"Tripp didn't come home again." Claire was whining and Ciara wanted to bury an ice pick between her eyebrows.
"You said he was on a date. Dude probably got laid. You should try it." Ciara was trying not to think about Tripp and what she had done to him. It was one thing to dream and fantasize about ruining a person, but actually doing it had changed her. And it bothered her that she wasn't sure what it exactly it was that was different.
Claire gasped, then began screeching at a glass-rattling pitch. "Ciara! Theo's all the way in South Africa! You know I can't do that without him!"
The though of Claire made Ciara shudder. She instantly regretted bringing up the subject.
"I hope you're right, though," Claire continued in a more calm tone. Nursing a hot cup of tea, she sat next to Ciara on the sofa. "I hope he did have a great time with the guy and that nothing bad happened."
"Guy?" Ciara didn't have to play at being shocked. She had no idea that Tripp was capable of telling Claire that he was going out to see Paul. For whatever reason, she had expected Claire to find out when everyone else did.
Claire nodded, her eyes wide. "Yeah. He didn't tell me who it was. I don't know if he... We didn't talk much about it, but he never said it was a secret or anything. I'm still worried about him, though. As much change as there has been in the world, Salem still isn't that progressive a place."
"I'm sure he's fine," Ciara lied. Memories of the night before began to flash through her mind, but she banished them as quickly as they surfaced. "Tripp is a pretty tough guy. He can take care of himself."
"I hope you're right."
Before the unsettling conversation could continue, Ciara's phone rang. Not even bothering to excuse herself, she stood and walked away from Claire and the sofa. She also didn't feel bad about it.
"Hi, Aunt Kayla." It was rare for Ciara to hear from her aunt. While the Brady family had a tendency to come together in times of crisis, Ciara had never really been a part of that. It was less like she was the daughter of Bo Brady, and more like everyone just saw her as the daughter of Hope Williams.
"Ciara, honey, are you free today? I need a favour." There was hesitance in Kayla's voice. It didn't surprise Ciara that her aunt needed something from her: nobody ever wanted her around just to have her be around. "I'll understand if you say no."
"Why the hell not? It's not like I have anything better to do." Ciara shot a dirty look at Claire, whose mouth dropped open in shock and confusion. "Whatcha need?"
"It's illegal for me to tell you who, but a young man was admitted to the ER early this morning. He was raped, Ciara. I think he needs someone to talk to, someone who has been through it, and I... I can't be that person. Will you do this for me? I know it's asking a lot."
All Ciara wanted to do was refuse: Kayla was talking about Tripp. She had to be. And while it was hard for Ciara to talk about Chase and what he had done to her, the other option was to stay home and spend time with Claire.
"Yeah. I can do that. I'll be there as soon as I can," Ciara told her aunt. She wondered how she was going to pull it off: how was she going to counsel a man about his rape when she was the one who raped him?
Everything had been perfect in theory. But just like communism, Ciara was afraid her plan wouldn't work in execution. All she could do was hope that the very sight of Tripp would piss her off so much that her guilt evaporated. She needed it.
"What's going on?" Claire asked from behind her tea. Ciara wanted to pour said tea over her niece's head.
"It's none of your fucking business, you ostrich-built bitch."
Claire began yakking how Ciara was mean and nasty for no reason, and Ciara absorbed the vitriol as she prepared to leave. The hate and anger thrown at her fueled her own, and she was going to need it if she was going to get through the visit with Tripp at the hospital.
When Ciara's phone rang a second time, she used it as an opportunity to momentarily ignore Claire's bleating. This time, it was Sonny calling. Either he was trying to ask her about Paul and Tripp, or he already knew and wanted her to proceed with Will. Either way, she wasn't in the mood to deal with him and sent him to voicemail.
Days
The pain and nausea were gone. Or, at the very least, they were so dulled with drugs that Tripp was completely unaware of them. He wished he could drug away the embarrassment and confusion just as easily.
When the squad had picked Tripp up, Paul hadn't said anything. He just sat in silence, not reacting to anything. It seemed like shock. In fact, Paul hadn't even been the one to call for the squad: that had been Tripp himself. And even as he was admitted, Tripp had hoped he was wrong and that what he thought happened actually hadn't.
Then the results of his drug screening came in: he tested positive for GHB. It was the most common date rape drug on the street. And with that revelation came the painful acceptance. Tripp had been raped. Paul had raped him and he couldn't understand why.
"You're gonna be okay, Son. He won't get away with it." Steve had been promising retribution in one way or another since his arrival at the hospital, but all Tripp wanted from his dad was reassurance. And he barely received any. It didn't help that Steve had glossed completely over the fact that the rape had happened during a date with Paul.
He didn't know what to make of that. Tripp didn't know what to make of a lot of things. His brain was stuck on the impossible to discern why of it all. Was it about sex? Because they'd already done that. All Paul had to do was ask if he wanted to do it again. Was it something else? Why was it so hard to understand?
"Everything will be okay," Tripp assured his dad. He didn't believe that it would. His brain, his most basic survival instinct, had warned him that Paul Narita was going to bring nothing but trouble to Tripp's life. But he had ignored that. He had assumed that his heart knew better. And his ignorance had been rewarded with rape. He had only himself to blame.
"Tripp, you don't have to worry about me." Steve held his son's hand. "I'm the parent. My job is to take care of you. All you do is focus on getting better, on not letting this ruin or define you. You have a rough road ahead and you'll need all of your strength."
There was a knock on the door and Kayla Johnson came in. She was Steve's wife and Tripp's stepmother. She was also the chief of staff for the hospital, and she wasn't alone.
"Ciara?"
"Tripp." His roommate tried to look shocked to see him, but part of her just couldn't pull off the deception. "So, it's you."
"I don't think I could be anyone else." Nobody laughed at his unfunny joke.
"Steve," Kayla looked to her husband with an unreadable face. "We need to leave these two alone for a bit. There's something you need to see, anyway."
Kayla's shaken tone went unnoticed by nobody, but it did go without being addressed.
After giving his son's hand one final squeeze, Steve told his son that he loved him. He quietly left the room with his wife and Ciara closed the door behind them.
"Why are you here?" Tripp asked Ciara. He couldn't comprehend why Kayla would have called his gruff and downright mean roommate to be at his side after what he'd already been through. The last thing he needed or wanted was a vicious mocking.
"The hospital has trained rape counsellors on staff," Ciara informed Tripp, almost as if she would rather one of them were with him. "I get it if you'd rather have one of them here, but Aunt Kayla... She thought you would benefit from talking to someone you know, someone who has been where you are."
"You, too?" Tripp couldn't bring himself to use the word.
"Me, too," she answered. She sat in the chair that Steve had vacated but, unlike Tripp's father, she didn't try to hold his hand. "Mine was my stepbrother Chase. He did a number on me, but what he did wasn't my fault. And what happened to you was not yours."
Ciara was decidedly not looking at Tripp. He wasn't sure if it was a result of her own memories or something else. He hoped it was the former.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Ciara asked, not really giving Tripp the time needed to process what she had already told him. "Do you know the guy who did it?"
That caught his attention. "How did you know it was a guy?"
After closing her eyes, Ciara took a deep breath. Then she looked directly at Tripp. Her eyes were hard and were tearing into his with such voracity that he had to break the contact to preserve his own sanity.
"Claire mentioned it this morning. It just kind of slipped out. You know the bitch can't keep her big mouth shut." Ciara's explanation was very Ciara so Tripp just nodded. "She said you spent the night with a guy, so I'm assuming he's the one who raped you."
Tripp thought of Paul's odd behaviour. He didn't seem to have been acting like a rapist, but it also occurred to Tripp that he didn't know how a rapist was supposed to act. But evidence didn't lie. He had been drugged and forcefully penetrated, and he had woken up in Paul's bed sick to his stomach.
"I guess so. Someone already came in and took samples, I guess. DNA testing I think. And I'm waiting on an STD test or something, too. I don't know. Part of me doesn't want to know." Tripp's voice cracked and Ciara reacted as if it were gunfire. He felt horrible because it was clear he was causing her to relive her own nightmare. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize." Ciara's voice had grown as hard as her eyes. "Tripp, you have no reason to be sorry. The one in the wrong here is the guy who raped you. And he won't get away with it."
They sat in silence after that. Everyone was angrier about what happened to Tripp than he was. Even Ciara, who openly hated him, was there at his side being what passed for supportive in her world.
The silence was only interrupted when someone else entered the room.
"Mom?" Ciara sounded confused when she addressed the newcomer.
"Hey, Ciara, can you wait outside while I talk to your friend?" The woman seemed taken aback by her daughter's presence, but Tripp spoke up in favour of his roommate.
"Can she stay? Please?" Tripp hated how soft his voice sounded in that moment, how pleading it came off. His words were those of someone who was weak.
"If that's what you want, I suppose." The woman pulled her eyes off of Ciara and fixed them on him. "Tripp Dalton, yes?"
He nodded, suddenly unable to speak. For a moment, he imagined that he was still holding his father's hand and made to squeeze it. The illusion shattered when he was greeted by empty air.
"My name is Officer Hope Brady. I'm with the Salem Police Department."
That was when Tripp began to cry, because suddenly everything was real.
Days
The offices of Black Patch were dark and empty. It was good because it was what Paul needed. He needed the silence almost as much as he needed to be anywhere that wasn't his apartment.
Nobody had come right out and said it, but Paul knew what Tripp and the EMTs had been thinking. They believed that Paul had raped him. And even though Paul didn't believe it, even though he knew he wasn't capable of raping someone, he still had no idea what actually had happened. He woke up to Tripp naked and unconscious in his bed. He woke up naked and lying on top of Tripp.
The big blank spot was terrifying to Paul. What had he done during that period of time he couldn't recall? What had happened to Tripp? And why couldn't he remember anything?
"There you are."
Somehow, Paul had missed the sound of both a key in the lock and the door opening. But he knew the voice well. Looking up from his reverie, Paul saw Steve Johnson staring at him, his eye overcome with rage.
"Wait. Please," Paul begged, knowing it to be futile. Steve didn't even wait for Paul to stand before attacking.
The chair toppled over and Paul fell backward, slamming his head into a filing cabinet. Steve kicked the chair out of the way and pinned Paul to the floor, delivery fist after fist to his face with no time to recover between blows.
Somehow, Paul kicked Steve off, and he kicked hard. He immediately climbed to his feet and put the desk between himself and the angry father. All he wanted was time, enough time to talk Steve out of trying to kill him.
"Stop! Wait!" Paul yelled, slamming his hands on the desk. "I know what you're thinking, but I didn't do anything."
"Didn't do anything? You raped my son!" Steve bellowed. He made to flip the desk over so that it was out of his way, but it proved too heavy. Paul was grateful that Steve was older, because he doubted that he could have handled the man in his prime.
"No, I didn't!" Paul shouted back. He couldn't remember the events of the night, nothing between coming home from dropping off his dad and waking up with Tripp, but he knew who he was. And he was not a rapist. In that moment, Paul stopped caring about the feelings of his accuser and defended himself. "I'm not a rapist, Steve, but your son may be a liar."
That proved to be the wrong thing to say, because Steve began to climb onto the desk to get to Paul. Thankfully, he was interrupted by a sudden police presence.
"Okay, everybody calm down!" Rafe Hernandez stormed into the office, two other officers following behind him. He looked at Steve and nodded. "I don't know what you two were doing and I don't wanna know, but it's over. Do you hear me?"
Anger still radiated from Steve, but he reluctantly agreed. Paul breathed out of relief.
"Paul Narita." Rafe looked over to Paul, who hung his head in defeat. He knew what was coming. The words didn't seem real, even Rafe seemed like he couldn't believe what he was saying, but he still stung. "You're under arrest for the rape of Tripp Dalton. You have the right to remain silent..."
Days
Sonny chuckled. His police informant had already told him about the arrest, but there was nothing better than seeing the headlines splashed across the TV and social media. It was done: Paul had been arrested for rape and his reputation would never recover. T'was glorious.
Now that Paul was out of the way and the Tripp creature had been properly punished, Sonny could fully devote himself to the one thing that truly mattered: his husband.
But Ciara wasn't answering his summons. That was unacceptable. They had made a deal and he had upheld his end of it. Now Sonny wanted to collect what she owed. And after her stunt with Will, she owed him her life.
He began dialing the now familiar number. There weren't many people Sonny could trust. And while she was definitely not on the list, she was loyal enough to money to do what he ordered. He needed that.
"Yeah, Boss Man?" She sounded amused, when she answered, and he assumed she had also been reading the news.
"You can take a break from trailing Will," he told her. "I need you to bring someone to me. Do whatever you have to to get her here, even if she sees your face."
"Who's the unlucky bitch?" She sounded excited, which it turned made Sonny a bit excited himself to see what she'd do.
Sonny smiled. "Your cousin, Ciara Brady. She and I need to have a talk, and I want you to be there for it."
Theresa Donovan began laughing. Unable to stop himself, Sonny joined her.