This is set after the Andre-Talitha thread I never finished writing out, in which she gets raped rather brutally. 8D Yaaaay. And then I decided not to bring Andre back. Doubleyaaaay. (I figured it would be a good idea to uh reveal what happened, and then have Andre get the fuck out of there after covering his tracks with funny smelling herbs, so I might finish that thread sometime... Maybe.)
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A heart beat somewhere; her sensitive ears could hear it. Somewhere close; that was Haku. She lifted her head a little, allowing her broken figure to slump more against the wall to support even the slightest movement. At first she had been fiery and stubborn, but after... That... She hadn't said a word. She hadn't moved but to eat or drink. She didn't even flinch when Haku shifted into his halfling form, and she didn't smile triumphantly when she was told she was going home. No. She couldn't think of anything but Andrezej. She hadn't really been told anything about him except that he was a bad coyote, but she had witnessed that first hand. Her legs were still bruised from his abuse, and her wrist was still sore, though not broken. Thankfully not broken. If Haku or any of Dahlia de Mai had noticed the difference in her, nobody had said anything.
Her body moved of its own accord, but her steps were heavy and not very lively at all. Her head swam with horrific memories of the event, and it was all she could do to block the sound of her own muffled screeches out of her ears. They had been as loud as anything to her as he had pounded her senseless with fists and thrusts, but nobody would have heard a thing past the cloth he had shoved into her mouth and made her gag on. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed and bit back the desire to moan out her anguish at having those pictures and thoughts plague her mind constantly.
Talitha wanted nothing to do with the Lykoi name after the event. She wanted to abandon it, knowing such a horrible and cruel and ruthless man existed who also carried it. As they came to a stop, she looked up to see her father and Anselm, and relief did fill her, but she immediately dropped her gaze and let her shoulder-length dark hair fall across her eyes. She didn't want her father to see the lack of light in her eyes, the plea of death in her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to curl up and leave life, so she could leave those memories.
Between them there was a figure sprawled on the ground. She gave Firefly only a brief glance as she started at the sound of Haku's voice. So jumpy; Talitha had never been jumpy before the incident. How had he even found her? What had he had against her? It all seemed so planned and perfectly executed, as if Andre had been planning that for a very long time, but she couldn't possibly understand why he had come after her. She couldn't remember ever having seen him before, and especially not having done anything that could possibly upset him. The brother of Arkham and Rachias... But how was he so different from them?
A rapist. A killer. He had spared her but only so he could show Gabriel what he would do. He had fled — perhaps he was truly just a coward — but he had taken every inch of the desire to live out of her and carried it with him. Had she been old enough she would likely have been more afraid of carrying his spawn than of the fact that she was raped, but she was only a child. A young teen, perhaps. And she was a raped hostage standing there, quivering on her own weak feet, looking at the ground upon which her father stood, wondering why God had not saved her from the robbery of innocence, knowing what they could not. What they would not, hopefully; it was her little secret, her little chunk of death to carry on her bosom and hopefully never worry either of them with.