Haunted, chapter 9

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But there was a dark, unstable, unpredictable side of Itachi that nobody would expect, the secret side of the narcissistic, smart, cold, power-hungry, calculating yet polite man. This side of him was dark, cruel, ruthless and inhuman. You never knew which side of his personality was going to take over. All you could do was hope that you didn't bring out the dark, cruel, monster inside of him. It was like flipping a coin and hoping you would get tails.

Sakura began to slowly realize the darker side of him after living with him for a couple months. The way he would act when she would ask him to go outside and play with her to when she'd ask him if he could pass her the salt at dinner. It went from a playful poke on the forehead and a nonchalant reply like "Not right now." or "Maybe later." to painful slap and reprimand. She became more careful about asking him for things. She speculated that he was just going through a stressful time. When she had first started living with him, he was home almost everyday, warm and welcoming, waiting for her after school. Then, in the later months, he was almost never home. Finally, all those events led to the first time Itachi violated her.

Sakura had always wondered why he tortured her. He wasn't a man you would expect to be a rapist. He was too emotionless, calculating and power hungry to care for sex or women. She was his rag doll, or punching bag, there for him to take out his anger on. It had to do with the hidden monstrous side of him.

A couple months after the first time he had violated her, Sakura had come home to find all her items packed and ready to go. He told her briefly that they were leaving Japan and to say her good byes since tomorrow would be their last day there. Sakura didn't even dare to ask him where they were going. Like a beaten dog that ran with its tail behind its legs and still followed its master, Sakura obeyed every one of Itachi's commands.

She packed some of the hidden items that Itachi didn't know about, old notes from friends, old pictures, etc. The nice clothes Itachi had shown her when she moved in were only to lure her into thinking that she was happy, safe and taken care of. Now he only gave her the nice clothes to wear when the social worker came around and for important social events. One of the hardest parts for her was leaving her friends behind without giving them a single reason why she was moving. Her friends were one of the few reasons that kept her going through Itachi's abuse. It ripped her apart not to tell them the truth. But she had to do it, for their safety since Itachi had threatened her, saying if she told anyone he would kill all of her friends. And she believed him. He would do it in a heartbeat to protect himself.

Another hard part for her was saying good-bye to her mother, Itachi had surprisingly driven her up to the city to visit her mother's grave before leaving. The only item she had left of her mother's was an old picture of her mother since her relatives had taken all of her mother's old clothes and jewelry and sold it. With out notice, she said goodbye to all she knew of and then left with Itachi. She never knew what happened to the old mansion that they used to live in.

The plane ride from Japan was painful and awkward for her. Her heart beat in anxiety, afraid that Itachi was going to inflict more of his pain, both mentally and physically, on her. Every moment she spent in that airplane seat next to Itachi in that business class cabin, her body was quaking in fear. Her eyes were wide and scared, like a deer in the limelight of a car's headlights.

But he did nothing, yet he kept her in anticipation, when they were alone his hand grazing her check, showing that he would easily slap her there and then.

She was too scared to even go to the bathroom. Everytime, the flight attendant came around, she was relieved. She never slept. How could she sleep when a monster was only a hair breadth away?

Her fear didn't go away, not even when they landed. She even turned down the hamburger Itachi had amazingly bought for her. Only when, in front of everybody, he whispered that he would force feed it to her if she did not comply in that icy voice of his, did she eat it.

She was convinced Itachi had moved to the United States to make her life even more miserable. And she was correct. The day before she entered the new school that she would be attending, he had brutally raped her against the kitchen counter top so that she could not walk for days. He had not allowed her to take a shower for a full week either, so she smelled ripe. He had not allowed her to eat for a week and a half, before letting her drink some milk that was expired, making her throw up and have diarrhea for sometime, and he did not allow her to use the bathroom, so that she would soil her clothes. He had pressed burning cigarette butts on her skin so that there would be strange, painful, circular burns on her skin, so she couldn't wear any clothes such as shorts or short sleeved t-shirts. He had forced her to wear ripped, old, worn, and stained clothes that were too big for her on her first day.

Sakura was tempted to skip her first day of school but Itachi would make her endure even more worst torture if she did. She stood bravely in front of her homeroom in her new school, in too big, ripped, old, stained and heavy clothes, while smelling ripe and while looking extremely sick and starved at the same time and said her name.

"My name is Sakura Haruno. I just moved here from Japan." She said. There was a quiver in her voice. All of her new classmates stared at her, before bursting into pearls of laughter.

On the first day, rumors were already circulating. Dirty, nasty, horrible rumors. The school had been anticipating her arrival for a couple of months and the rumors had already been spread around for some time.

I heard she killed someone and went to reformatory.

I heard she was like a prostitute or something.

I heard that she molested kids.

She couldn't fit in with anyone. Not any clique, not cliques that were made up of poor, unpopular kids like her. They were afraid of her. She was different, and not in a good way. She was immediately a target for bullies and a punching bag for kids to take out their anger and frustration on.

Teachers didn't understand her. They felt pity for her and disliked her terrible hygiene, which wasn't her fault. But they did marvel at the fact of her brilliance, coming from such a poor, dirty, plain girl like Sakura.

Things were worse when she was placed in honors classes. Almost all the kids in honors were rich, pretty, preppy and looked like they were models from an Abercrombie and Fitch magazine or ad. They loathed her since she wasn't like them and jeered at her poor hygiene, clothes, her hair, or any flaw about her. They also hated her since she always had the highest grades and test scores in every single honors class.

She was the girl everyone could easily hate without any reason. Almost everyday, some girls or boys from mostly honors would corner her and pick on her. It went from lewd and mean comments to physically hurting her.

She also fit the right criteria of a victim: small, extremely skinny, helpless, and poor with a terrible reputation.

"How the fuck did you get in honors, you little piece of shit? Go hang out with your own brood." A girl from honors sneered at her. "Oh, I forgot. You don't have a brood. No one likes you.

"Look at these pathetic hooters. Get some real boobs, bitch." A guy in her math class said, squeezing her left breast hard.


She was getting dizzy from the strong smell of his musky cologne, his sweat, and the smell of pot on his shirt. He was one of the most popular guys in her school. She was extremely afraid now since he was wasted. Only god knows what he could do.

She closed her eyes. It would be over soon, she hoped. He was getting closer to and closer to her. There was an ugly expression on his usually handsome face. He slapped her hard across the face, Sakura gingerly touched her cheek. It was tender and she tasted blood in her mouth.

They were so-called assets to the society, teachers loved them, and they seemed perfect, problem free and were good looking, rich, intelligent and popular and did community service or some kind of extra curriculum activity for the school such as varsity lacrosse. But Sakura knew the truth. They had problems, behind their phony personalities; they had some extremely dark secrets.

They seemed nice to you in front of teachers, but the minute the teachers left, they showed their true ugly selves to Sakura. Selfish, mean, and spiteful with razor sharp tongues, that could easily insult you to tears in seconds. And they hated the fact that Sakura knew they weren't perfect, but were content with the fact they were richer and better looking than her, that they were better than her.

Sakura couldn't ever get them in trouble. Every time she told on them, the teachers, guidance counselor, and even the principal refused to believe they did it. The school was bribed every year with donated money from their parents, to keep them out of trouble and to cover up scandals.

It was useless trying to get them in trouble or trying to get them to stop. Sakura tried, begging them to stop. But it was hopeless, that just encouraged them to do even more.

Even when the rougher kids beat her up for being in honors, the teachers always assumed she had done something that had caused the fight, so they always got off the hook too.

Sakura couldn't get Itachi in trouble either. Teachers always assumed her bruises and injuries were from squabbles with kids in her neighborhood and avoided filing suspected abuse reports. She couldn't tell her guidance counselor, since her guidance counselor believed she was a problematic child. But it was mostly because none of her teachers and her guidance counselor would never ever believe it, because they had met Itachi before at student teacher meetings and some other important events at school. They hadn't met him too many times, but to them he seemed like the ideal man, gentlemanly, charming, good looking, polite, caring and smart. He looked professional, since he always wore a black suit when he went to Sakura's school. They pitied him for looking after such a troublesome child.

And even if they believed her, Itachi would squeeze out of the situation somehow. He always managed to slither out of any messy situation unscathed.

Itachi had completed his task of making sure her school and social life was hell too.

School wasn't a sanctuary for her. But she preferred it over the hell she was forced to call "home." She'd rather go to school for the entire summer than encounter Itachi again. But school life was tough too. She had endured both Itachi and school for some time. But everybody has a breaking point. And she was sorely convinced her breaking point wasn't too far away and it wouldn't be pretty unless someone saved her.

Sakura slowly opened her eyes, bringing her back to the present. She hadn't pondered over her past for an extremely long time. She didn't want to remember, she wanted to hope that things would get better. Maybe things were, since Gaara had come along. But what if he believed what people said about her, and stayed away from her because of her leper status?

No, he wouldn't. He was friends with Naruto; if he was like that there was no way he would be friends with Naruto. Naruto hated people who were back-stabbers. His trust was easy and at the same time hard to gain.

But would he hate her if he knew who she really was or what she had been through? Would he look at her in disgust and walk away?

She wouldn't take a chance. He doesn't need to know. She wanted to cling to the small shard of hope that he'd brought into her pathetic life.

Gaara slowly massaged his temples. He had a major headache, mostly because of that girl. She intrigued him and he somehow understood her, but at the same time she confused him. He poured himself a cup of the fresh Folgers coffee he had just made. It tasted like crap, the terrible taste of burnt coffee crystals and hot water made his headache even worse.

He would have preferred his favorite food: Salted tongue and gizzard. One of the few things of his old, sadistic, and cruel personality that still remained, that even rehab could not get rid of. But he liked salted tongue and gizzard now simply because it was a delicacy, to him at least. Temari and Kankuro cringed and grimaced every time he ordered it at a restaurant. "Yuck. How do you eat that stuff, Gaara?" Temari would ask him every time.

It had a unique taste that he could never get in any other food, not even liver pate, and it calmed his frazzled nerves.

But unfortunately, there was no Salted tongue and gizzard in his new refrigerator and he doubted that the nearest supermarket or grocery store would supply it. Maybe, if he was lucky, a ritzy restaurant might have it on the menu.

He made a mental note to himself to check out every restaurant in the area to see if they had it.

Enough about salted tongue and gizzard. He was currently feeling guilty about letting Sakura go home alone. She had such a sad and afraid look on her face when she was walking home. The color drained out of her face when the bell rang. He should have trusted his gut instinct that was telling him something was wrong.

What if she got hurt? Or mugged? Or robbed? Or raped?

It would be his fault just because he didn't walk her home. He couldn't help but feel a little guilty if something did happen to her.

Dah-deee-dae-dai. It was his cell phone.

The cheerful ring tone of his phone awoke him from his thoughts.

"Hello?"

"Gaara, is that you? How have you been little brother? Are you coping well without us?" A familiar voice drawled from the phone.

It was Kankuro.

"I'm just fine."

"Kankuro, Gimme the phone! I want to talk to him." Gaara heard an impatient female snap. It was his sister, Temari.

"Temari wants to talk to you." Gaara heard before a great buzz of static was on the line.

Finally, "Gaara, are you there? How are you? Are you getting enough to eat? Is everything alright? How was your first day of school? Did you make any friends, did you get in trouble? Did you get picked on?" A tired voice cried into the phone.

If he wasn't so passive, Gaara would have chuckled. You would rarely see Temari in her overly-protective sister mode, only if she was extremely frazzled. He was betting the hot tempered blonde girl was currently steaming with anger from her ears.

"I'm doing well. My first day of school was OK."

"You are omitting the details. Certainly it was more than OK." Kankuro remarked.

"Seriously, Gaara. Tell us." Temari begged.

Gaara hesitated for a minute. What could be the harm in telling them?

And so he did tell them omitting some detail, like how he helped Sakura when she was injured.

"That principle sounds like a total bitch! Why that…" Temari said, calling the principle every curse word that was in the book.

"Calm down, Temari. It wasn't that bad." Gaara said, trying to reassure his frantic sister.

"Well, what do you except her to do? We're worried about you, living in a strange town by yourself. Why don't you come and live with us in New York. It isn't bad. I'm sure you'd like to live here." Kankuro yelled into the phone angrily.

"No." was Gaara's firm answer. He didn't particularly like Michigan but there was something that intrigued him enough to stay… it was that girl… Haruno. But he didn't dare tell that to Temari or Kankuro. If they knew, they would never let him live it down.

"I'm fine here. I'll come and visit you next weekend. I'm capable of living by myself." He said monotonously, while randomly picking at some lint on the couch.

There was silence.

"If that's your decision, we support you all the way. But at least try to keep in touch with us, at least every day." Temari said finally.

"We miss you." Kankuro added in.

"I miss the both of you." Gaara said, awkwardly. He was still new to the whole process of expressing his feelings. But it wasn't unpleasant. He wanted to change from his old ways. He wanted people to respect and like him for who he was.

"Bye."

"Bye. You better call us tomorrow!"

Click. Then there was the dial tone. Gaara ended the call.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sakura began to do her AP College math homework. It only took her a couple of minutes. Same with her biology homework, British literature, and World History homework, it didn't take too long. She was extremely smart, academically. It was guaranteed that she would get into a good college. But she doubted Itachi would let her go off to college. He wouldn't let go of her so easily.

Sakura believed he loved torturing her more than anything else in this world. He had nothing else to squeeze pleasure from.

She hated him. He had caused her so much pain and agony

Yet, at the same time she loved him. He had showed her friendship, warmth, and care at a crucial time when no one else bothered to.

How was it possible to love and hate a person at the same time? Wasn't there a fine line between love and hate?

Sakura's head was spinning. She was so tired of everything and everyone. No one will ever love me. I'm dirty. I'm pathetic. I deserve this. That is why no one is helping me.

The sweet blade was calling to her. She couldn't resist.

Sakura slowly got up from the creaky cot and headed towards her closet. Deep in her closet, she retrieved a sharp knife that was hidden in the back part of the closet.

It was glinting in the shard of light that was being reflected from her window. She had wanted to stop cutting a long time. But it was so hard. It saved her from the madness. She couldn't resist the damned blade. Cutting was a sweet release for her.

She closed her eyes. With a trembling hand, she held the blade above an old scab located on her forearm which was from an old cut. It was her favorite spot. She carefully laid the knife on the bed. Slowly, with shaking fingers, she gingerly touched her wrist. Her skin was warm and she could feel a pulse.

Again, she picked up the knife but held the cutting edge this time against a superficial vein in her wrist.

Why not end it all? Stop all the screaming in her head and the horrible hurt. No more fighting against her demons. There was nothing to live for. Do the deed. Who would care?

She raised the blade, ready to attempt the ultimate act…

End of chapter a/n: Long time, no see. I'm extremely sorry about the late update. I was extremely busy over the course of the past few months. Since the school year is almost over, I've had many tests and essays to submit. But for now, I've turned in everything that is important. So, I will be able to focus on my stories. Some people have been sending me some nasty e-mails and PMs about not updating. I go to school and also have a job and a life so please consider that.

Also, I've come up with some future ideas for Haunted. They are err… kind of graphic/kinky/wrong or whatever you want to call it. So, be warned. More than likely it's going to be very hardcore. So, be aware. Since, I've already started writing chapter 10 (It's already over 14 pages! I'm aiming for 23 pages.) I would say, that the real hardcore stuff will start coming by chapter 13.

And a big Thank you to my new BETA reader, Jenza-Reduz! I couldn't have done without him. He spent precious time editing and reading my terrible grammar, perfecting this chapter.

Also, I really want to add another character to this story, my favorite bastard out of them all, Sai! But I really want to know if that's okay with you guys. Sai, if introduced will not play a major nor minor role in Haunted. There won't be too much Sai x Sakura fluffiness. So, please let me know in your reviews! We'll take a vote.