bagheera

>> insatiable

What brings us together is what pulls us apart,
Gone our brother, gone our heart
- Gone by Ioanna Gika 

Weeks passed in blurs of coins, people, towns filled with the smell of coffee in the day and illuminated by pretty fairy lights at night. It was a good way to spend my time, besides it's not like I had anything else to do with my time. Why not do something I loved while pretending to just fill my pockets up a little more? No one figured it out yet, that the money they gave me was my life. This was everything that I lived off. This was it.

It was one night that I was playing in the front of a rather dark looking bar, it was in the next town over and I hadn't played in this town before. Not that I was worried, the bar owner said that I would be safe while I played in here because customers were always seen at the front before they came in. This is was little comfort to me but I'm light on my feet, I know how to escape if need be.

So as usual, I played my best hits and the coins trickled into the violin case with a fleeting smile to go with it. Despite the fact that there was a new layer of frost outside, the café was warmed so nicely that I just wore my heels and black dress that touched my knees. There were only a few people in the café at a particular time and they all left together and then a new set of people would come in and then leave and it would go on like this.

The way everyone sort of moved with groups and whispered in such hushed tones you would never have thought anyone knew who their neighbour was. It was just window-dressing in this town, you only knew as much as people let you see. My fingers shivered against the strings and underneath my lashes I gazed at the people who were entering the café. The rather sour looking waitress who led people to their booths opened the door to three enormous looking men. They all looked like professional wrestlers or like they would have a tattoo of skull and crossbones on their arms.

Swallowing hard I tried not to notice all three of them staring at me with dark eyes. They cannot hurt you, Bagheera, I repeated to myself. The manager promised, he promised. Taking in a deep breath I ended the song and my bow slipped slightly from the strings. It made a flat squeak and I could only hope that no one noticed.
"A little off there, honey!" one of the men hollered across the room at me. Blushing deeply, both of his mates laughed at his joke but no one else in the café appreciated it. They all sent them piercing glares and even though they didn't back me up at least their disapproving looks gave me some more confidence.

I'll show them, I grit my teeth and set for the hardest melody I knew. It wasn't going to upset anyone by being too loud or upbeat but it was difficult and complicated. Keeping the grin off my face I set my bow against the strings and set off. My fingers danced up and down while the notes of the song filled the café and the faces of the three guys across the room looked defeated. It was the wrong thing to do. I should never have been so cocky. But maybe whatever happened next was inevitable.

***

The café was almost completely empty and I had been offered a drink of water outside the kitchens. The twenty dollars I'd made would get me breakfast for the next couple of days and transport to the next town if I left tonight. The late buses were always the cheapest. I made the mistake of putting the paper note into the pocket of my dress and of not going back into the café when I had finished my drink.

"Hello there, honey" I barely had time to run to the back door when a rough hand slammed it shut and I was out on a dirty corridor alley with three hulking men who had lust in their eyes. The one who had shut the door leant against it and crossed his arms over his chest. My jaw clenched and I tried to keep my cool and slowly backed up to try and figure out an escape route.
"Now baby, what's your rush?" my back collided with a wall of flesh and a hand shot to grab my wrist which was holding my violin case.

My heart was in my mouth and I felt my pulse radiate from where he held my arm.
"Let go of me" I hissed under my breath. The three of them just laughed at me and closed in on me. My palms sweated and my case dropped from my hand, it gave a loud clatter and I prayed that maybe someone heard it so that they could get me out. But there was dead silence and just the smell of sweat and dark chuckles.

"If you scream, you'll wish we killed you once we've finished" the leader growled. His hand came up to roughly touch my breast and I felt blood in my mouth as I tried to wreath out of his hold. But there were three of them and only one small lithe Bagheera. So they continued.

My cheek hit the pavement and fingers were plying apart my dress and buttons and zippers went flying. The concrete was so hard and it gnashed at my face. Teeth grinding against each other, my nails digging into nothing but mud and then the back of my head hit the bottom of a puddle and it hurt but I could still feel. I could still feel everything that was happening to me.

Stretching of material. The stench of rubbish as it was shoved in my face. Cold air seeped into my bones and the cuts they made as they all pushed harder into me. I felt so lost and like a used toy. So used that it eventually broke. It shattered. Into a thousand pieces that no longer fit together. My voice ceased to exist and my soul went out like a candle in the dark and the dark consumed me. Like a disease born of these men.

Virtue. Innocence. Purity. Only words. But words that I had once possessed. Now they had been stolen and killed. Knuckles bore down on my thighs as they all took their turns. Took turns in ripping everything off me and everything from me. Until I was nothing. Nothing but a bleeding and burnt girl on the pavement with no face and no name.

I shook my head and muttered inaudible words that even God couldn't hear. My skin stretched and bloomed black and blue like a flower. A flower that had been left out in the sun for too long and was now just ash in the wind.

Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop. Please just make it stop.

Forever and infinity passed in the minutes that followed and I had never been so non-existent until now. There was red on the ground and coating like legs like paint, teeth biting my arms and neck and ears. My dress torn off and used to clean the filth off themselves, my hands shivered like the violin was in my hands.

To think in that moment that I was nothing but blood and shredded virtue would be true. I would never be pure again.

And then out of the shadows, emerging from dirt and corruption, there he was—an angel. With the face of a devil.

//AN//
And so ends the first part of The Ash Children Series. Stay tuned for the second book coming out soon, Finch.