***CW: SA, DV***

PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU PROCEED!

This chapter contains the events leading to Rosalie's death. RORH is rated R, not NC-17; there will be no explicit description of criminal sex acts, but reading it may still be triggering, as I do allude to what happens during. I myself am a survivor of SA, and writing Rosalie's story in this way is very important to me. Don't forget, it has a happy ending 3

Please proceed with caution.

"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense. They were laughing with each other. Two friends having a really good time with one another." - Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, 2019

***CW: SA, DV***

/

Saturday April 29, 1933

7 days until the wedding

My agitation grew as the pavement passed under my feet. I tried to override it with relief that Henry's condition had improved so drastically, only to backslide into irritation as I imagined Dr. Cullen trying out experimental medicines on him.

Sure, it had worked. But what if it hadn't? How could Vera and Fred be so willing to put the fate of their only child in the hands of some quack? I resented the fact that they were parents and yet I was not.

Couldn't some other, less important baby act as a test subject? Surely, Dr. Cullen could manage to find a willing pair of parents from the run-down side of town. It wasn't like the lives of hoodlum children would amount to much, anyway.

But what was done had been done, and Henry's brush with danger had concluded with a happy ending.

I was wasting energy thinking about anything other than my own happy ending, anyway.

I was on the brink of my future, with the wedding exactly a week away. By next Saturday evening, everything would be perfect, right back to being on track. I took comfort in the fact that my life would soon be completely free of the burdensome jealousy that was weighing on me at that moment.

Everything would be exactly as it should be.

The world only spun in one direction.

A gust of wind picked up, blowing the hem of my skirt up to my knee. I pushed it down, shivering.

Everything would be exactly perfect, as long as this weather didn't make a reappearance.

It was too cold for late April. I hadn't expected to factor in the temperature when planning for a May wedding. And with the engagement being so short, we hadn't considered a backup plan. I shuddered, considering the horror of being forced to move the wedding indoors. It just wouldn't do.

The weather would improve. I knew it would. There was no reason why it wouldn't. I wasn't about to start learning to compromise on my wedding day. Surely, the universe would fall in line. I was about to be a King, for Christ's sake. There was nothing that couldn't be done if I desired it.

I turned a corner, commencing the final stretch of my journey. It was only a few streets more, and then I'd be curled up in front of the fireplace. I wondered if Mother had already started it. Maybe a pot of tea would be heating on the stove. I craved my grapefruit.

At the end of the block, I spied a group of men huddled under a streetlight, swaying and laughing uproariously under a cloud of cigarette smoke. Drunk.

I hadn't expected to see street rats in this part of town. Daddy had warned me to stay away from the slums, and I had. There shouldn't be any riff raff ere. Not in this part of town.

Not with all the taxes we pay to keep it that way, Daddy would've said.

Out of an abundance of caution, I crossed to the other side of the street. It was dark. I was certain I could sneak past them. They appeared to be so splashed out that I doubted they'd even register my presence.

As I got closer, I could make out their shapes more clearly. They didn't look like criminals. In fact, they were all rather well dressed. And they weren't passing around glass bottles in paper bags, like the bums across town often did. The streetlight glinted off of the sleek silver flasks in their hands.

I picked up the pace.

"Rose!"

My mind went totally blank. Bewilderment clouded my thoughts.

I knew that voice.

Baffled, I slowed and turned to really look at them.

Relief bloomed in me when I recognized the group. It was Royce and some of his friends – the bachelor party.

I crossed back over the street to join them. As I approached, though, the stench of liquor hit me like a battering ram. They reeked of it.

"Hey, fellas," I greeted them warmly, albeit being taken aback. I'd never seen Royce drunk. It was such a strange context to find him in. He and his pals were almost unrecognizable, even up close.

"Here's my Rose!" Royce broke away from the circle, impatient for my arrival, and slung his arm around my neck, corralling me in. I scuffed my shoe as I stumbled into the huddle. I was annoyed, but the warmth of his body was impossible to resist in this freezing temperature.

Plus, his friends were laughing, and I wanted to be in on the joke.

"You're late," he whined. "We're cold, you've kept us waiting so long."

"I thought it was a boys night out?" I queried, teeth chattering.

He started talking over me before I'd finished my question. "Rosie, baby, we were just talkin' about how much of a fuckin' looker you are. And then bam — you appear outta thin air, lookin' fuckin' terrific. 'Slike magic!"

"Well, lucky you," I said. They cackled.

"She's fuckin' funny, too," one of the guys – Oliver – interjected. "Pretty and funny."

"More entertaining than Beth," Tony said, and they all howled with laughter again.

"Who's Beth?" I started to ask, but had to lean out of the way as Royce took a swing at Tony across the circle. Tony shoved his shoulder in retaliation, and I fell back with Royce as he staggered back a few steps. His forearm and bicep were still locked around my neck.

"Whoa, Nelly," I ducked out from his arms. I didn't like this. It was no wonder alcohol was illegal. "Okay, guys, I think it's past my bedtime, so –"

"Bedtime!?" Oliver exclaimed. The group cracked up, again. I didn't get it. "'Night's just gettin' started, sugar!"

"Loosen up, doll, have a sip," Frank held his flask out for me.

"No, thank you," I declined, trying to bow out gracefully.

They weren't having it.

They weren't following the script. This was supposed to be the part where he said something like "suit yourself" before tucking his contraband away and offering to escort me home.

But that's not what he said.

"I wasn't askin'."

"Well, there's your problem right there, asshole. You got no respect at all." Royce stepped in, grabbing my bicep and pulling me closer. I looked up at him, grateful to finally be defended, even if it had taken him a bit too long.

I'd misunderstood.

"I don't know who you think you are, offerin' booze to my dame," he slurred. "That's for me to do."

And he shoved his flask in my face, turning it upside down. I cringed away, mashing my lips together. The liquor ran down my face, splashing over my coat.

"Stop it," I spat, reeling.

"Such a waste," I heard one of them say.

I wasn't sure if it was fear or fury that overwhelmed me then, but I knew in my bones that it was time to go. "Royce," I spluttered, my voice shaking. "I'm going home."

It was like he didn't even hear me. "How does she still look so gorgeous when she's soakin' wet?" He grabbed my chin and twisted my face around to show his friends. "What did I tell you, John? Isn't she lovelier than all your Georgia peaches?"

John looked me over like I was a horse he was buying. "It's hard to tell," he drawled. "She's all covered up."

For the first time in my life, I felt pure revulsion to a man's assessment of me. I would've preferred that he'd never perceived me at all.

They laughed, Royce like the rest. My blood turned to ice.

I felt myself get yanked backwards – Royce had grabbed the collar of the coat he'd gifted to me just days earlier and pulled back, hard. I gasped, trying to catch my balance. He pulled again, this time with enough force to rip the jacket from my shoulders. The buttons Mother and I had fastened together tore out of their stitches and scattered onto the street.

Without the harness of the coat forcing me into submission to Royce's puppeteering, I narrowly managed to avoid falling onto the concrete.

Unfortunately, I was still within arm's length of my fiancé.

"Show him what you look like, Rose!" He laughed again and then tore my hat out of my hair. The pins wrenched my hair from the roots – I'd just redone it at Vera's – and I cried out in pain.

As soon as the yelp had left my lips, it was swallowed by Royce's mouth. His cold hands held my chin so hard, I was sure I would bruise. The thick whiskers on his jaw scratched against my cheek as he pressed his mouth against mine, unrelenting.

Acting on instinct, I balled my hands into fists and beat them against his shoulders. He wasn't having it. He wouldn't even let me come up for air.

And then, one of the guys took hold of my fists and pulled them behind my back. I was hopelessly out-muscled.

I did the only thing I could think of and bit down hard on Royce's lip. He jerked away.

With my airway finally free, I screamed for help. A hand landed firmly over my mouth.

Eyes wide and pleading, I looked at my husband-to-be.

Silently, I begged him to let me in on the joke, because this couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening to me.

He couldn't be doing this to me.

He was my prince.

Even if I had just bit him so hard I'd drawn blood.

Royce glared back at me, his pale blue eyes narrowing.

His icy orbs indicated that the gentleman I'd come to know had been locked away in some far-off realm, leaving only his body here on the street. The emotion within them swiftly executed any shred of hope I'd had. I got the sense that whatever realm the gentleman had been banished to would be where he would remain forevermore.

Maybe I'd never really known that gentleman. Maybe he'd never even existed.

Royce spat in my face.

"Still so fuckin' gorgeous."