain against his grip, making no more than a step here or there.

I'll just take you with me, she thought.

She summoned her ki to fly, but nothing manifested. Something was wrong. Sheer panic burst from her lips.

"Help, Dadd-,"she started to cry, pushing her vocal chords to a never before seen strain. He clamped his hand around her mouth, pushing her lips against her teeth.

"Be quiet! I take no pleasure in hurting a little pup, but don't think twice about it. They don't need you alive. Take advantage of their preference. One way or another you will be quiet," he said.

Windchill nipped her skin. He lifted her into the night air, cat and all. Bulla hung to the side of his body with her face still clamped by his hand. He shook her. His forearm pushed into her hip bones. She felt like a hunk of meat dangling from a butcher's hook.

"Hush," he scolded her.

Bell continued to grovel shortly after the forced reset. The city lights faded quickly, and dark night encompassed them. Bulla watched the light become a smokey haze on the far horizon. Bell mewed again, failing to hold her complaints.

"My voice will be the last you hear if you make another sound," he threatened.

He doesn't realize she's here?, Bulla thought.

For a split second she wanted to call his bluff in an attempt to wrestle some of her power back. His voice was calm with a powdery quality.

Don't be stupid, she told herself, Just drop the damn cat. She's old and she has had a good life. She's not worth dying for.

Bulla squeezed her eyes shut, trying to squash her tears down unsuccessfully. She wanted to remember Bell's weight in her arms and her raggedy fur tickling her arms. She wanted to remember this and not her plummet to the dirt. Bulla let her go.

The pain forced her eyes open. Bell's dilated green eyes begged the question, 'why, why?'. Bulla imagined that this is what children experience as they leave an elder to waste away in a retirement home. Her clinging claws tore Bulla's dangling arms to shreds. The old Persian hollered. The abductor stopped to a glide while black mist dripped from his arm and the cat tore his essence into curled ribbons. Bulla jostled on the man's arm. He pulled her head close to his chest, in a vice grip headlock. She couldn't make out any intelligible words between his annoyance and the cat squawking. The coarse grey fabric of his shirt grinded her ears while he squeezed her neck with his forearm and bicep.

Bulla eyeballed the ground and remembered the carnage she regularly survived in the G.R. Death was certain if she didn't do something, this she knew. Her thoughts raced to the collar on her neck.

Does ki play a role in resilience?, she asked herself.

With her window of opportunity closing, she committed to her intention to at least die on her own terms. Bulla sunk her teeth into his forearm. Chilling vapor filled her mouth like a smoker's cough from a menthol cigarette. He grumbled over the rushing wind and the cries of the climbing cat. His grip on her weakened. Bulla struggled against his strength. She yanked her head back tearing a mound of writhing molasses-dark flesh from his arm that withered into nothing between her teeth. Black ink gushed onto her face and orange gown. The material in her mouth felt like a centipede struggling in jello. She imagined ligaments and sheathed muscle spasming in her mouth. Stomach bile wretched into the attacker's wound at the very thought.

Bulla cut through the sky. Her world flipped over and over in the dark vertigo. She thought she was falling into a deep black abyss rather than to the ground. Bulla seized Bell from her thigh. She pulled her close and clenched the scruff of her neck with her hands.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!," she called into the wind.

Snapping branches closed her mouth. Pine needles and bark flogged her back. She wasn't sure if her bones were to blame for some of the noise. Finally, she stopped, suspended in a blind, bushy heap. She rolled to her side and tried to push herself to her elbows.

The web of leaves and branches collapsed, sending her to the hard ground. Protruding tree roots jammed into her ribs. The familiar taste of dirt rushed her mouth. Bulla forced herself to try to get up. Lightning jolted through her crippled thigh. The circuit of pain ended at her knee. Bodyless footsteps circled her splattered body.

Bulla dragged herself along the ground, reaching a slow directionless crawl.

Anyone but you, anyone but you, she thought.

Her eyes struggled to adjust in the darkness. The footsteps stopped, but their voices took over. Dim morning light finally brought the silhouette of the forest edge to her eyes. Bulla stopped, resting in the long grass. Fireflies synchronized themselves in the silence, filling the air with fleeting green flashes, like their own morse code.

There's two of them?, she thought.

They stood chatting in a low rumbling tongue. It was foreign, never crossing bulla's ears before. Their clicking tongues and long vowels wrinkled her forehead. She made out a broad shoulder and the helix of an ordinary ear. Short hair rounded the side of the person's head.

Probably, another man.

The other was less of a mystery. His voice carried the same inflections of the stranger on her balcony. His hollow eyes made a pasty yellow reflection. His face was still and indiscernible, bathed in darkness. Doubt creeped into the back of her mind.

Wait, what if they're hikers or something? Foreigners come here all the time. They might help me.

Bulla raised her head to speak up. Leaves and pine needles crinkled in her hair. She had to force her head up, breaking the bonds of dried blood. They looked down at her, hushing their own mouths. The smell of iron and sulfur overwhelmed her nose. It was repulsive and sticky clinging to the edges of her nostrils from humidity. It was him- it was his blood. Their shadowy figures loomed over her, quietly inching closer. The reflective eyes blinked at her chillingly, like they were examining a cut of meat on a butcher's self. They both straightened their spines. Their voices echoed through the night air once again. Bulla tried to control her breath, but their shuffling feet made her more uneasy. Relief coursed through her when the eyes disappeared.

He turned around. They don't know I'm here, she thought.

She closed her eyes, already mingling with unconsciousness. A spark of gratitude warmed her gut. She was glad to be only half human. She knew she drew breath because of this fact. Suddenly, scraping rocks and branches peeled the skin from her back. Firm hands latched onto her ankles before they jerked her across the forest floor, paying no mind to her screams. Nesting birds bolted from their nests. Bulla heard the men's raising voices over flapping wings. Bulla kicked her uninjured leg free. She clawed at the ground to get traction.

"Help!," she managed before knuckles plowed into her face, over and over. Thick sweaty fabric veiled her face before enclosing her whole head in a cheap nylon prison. Their bickering voices leaked through the fabric. Her muscles refused to resist anymore. She was a passenger in her own body. Her back was numb, unable to register the extreme rugburn. Splotchy reds and blues filled her vision, somehow discernable in the dark. Deafness overtook her. Sensation and thought slipped further and further away. Reality became less than a dream; it was nothing.