Chapter 17: The Video

Trigger Warning: Everyone please be aware that rape is mentioned within this chapter.

Rin woke up to the sound of her phone vibrating and the quiet sobs of Koharu crying. She opened up her eyes to see her roommate's eyes were red and swollen. "Koharu?"

She didn't respond.

"Koharu, what's wrong?" She ignored Rin again and threw her tablet down, turning her body to the wall and crying. Rin got out of bed and picked up the iPad curious about what was making her cry. "Oh no," her eyes flooded with tears. She glanced at Koharu who had already seen the entire video. "No," she slammed it down, breaking the screen. She stumbled backwards towards her bed but missed and fell hard onto the floor. It jarred her backside sending a sting up her core.

She grabbed her phone, seeing the alerts from the school website. 'Must Watch! Rin Campbell, school slut!' Typing in her password, the same video popped up again. "No! It can't be," she felt numb inside. "They promised, they said they wouldn't… they promised."

The video had already been seen by thousands and thousands of people. The comments were a mix of different messages. Some were saying that she deserved it, how horrifying it was, and a lot of other messages her heart couldn't bear to read.

She dropped her phone, brought her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them. Her whole world was starting to cave in again. She felt like she couldn't breathe or catch her breath. She wanted to go home immediately, to her room, to her parents. She came here for a fresh start, not for this to surface. She forced herself off the floor and rifled through the top drawer of her dresser, finding her passport, wallet, and then grabbing her phone before running into the bathroom to change. She didn't even check to see if the outfit matched or not.

Without looking back or saying goodbye to Koharu, Rin ran out of the room and headed for the stairs. She ran out the door, to the front of campus in the dark, with the only light from the lamppost, hailed for a passing yellow cab and jumped inside.

"Konnichiwa, where to ma'am?" the human girl asked.

"Airport, I'll give you a generous tip if you can get me there fast, please?" her voice trembled as she shut the door and set her Michael Kors purse on her lap, then wrapped her arms around it crying.

She pulled out her phone, searching for a flight that would leave immediately for Miami, Florida. She was in luck; one was leaving in an hour and a half. Pulling out her credit card, she bought the last first-class seat she could get. It was the third row with an aisle seat.

After the ticket was bought and paid for, she put her phone away and brought her knees up to her chest again and allowed herself to cry. How bad she wanted to be home in her bed, under the covers, hiding away from the world.

"Ma'am, are you feeling sick? Do you need me to open a window?" The driver was alarmed by Rin's crying.

"I just need to get home. Please, I need to get to the airport quickly." The images haunted her mind, playing over and over again.

"I'm going as fast as I can, miss. My GPS says we'll be there in ten minutes. Let me open the window for you. Cool air helps me when I don't feel great."

The cool air didn't, she just wanted to go home.

Rin pulled out her phone to double check that she was checked-in so she could head straight for TSA. She was. The driver finally pulled up and Rin took her card out again and paid the fare. She grabbed her purse and jumped out of the cab and ran inside to head for security.

She prayed that she didn't have to wait for long. It took her about ten minutes to get through. She then dashed for her gate which was leaving in an hour. She didn't bother to stop to get a drink or snack for the flight. She knew if she fell asleep on the plane she would see the same vision over and over again.

She arrived at her gate where a lot of people were waiting to board. She pulled out a pair of large back Dior sunglasses and put them on. Not caring that the sun wasn't out yet. She couldn't find a place to sit down, so she paced next to the window, waiting for the plane. She felt like everyone was talking about her, about the video, and what happened.

She forced her emotions down to avoid the inevitable anxiety attack. Her parents were going to find out, Sesshomaru would know what she had wanted to tell him in the morning. They were supposed to meet for breakfast and she was going to tell him. She leaned against the window, gazing out at the clear sky. "Please, I just want to be home."

"Ladies and gentlemen, flight 442 to Miami, Florida will now be boarding. Please make your way in-line and we'll start the boarding process."

She got in-line behind the people in wheelchairs. After some of the elderly and a few others who needed help up the ramp, Rin got motioned forward by a staff member that it was her turn. Rin showed her phone, with the ticket, and passport to the female crow demon. Rin could tell she knew who she was when she saw the demon smirked creepily. She waved Rin's phone under the scanner to check her on the plane.

She walked the medium sized hallway that led to the plane. She was greeted by a male and female stewardess. "Good morning dear, do you know where your seat is?" the male jaguar demon asked.

Rin only nodded and walked back a few steps to the third row and took the aisle seat that she was assigned to and buckled up. I just have to hang on until I'm home. Momma… she covered her eyes crying, daddy… please don't hate me.

Sesshomaru pulled mats down from the piles by one of the walls in the dojo. His first class would be starting in another half hour. He was supposed to meet Rin for a quick coffee before and wanted to get ahead of the preparations. The night before was a dream. Twice, she had made out heavily with him twice and afterwards she spent the evening in his arms, naked until dinner.

He had enjoyed the soft texture of her skin, tracing the curves of her hips, the mounds of her chest, the lines down her stomach, and the contours of her thighs before they joined at her lower lips. She was fearless, relaxed, and a part of him at that moment wanted to take her further, to make love to her. She said she wasn't ready yet. Soon…

The dank yellow walls stared back at him, reminding him that they needed a new coat of paint. One of the lights above needed changing too. He went back into the supply closet and grabbed one of the large white bulbs. There were perks to being able to fly, one of them was he wouldn't have to wait until the janitor brought an extra tall ladder to change it for him. He flew into the air, hovered and removed the cover that hung by some of its hinges. He was about to pull out the dead bulb when the door slammed open. "You didn't bow, Inuyasha!"

"You need to get down here right now Sesshomaru!" Inuyasha held up his phone with a video of someone crying on it.

No… stop, please, I don't want to. He could only vaguely make out the face of a scared girl and sobbing.

"What the hell are you watching?" He landed next to his brother, ripping the phone out of his hand. "What is this rape-porn?"

Stop, the girl cried, while squeezing her eyes shut. Her head beat rhythmically against the back of the bed. In the background groaning and the shoulder of a man could be seen pushing against the girl.

"No you idiot," he paused the video and enlarged the picture of the face of the girl.

Sesshomaru's mouth went dry, his heart fell into his feet. "Where did you find this?" He dared to press the play button again. Eventually her tears stopped and a dead far off look entered her eyes as she bit her bottom lip to cope with what was being done to her. Her hands were chained above her head, they captured her naked from the waist up. Her cheek was slapped when the man was finished and told her how good it felt to be her first. Her eyes widened in fear as another shoulder and long black hair came into view and she sobbed as it started again. He threw the phone onto the floor smashing the screen in the process.

"Someone uploaded it onto the school website." Inuyasha flicked back to the main page for the college. Next to the video was a tag that read, 'Rin Campbell, School Slut'.

"Get it off… Get it off now!" he yelled at Inuyasha running from the building.

"We're trying," the hanyou followed after him. "Dad woke up the tech guys, they're going to kill the whole site. It's already been downloaded a hundred times."

"Did you run a trace?"

"It was released from the dark web, it masked the IP address. We're looking."

"She's not here," Sesshomaru flew into the air dashing for her dorm. He hadn't noticed it before, he didn't need to before. Her scent was missing. There was a strong trail to her room that was tinged in salt. She had been crying and moving quickly. He landed at the entrance to the freshman dorms and punched the code in. He flew up the stairs with his brother circling behind him. He banged on the door to open it.

Koharu answered, "she's not here." The black haired girl had tears in her eyes. "I tried calling her, her cell phone must be off. I didn't even say anything to her when she saw it this morning."

Sesshomaru took out his own as he entered the room. He went straight for her dresser and started rifling through the top drawer.

"What are you doing?" Inuyasha tried to stop him.

"Her passport is gone, so is her wallet, and her phone." He flinched when his messages kept going straight to voicemail. "She isn't answering." His hands shook as he fell to his knees feeling utterly empty and helpless. "Was there a time stamp on that video?"

"No," Inuyasha answered, setting a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Where would she go?"

"If she took her passport? Home," he turned around to be faced with his father who still wore his pajama bottoms.

"You two need to come with me. Now," he motioned them out of the room.

"She left. I need to stop her," Sesshomaru said vehemently, rushing past his father into the air again. He flew down the winding stairs out the door and into the air. Her scent was faint, but he was able to track it through the mid-morning city streets. He flew so quickly he made his own eyes water until he landed at the airport. Security was in place, even for ones like him that could fly. He landed at one of the terminals picking up her scent entering the Air Tokyo terminal. He ran inside, finding the departure screen, and then cursed loudly. The flight to Miami had already left, she would be home in fifteen hours. He cut in line up to one of the demon attendants. "I need to know if Rin Campbell was on the flight to Miami."

"Sir, that information is confidential," she said blandly.

He grabbed the red haired demoness by the throat and lifted her off the ground. "She is my mate and she needs me. You will tell me."

"I'm going to call security," the cat-demon coughed out.

He let her down and pulled out his wallet, he flashed his badge in front of her eyes. Something else he had not told Rin. "Does this help? Tell me if she was on the flight?!" We both have our secrets… Rin, why didn't you come to me? I thought we were past this.

"Do you have a warrant for that information?" It was as if he hadn't just tried to choke the daylights out of her.

"Dammit!" He forced his heartbeat to calm. "I need to be on the next flight to Miami."

"Our next flight is to Los Angeles, but it doesn't leave for six hours."

That would put Rin an entire day ahead of him. He groaned and removed his credit card. "I'll take it." He closed his eyes, a burning pain running through him as his phone went off in his pocket. "What?"

"You need to come back to my office," his father said quickly.

"No, I'm catching a flight to the US."

"Sesshomaru, just wait there. I'll bring you a change of clothes, and we can speak in the lobby. I'll be there in thirty minutes. Don't do anything stupid. Which terminal?"

"Air Tokyo," he wanted to beat something. He needed to beat something, preferably the two men in the video that were violating his mate, that chained her to a bed, that made her scream in pain, and then go nearly catatonic. Now he knew where all the rebuffs to his more intimate touches came from, the panic and her nightmares now. She had been gang raped, when he didn't know, by who he couldn't stomach watching the video again to find out. He seethed as he waited for his father.

He paced for thirty minutes until his father finally arrived carrying a black backpack and a passport. Toga handed the passport to his son. "You wouldn't have gotten too far without this. We need to talk."

"Is the school site down?"

"Yes," Toga raised his hands-up, "sit down. We need to talk."

"There's nothing to talk about, I'm going to find my mate," he attempted to storm off only to have his arm grabbed by someone much stronger and much older than he was.

"Your brother wasn't able to identify the men in the video. There were more of her than there were of them. When I gave the rest of the available footage to your brother to review he was unable to find any identifying marks. All we know is that one of them had long black hair and the other didn't. Their voices were muffled, any face shots were taken with shirts on and masks. Is it possible she saw her attackers?"

"She never told me about it," he finally felt his knees give beneath him in a chair. "She… I should have known, father. I should have known. She had panic attacks after Takahiro grabbed her that day in class. She had a panic attack when I wouldn't leave her alone. The first night I explained our relationship, she woke up terrified that she was in bed with me," his forehead went into his palms. "Anytime I tried to touch her more intimately she would ask me to stop." He rubbed his forehead near tears. "I should have known it was something more."

"It's not your fault," Toga sat next to him and rubbed his son's back. "I should have paid closer attention to that poem that Izayoi showed me," he leaned back in the chair. "It was a cry for help. I'm going to find who released the video and when we do, we'll find out who did this to her."

"I don't know what to do," he stared forward blankly. "I don't know what to say to her."

"You'll figure it out, Sesshomaru. I have faith in you."

"How could I miss it? I thought she was a virgin," he said ruefully. "She smelled so innocent, so pure."

"Purity and innocence aren't defined by a physical marker. They are part of who she is. Just because her hymen is gone doesn't mean her purity and innocence are."

"I need her address," he told his father. "I know she lives in a mansion on the beach in Miami."

Wordlessly his father passed him a card. "You didn't get that from me."

"What if she can never let me mark her? What if she is always afraid of my touch?" He stared ahead at a family with two children. The mother was an eagle-demon and the father human. Their children had spiky ears and brown dreadlocked hair. "How can I be with someone who won't let me make love to them?"

"Time son," Toga stood up. "Time. So you won't get what you want when you want it. She cares about you and I think you've come to love her."

"Love?" He glanced at his father as if he was a boy, needing a cut he received kissed, to make it feel better.

"You ache for her, that's love. Go to her. Love her, she'll feel safe in your arms, eventually. She spent quite a few nights in your bed if I'm not mistaken by the scents I found in your room."

"She said I made her feel safe."

"So go be her safety. It's only a matter of time before the Japanese news outlets get a hold of that upload. It went up at three in the morning and was downloaded five hundred times before we could stop it. I'm attempting to kill the internet on campus so it can't spread farther than that. Go to her Sesshomaru. Go now."

"Okay," he rose, wiping the moisture from his eyes. "Send me updates."

"I will," he embraced his son and handed him the backpack. "Change of clothes. Not that you wear anything but black."

Sesshomaru snorted as he walked away, headed for security, to America, to Rin.

She spent the entire fifteen hours on the plane in tears. It wasn't the first time she had seen that footage, but when she hid the flash drive taped to the underside of her dresser, she had hoped it would be the last. She told herself the rape wouldn't define her. She lied to her parents about why she had nightmares and panic attacks. She blamed it on a stunt gone bad onset that left one of her fellow stunt workers badly injured right next to her. They believed it.

She went to a therapist for a few months to learn how to cope with her upset and the panic attacks and avoided intimate relationships until she met Sesshomaru. She wanted to die, she felt it in her heart. By the time she landed and made it off the jumbo jet into the terminal, she heard the TV stations blaring. They knew, the whole world knew. She covered her face in a scarf and put on the same pair of sunglasses she had in her bag to cover her face. She ran through the airport and called her personal driver. "I'll be outside in fifteen minutes." It would take that long to get out of the airport.

He came in a simple unmarked sedan. By the time she got outside, she could already see the paparazzi gathering. Great, do they know I'm here? She kept her head down, trying to avoid the crowd, only for someone to pull off her scarf. "No!" she screamed and bolted for the black car. Two men got out of the car, one of them was burly and musclebound. The other was a slight man with red hair named Hojo. "Hurry Rin!" he yelled at her.

She ducked into the car quickly, "no comment!" she sobbed. As soon as she got into the car, she hid herself doubled over against her knees. "Go Hojo!"

The burly man named Ken shoved the photographers off the front of the car. "Just run them over, they'll get out of the way," Ken told Hojo.

Her heart raced as they pushed through the crowd. Her fingers trembled, she felt like she couldn't breathe. Her text messages had blown up while she was gone. She felt like throwing up again. Some were from her friends, but many of them were from people she didn't even know. There were supportive comments, but then racier ones that said she was a slut and had gotten what she deserved. At the top were fifteen texts from Sesshomaru.

Please call me.

I want to help you.

I know you're scared, I'm worried. Please call me.

Please call me, please call me, please call me.

I found a flight to Los Angeles, I'll be in Miami by tomorrow afternoon.

I'm getting on the plane, please call me.

You're scaring me. Call me.

I have to turn my phone off now. I'll pay for in-flight Wi-Fi so we can still message. Text me something, anything to let me know you're okay.

For a moment her finger hovered over the crying emoji, but she couldn't. He deserved better than her. She turned her phone back off and leaned against the side door, wiping her eyes. "Rin?" Hojo called her. "We stocked some food at your house. You should know the Paparazzi have covered the estate. You'll want to keep your head down as we turn in. I'm sorry. We're waiting for more security."

She could only choke in response. She wanted to tell Sesshomaru she was so scared that she needed him to help her calm down, but the only thing she could do was cry. She did what they asked, she never told anyone.

"I'm sorry it happened to you," Ken said from the front seat of the car. "We should file a police report. The Miami Police Department SVU detectives have been calling trying to find you. Did it happen in Japan?"

She shook her head. "Please, don't make me… don't… I can't," she couldn't breathe. "Please?"

"Okay," Hojo said. "We're getting close, you'll want to duck. There's a blanket behind the chair. Put it over you. I'll tell you when it's over."

She nodded, hiding under the blanket, and covering herself. She could hear the yelling, the slowing of the wheels, then more of their security coming out and shoving the reporters out of the way so they could get to her home. She was grateful for the long driveway that separated the gate from the actual mansion. As soon as the car stopped she bolted out of the car, into the house, and up the stairs to her room. She flew onto her bed sobbing hysterically. There were no words for how she felt. It ached and there was no one home. Mommy, she cried into her pillow. Daddy, she never thought she would want her parents so badly before. But there was someone else she wanted, someone she had left behind. Are you really coming?

She lay in her bed ignoring the maid who kept knocking on her door until Marie finally pushed the door open, "Rin?" She brought in a tray of food. "You have to eat."

She shook her head. "Go home."

"I'm not sure it's a good idea," the maid sat on her bed.

"Go home," she wanted to be alone. "Please?"

"I'll be back in the morning. You can call me if you need me sweetie. I'm so sorry." Marie patted her arm and left.

Sorry… everyone's sorry… sorry doesn't fix it.

As night descended she mechanically walked down the stairs on unsteady bare feet. She was light headed from not eating. The lump in her throat was so big, swallowing was a chore. She found her way through the dark into the living room and picked up a picture of her mother and father. They were on the beach. It was before they adopted her, then the one after. They said she was missing from the picture and that is why they took her in. Her hand trembled again, the picture dropped onto the floor breaking. No… no… she knelt down to clean it up, only to feel rage start to flood through her. Rage, pain and so many emotions that she couldn't channel. She bolted upright and started with all the frames in the living room. The first landed with a crack, the second she flung against the glass of their fireplace shattering both the frame and the sliding doors at the same time. Next was a window and the rest of the frames on the mantle. Then she threw cushions screaming.

It wasn't enough. She made her way into the kitchen, the glasses and plates becoming her next victim. "No!" she screamed over and over again. She screamed until her throat hurt and her eyes shed the last of her tears, then she fell onto the floor, the world went dark. Blood leaked from one of her palms. It hurt a satisfying pain.