Immaculate

Karate Kid

OK, this was quite hard to write, but I think it needs to be done. We all bang on about how broken these boys are but we very rarely see it, (at least not yet in the books). These boys have gone through some things that are nigh on impossible to imagine let alone really understand how it mucks with their heads. At the moment in the books, it's just words on paper, but the kind of abuse these boys saw and experienced is life altering. It has to be. I know they have Mr B, (who is just as broken too) the Academy and each other, but I still think it would have a huge effect on how they view things and react to things. I've been thinking about this a lot recently and so this chapter was begging to come out. This won't be the last of it either, there has to be jealousy between these boys, there has to be times when what they've gone through rears its ugly head.

I just hope I can do this justice, because, as of the last time I showered, I'm not a boy and I don't think like a boy. And I have no first hand knowledge of abuse, thanks to my wonderful parents :)

Nathan's POV

North was silent as we drove towards school. I was sitting in the front of his jeep and Gabriel was sitting in the back.

"Reckon we'll start getting jobs again now this school thing is over?" Gabriel asked from behind us. I looked back at him, he had his phone out and was scrolling down through something on there.

"Probably," North spoke up and I looked sideways at him, but his eyes were on the road.

I had fallen out with my brothers before, had some flaming arguments with all of them, but I've never quite felt like I do now. I was uncomfortable with North and I don't ever remember a time when I felt this way before. I had been angry with all of them when Victor had first explained the "Share or lose Sang" speech and it had taken me quite awhile to get on board with it. I was on board with it now, I knew that I could never take her away from them without breaking a lot of hearts, including my own. But this feeling, this was new. I couldn't look at him and not think of the bruises that littered her chest and lower throat. I had told them I could deal with hickeys and I think I can, but the bite marks?

I had seen the marks on my mom, the bruises, the welts, the cuts and the bites. I remember one time clearly, I had been a lot younger and I had wanted her to swim with me in the pool. For once my father had been on my side and when she had tried to say no, he had made her. I thought he'd wanted her to have some fun, but now, looking back on it, I realised it was just another way to humiliate her. When she'd come out in her bikini I had seen the bruising that she could hide under clothes. Her stomach and lower back, what I could see, was covered with bruises, some old, some new. But there had been other marks, teeth marks, burns and cuts. He had watched her, seeing the marks he had left on her and I realised it was like some sort of sick perverted ownership. She was his to do with as he pleased and it pleased him to hurt her, to mark her.

"Hey, look at this shit!" Gabriel broke into my thoughts and I turned to see he was holding up the phone for me to look at. "She'd look fucking cute in that, wouldn't she?"

"What is it?" North boomed, trying to look back.

"Keep your fucking eyes on the road!" I snapped at him and took the phone from Gabe. I looked down and frowned.

"What the fuck is it?" I demanded.

"It's a raincoat, you moron!" he snorted and I flipped him the finger.

"I know it's a coat, but what the fuck is that on the hood?"

"We never got the chance to take her shopping for that coat," Gabriel spoke up.

"I know!" I spat out. "I wasn't asking that I was asking what the fuck is that shit on the hood?" I shoved the phone back at him and turned to glare out of the window.