Day Fifteen: "Fine, explain it to me."

Characters/Pairings: Jake/Rose; Huntsman

Rating: M

Content warnings: abuse; sexual assault; semi graphic rape; blood

Don't forget that you can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now and that my ao3 account is wearealloflegendnow (even though I haven't posted there yet)!

~TLL~

Rose pressed one more kiss to Jake's lips. His hands stayed on her hips, trying to keep her close to him. Rose giggled and then indulged him with a peck.

"I gotta go," she said, "or I'm going to be in trouble."

"That's okay," Jake said in the enticing tone that she loved so much. "Be bad with me."

Rose wanted to stay so badly. If she were any other eighteen-year-old girl out with her boyfriend, she probably wouldn't give a damn about curfew but she wasn't any other teenage girl. She was an eighteen-year-old girl in the Huntsclan and that meant that she couldn't play around with the boundaries the way that other people did. She kissed Jake one more time.

"Come on, I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow," Jake agreed reluctantly, giving her hand a squeeze. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Rose walked away from him, wishing that she never had to leave the happy bubble that being with Jake always put her in. She felt herself slowing down as she approached the Huntsclan building, feeling the deep swell of revulsion in her stomach. This wasn't her; this shouldn't be her place. But, she was trapped here. There was no way out that they had found for her. Jake had promised that it was coming and Rose knew that he never stopped looking but she had stopped asking for a time line. For all she knew, she was going to die here.

Rose entered the building, heading for her bedroom. It was supposed to be her slice of sanctuary and normalcy in the building. She had earnt her own room, rather than being in the bunks with the other Huntsgirls, and Rose valued it, no matter how she hated what she had done to earn it. Rose opened her bedroom door, breathing a sigh of relief that she had made it all the way up without having to talk to anyone. That was, until the bedroom door shut and she realized that Master was in the bedroom with her.

Rose tilted her chin up, keeping the stony face that the Huntsman himself had drained into her.

"Master," she said, "what a surprise."

It had never happened before. Rose was always summoned to him rather than the other way around. The fact that he was here in her room had her wanting to shake with fear but she was a warrior. Rose wouldn't crack. She had been trained better than that.

"Where have you been?" the Huntsman asked.

Even though he sounded casual, Rose could sense the tension in his tone. She put extra effort into seeming nonchalant, even going so far as to turn her back on him to put her backpack down on her desk chair.

"I was just out in the city with some friends I made in high school," Rose said. "You told me I was allowed to do that."

"Yes, well, that was before I knew that my dragon hunter was – let's use your word – friends with a dragon. Not just any dragon but the American Dragon himself."

Rose's jaw almost dropped and she almost whipped around to demand he explain how he knew what she was talking about. Almost. She let out a deep breath and then she turned to face him.

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't play this game," the Huntsman said. This time the threat was explicit in his voice. "I have proof. Pictures. I know what he is. I know what you have been doing with him. I know that you could have slayed him and you didn't because you turned your back on this Clan. Did I get anything wrong?"

How we feel about each other. How I really feel about this place. How I just want to be free. Rose thought it all but she didn't say it.

"You don't understand," Rose said desperately, realizing that there was no way out. If the Huntsman really did have proof, then he knew Jake's secret identity. For all she knew, there were Clan members marching out to find him and his family now.

"Fine, explain it to me."

Rose opened her mouth but nothing came out. Jake was her secret; her solace. The Huntsman was not someone that she could bare her soul to and he never had been. He wasn't someone that it was smart to bare her soul to. But, Rose didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she could do to make this better.

"I didn't know."

Master hit her, swift and stinging, across her face. Rose wasn't even surprised.

"Lie."

"I swear –"

This time, his punch came for the stomach and Rose tried to put up a hand to stop her, but the Huntsman was just so large compared to her. She had never been able to win in a fight against him.

"He was just a boy –"

"You don't get to have boys," the Huntsman said. "You're supposed to belong to the Clan, body and soul."

The Huntsman was gripping both of her biceps now, her feet lifting off the ground. Rose could already feel the bruises that were forming under the force of his grasp.

"I know."

"I let you have a very long leash because I trusted you to do the right thing." Master was holding her against the wall so that they were eye to eye. "And now you've betrayed me. Do you know what betrayal makes a man do, Huntsgirl?"

"No," Rose whispered, because she could sense that she didn't really want to know the answer.

"It leaves him with two options. Either he walks away and pretends you never existed or he reminds you that you are his and you have no life outside of him. I'm not leaving you and pretending you never existed because you are mine. Understand?"

"No." Rose didn't want to understand.

Then, the Huntsman was kissing her, deep and forceful. Rose struggled to turn her head the other way and get away from him but he pushed his entire body weight into her, flattening her against the wall so that she couldn't even get her legs out to kick him. She tried to wiggle and bite and just get away but there was no away from the Huntsman. There had never been any getting away from the Huntsman.

The Huntsman threw her down onto her own bed, still decorating with a soft pink children's comforter. The second his hand left her, Rose was off like a shot, trying to get to the door. If she could just get out, she could go anywhere. She would live in a cardboard box and starve to death before she ever looked at the Huntsman again.

The Huntsman's hand grabbed her by the back of her shirt, jerking her to a stop and catching her around the neck. Rose didn't get into the second of breathlessness. Instead, she just wiggled out of her shirt and she almost touched the door handle before the Huntsman crashed into her, sending them sprawling to the ground. She was trapped underneath of him and she was so acutely aware of the fact that she had just given up her shirt. Tears sprung into her eyes as Rose realized what was going to happen to her. She needed to be away. She needed to be with Jake. But there was no Jake and there was no away. There was just here, with the Huntsman hot and heavy at her neck.

"How long have you been behind my back with that thing?"

Rose just stayed face down on the hardwood, feeling the tears flowing hot and heavy down her face.

"Did you think you loved him?"

Rose knew that she did; the same way that she knew Jake loved her. She wasn't going to give that up to the Huntsman. She was going to keep that hers.

"SPEAK!"

Rose squealed as he grabbed her hair, picking up her head only to slam it back down against the floor. Spots danced in her vision and she felt a slow cloud come over her mind. The Huntsman did it again and the world started tilting and Rose was sure that she was going to throw up.

The Huntsman undid the clasp on her bra and flipped her over.

"N-no," Rose said, trying to throw up her hands to block him but she wasn't moving very fast.

"Yes, Huntsgirl," the Huntsman said. "You are mine. Never forget that."

One of his hands wrapped around both of her wrists and Rose struggled to kick at him. He straddled her knees, undoing the button on her jeans and starting to pull them and her underwear down.

Rose let out a scream but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered because she couldn't get away and the Huntsman's pants were down now too and then he was inside of her and there was so much pain. Rose's ears were ringing as she closed her eyes, unable to look up and see his face looming over her. This wasn't the way that it was supposed to be. This was never supposed to happen.

Rose was bleeding and shivering by the time that the of Huntsman finished inside of her. When he got off of her, she still didn't open her eyes, even though she was desperate to cover herself back up. She just wanted him to leave so that she could flee to the shower, scrub herself off, and hopefully find out that this was all a bad dream. Maybe she would wake up in Jake's arms, crying about a nightmare so real that she would never forget it.

The Huntsman's heavy boots walked by her and Rose flinched out of the way and then bit back a sob at what the movement cost her. Rose heard the click of the door being open and then words more horrifying than any she had ever heard before.

"Do whatever you want to her. Tell anyone to do whatever they want to her. She's dead to us now."

Rose just kept her eyes closed because she knew there was no fighting back anymore.