Beauty and the Beast

Painful Echoes

Author's Note: This scene isn't really...okay? Just giving you all a heads up in case you want to avoid it UWU

I had always thought that my days of being raped and sexually abused would end with your death. In my eyes, the only man capable of doing such vile things to me was you. When you died and I ran to Ata, I figured I now had all the time in the world to heal. The night I spent with Ata had been a small step on the road to getting my old life back, and it reinforced my tentative belief that I was capable of making good progress if I was given enough time.

But then your Gestapo raided Ata's parents' flat and arrested Ata and I.
And something happened afterwards that damaged me irrevocably.
It mercilessly tore apart the stitches Ata's presence had begun to sew over the wounds my time with you had left me with. and gouged deep, fresh gashes on my already battered soul.
It told me that although you were dead, there was no shortage of men out there who would gladly do to me what you had done and worse. It told me that no matter what I did, or no matter how much time passed, I would never be seen as anything more than "Reinhard Heydrich's whore."

I think that was why men saw no problem taking liberties with me that they wouldn't dare take with other women. Fucking a whore wasn't something bad or frowned upon; it was what they were there for, after all.
I suppose that was your way of getting back at me for the role my brother played in your death. That was your way of fulfilling the prophecy that I would "stay with you and be with you forever." That was your way of telling me that I could never escape from you, that you and I were bound together until both of us disappeared from the earth.
I have to say you did a mighty fine job getting your message through to me, Reinhard.

Immediately after our arrival at the Pecek Palace, Ata and I were separated from Mr Moravec and dragged down a series of twisting, dark corridors. I will never forget the terrified, desperate look on Ata's face as his father's hand was torn from his grasp and he was yanked in the opposite direction so savagely he nearly tripped over his own feet. I could tell that he wanted to call out to him, to tell him he loved him one last time, the way he would have done to his mother had he gotten the chance. But doing so would only get him beaten up for talking out of turn.

We were thrown into a surprisingly roomy cell with stone floors and walls. The SS man holding me dragged me over to the wall directly opposite us, from which hung a pair of heavy iron manacles tinged orange with rust. The metal cuffs at the end of each chain chafed my wrists as he clamped them shut and locked them. In the meantime, Ata was restrained in a heavy wooden chair with his wrists secured to the armrests and his ankles to the legs of the chairs with thick leather straps.
Neither of us said a word until the heavy wooden door squealed shut behind us.
It was only after the heavy footsteps of our captors faded away into the recesses of the palace did we find our voices.
"To mi je líto." Ata sounded extremely upset.
"Sorry for what?" I asked. "You haven't done anything."
"But I have." Ata's voice began to crumble at the edges. "I should never have let you come to Prague at all. You were safer back in Panenske Brezany."
I wished I could tell him he was right.
If only he had been right.
But how could I explain to him that my mother no longer wanted to have anything to do with me after what happened between you and I? How could I tell him that no mother would ever want a daughter who bore the title "So-And-so's Whore"?
"I'm glad I was with you when this happened,"
I said. "At least now I can protect you."
Ata's lips curled into a smile. "I won't let them hurt you, either."
Ata, Ata. Sweet, sincere, loving Ata, whose death I was forced to witness weeks later. What had I ever done in my life to deserve the eternal, undying love of such an internally pure, good hearted person?
"How did this happen?" I asked. "How did they find out about you and Teta Moravcová?"
At that, Ata's eyes flared with slow burning fury. "Isn't it obvious? We were betrayed! Someone told them, Sophie, someone who knows who we are informed the Germans of the locations of our safe houses!"
"But you have nothing to do with the resistance!" I said. "Why would they arrest—"
"I was a message pigeon for the resistance. I helped them get in touch with other main resistance fighters. And our flat was a safe house for your brother and his comrades." He swallowed thickly. "My mother was one of the main organizers of the resistance."
Whatever anger I had began to feel towards the Moravec family's betrayers was quickly replaced with fear. I hadn't seen Teta Moravcova anywhere since our arrival at the Pecek Palace.
Your men must have been furious at her for trying to place whatever information she knew out of their reach for good. I secretly hoped she had succumbed to whatever poison she had taken to stave off their wrath.
I didn't dare share my thoughts with Ata. The revelation that I wished death on his mother would only shock and horrify him. All in good time.
The two of us would soon learn in the most horrible way possible that my wish had come true.