Prompt: Torture
Some nights when Rose is sleeping peacefully, wrapped in Dimitri's arms and reaming pleasant dreams, a strange thing happens. One minute she'll be splashing through the waves at a beach—or whatever setting her dreams decide to form—and the next thing she knows the dream has shifted, the sound of the surf replaced by pleading cries, and the sun and sand replaced by four walls that are disturbingly familiar. In the blink of an eye she feels the intense pressure in her skull as Kenneth forces air into her head again and again, the agony of him stealing her breath away, leaving her gasping and choking. She feels every agonizing second of the torture that took place in that horrid little cabin, and more often than not, she wakes up with a scream on her lips, her body shaking and drenched in sweat.
She tells herself that it's just a sensory memory of what she experienced the night Victor had Lissa kidnapped from the academy, but deep down she just doesn't believe it. Because when she wakes up, for just a few, brief seconds, she could almost swear she senses her best friend doing the exact same thing, and she sees a tiny, barely discernible glimpse of the young queens bedroom echoing through her mind. Each and every time it happens, without fail, the next day Lissa is pale and tired looking, with dark circles under eyes that are haunted by memories of the past.
She's keeping the whole thing a secret though, not sharing her suspicions with anyone. Because if a tiny sliver of the bond does remain, it means that she can still help drain away the darkness—and if she can help Lissa cope with the ever present press of spirit, even just a little, it's worth every second of terror that she experiences in those dreams.