"Come darling," he said with so much love in his voice that a single tear drops from mine and the child's eyes in sync.
My mother laughed and slowly walked over to the five year old I had been, her hand coming up to catch the tear and wipe it away with a smile. I was such a crybaby as a child, unsure of my place in the world, unsure of so many things that I shouldn’t have been.
The child moved closer, a small smile on her face. My father smiled warmly, welcoming her into his arms before allowing her to step upon his feet and dance with him. I watched them from where I sat on the thick blue carpet of my family home’s floor, my stomach flipping over with horror, regret and fear of what was to come.
I hated Ryder more for this, more than I did for his Fae fucking me on the highway.
My mother laughed, as she sat on the wooden chair she had always despised even though my father loved it. Her radiant smile is like a knife through my heart, I want to scream, to warn them but I know nothing I do now would change what is coming. I've relived this nightmare until I know every detail intimately.
The song ends and the child stays, she's mesmerized by him—my father. He's her everything. Always kissing scrapes and scaring the fears away. He'd always been there, always. Until they took him from me.
I look towards the door, I know what is coming. It always does.
The door shook from the impact of a heavy fist pounding on it, they both go stiff. The wards in the house pulse and flared with angry red lettering, warning them of evil intent. They knew. Every time I see this, they knew what was coming, what was happening and every time they are still helpless with what is in store for them. I want to scream, I need to. I don't. I settle for shaking my head, it too is useless.
"Synthia, come with Mommy. I need you to be big for me, can you do that?" Her voice was low, and trembled.
Every. Fucking. Time.
I want it to end. I search wildly with my eyes for a way out. I hate this part. I don’t want to see it. "Stop this!" I cry to no avail.
"I can Mommy, I promise."
I want to slap the child, make her blind. Make her not see it and then maybe, just maybe I'd have lived a normal life. One not haunted by this dream.
My mother opened the hidden door behind the fire grate. She stopped long enough to kiss the child on her cheek. She wanted to say something, but the door was splintering and crashing into the house as it was kicked in. "Go," she whispered pushing the child through and closing it.
Five men swarmed the room, death in their eyes. Their strides. Fucking Fae. All of them, Dark and Light. Working together. Fucking Fae. One swung what looked like an oversized bat to my five year old mind, threatening my father. Now I knew it was called a cudgel, or a club.
"Where is the Gift?" The tallest one screamed, his voice shrill as it came out in layers.
"Gone," my father said standing up tall, undeterred by that wooden club, or the deadly creatures he was facing. Pride swelled inside of me, inside of the child me. He was so brave.
"I can smell the Gift, show us or the pretty blonde gets to entertain us until you do," the dark haired one growled his voice multilayered. His eyes were black and grey, marking him Fae, even at five, I could tell that they were evil.
I turn looking at where my child-self had been hidden, she should’ve turned away. She should have done something, fight, scream, give them something to use besides her parents. She but she just stood there behind the grate, watching with horrified terror. I glare at her, as if it would make her do something, this happened so long ago. Nothing changes, ever.
My mother screamed as they descended upon her, one held the ropes and attacked my father. I was their weakness, they knew it. They couldn’t fight, to use magic would have disrupted the house and to keep me safe they’d had it balanced far enough away from the leyline they needed to use for casting. In the end cost them their lives.
More screaming followed as my father was tied to the wooden chair and left helpless to do anything but watch as they tore into my mother. He tried fighting them to get to my mother. This was when it turned ugly. The sound of wood breaking bone is hard to forget, sickening, the crunch audible and unforgettable.
Blood was everywhere.
The sound he made when he tried to call for my mother took my breath away. I want this memory to stop. I don't want to watch this. I sink the rest of the way to the floor. It's too much.
Eight
The child didn't know what was going on, only that the bad creatures were hurting her parents. Not that four of the Fae were raping her mother, stealing her mind and killing her soul. She couldn’t know that the grunts and grinding were torture to make her father talk. That her mother's cries were from pain and pleasure alike.