When The Past Comes Back To Shove (Power Rangers Wild Force/Time Force Fanfic)

Cold & Alone

Warning: The following contains descriptions of abuse.

Cold.

She hadn't felt this cold in years. Not since...

No.

Taylor opened her eyes and sat up with a groan. Her head throbbed at the movement. She looked down to realize that not only was her Wild Force vest gone, but so were her shirt, boots, and socks, leaving her in her tank top with slacks that had been ripped in multiple places. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall.

Too much. Her head hurt too much.

She felt something wet against her side. Reaching her other arm to touch her left side, she felt a wound. Blood.

Great, she thought. Concussion and knife wound.

She vaguely remembered what happened. Being grabbed by a man. Being stabbed and then hit in the head by something when she fought back.

Her friends not seeing what happened.

Taylor sighed and wrapped her arms around herself.

He liked it when she was cold. He liked it when she hurt. He liked hurting her. He liked watching other people hurt her. He liked it when she was scared. He loved every second that he could see the fear in her eyes, hear the laboring of her breath, or feel the pounding of her heart. He was a sick dog, completely unworthy of her time and attention.

But he'd seemed so kind at the beginning. Maybe that's why she'd been so cold to Max, Danny, and Cole. She didn't want to be used.

She'd worn her heart on her sleeve before Arthur. She'd been outgoing and slightly eccentric and warm. She wrote at all hours of the day and night, trying to write the perfect song. There were even times that her dad'd had to take away her notebooks just so she'd go to sleep. On one such night that she was awake, she wrote a poem called "In Defense Of The Color Yellow" after she overheard someone saying it was ugly. People didn't know what to think about the girl who always had a book of some kind in her hand.

After she had escaped, she'd tried to go back to normal. But the more sorry looks and words she was given, the worse she got. She lashed out at everyone, Alyssa, her father, people who were just trying to help. She was angry. They didn't know what she'd gone through. They didn't know about her daughter!

They didn't know because she never told them. She never told them about Gianna and how she'd tried desperately to keep her. How she screamed until no sound came out and cried until no more tears fell for her daughter. How broken she was inside. How she was in more pain giving her daughter away than she'd been in giving birth. No, her pain wasn't physical. It was worse. Physical pain subsides. Mental and emotional pain doesn't go away so easily. She nearly starved herself. She was weak. Then she realized something.

If she gave up, gave in, Arthur won. So, she got her strength back. After graduation, she fulfilled her childhood dream. She enlisted in the Air Force, quickly climbing the ranks, trying to desperately prove that she was more than what happened to her. Prove that she was more than her circumstances. She'd worked so hard.

Now, the life she'd built had crashed down around her.

Eric had been the best thing to happen to her since escaping, and now, even he was gone.

"He'll find me," she tried to say, the words coming out in a jumbled mess of syllables.

The last thing she saw before passing out again was the cage and the bars keeping her in.