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𝙛𝙞𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣.

𝙛𝙞𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣 | 𝘈 𝘛𝘈𝘓𝘌 𝘖𝘍 𝘍𝘖𝘖𝘓𝘚 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘋𝘌𝘗𝘈𝘙𝘛𝘜𝘙𝘌𝘚

｡･:*:･ﾟ✧ ｡･:*:･ﾟ

ANNABEL AND TOMMY MADE THEIR WAY BACK TO BIRMINGHAM, in silence, the events of the trip still swirling in their minds.

They had barely spoken since Annabel told him of everything that Argentina had been. The moment they were back on the boat taking them home after that fateful night with Annabel's family, the girl had broken down, sobbing inconsolably in the arms of her lover. Since the war, Tommy had lost all of his warmth, and with it his small capacity of comforting someone, so he simply held her, caressing her hair, kissing her forehead, hoping that in his love she could find solace. When she finally came up for air, and looked up at the man's face, he saw a broken woman, mirroring much of what he had been after the war, and still was. Then, she spoke.

"Argentina was a punishment, Tommy."

He had tried shushing her, tried to convince her he didn't need to know, tried to stop her from pouring out whatever bloodshed had happened. That's how he dealt with his pain, by staying silent, by not showing vulnerability, yet when he was around her, his weakness cracked through, and he realized she felt the same in that instant, so he let her speak.

Her parents had shipped her off to Argentina, and the moment the boat reached the harbour, their plan for her started. She was taken in by an all girls college, where she was meant to teach English. She arrived with the mindset of the warrior she was, ready to resist every order, yet when her eyes settled on the little Argentinian girls, hair in pigtails, she decided she would enjoy everyday she had there until she could find a way to get back to Birmingham. So, she began teaching, and eventually she started women's empowerment workshops for the mothers of her students, she learned Spanish, how to cook, and adapted to the Argentinian society as time passed. She never lost sight of her ultimate objective, yet she knew she was under surveillance. Eventually, she decided the time had come to enact her plan. She would take a job teaching aboriginal Argentinians that had survived the horrible genocides and in the jungle, she would lose track of whomever was watching her. Once the track was lost, she would travel to Buenos Aires once more and hop on the first boat to England. It wasn't a particularly complicated plan, yet after spending a year in Argentina, she knew it would work. So, she left for the reserves and took a job teaching aboriginals.

That's when Annabel started crying, as she retold her story, because on her way to the reserves, the men of the Argentinian military, who had not seen a white woman in such a secluded area in years, intercepted her. They were three, four, five, Annabel lost count of the men that jumped her and restrained her as she struggled against her attackers, that bound her tightly, gagged her and brought her to their base.

Tommy felt sick to his stomach. Bile rose in his throat at the pure white anger he felt. His hands clenched as Annabel recalled how they kept her in the base for a day before even checking in on her, where they planned on ruining her forever. They groped her and beat her, drawing blood that she could taste in her mouth. She played docile eventually, so they unbound her, and in a flash, she rose her skirt to unsheath the dagger she carried with her and slashed the first man's throat in an impulsive strike. The man that came for her next met his death, as with time she had become a trained warrios. She recounted how blood spurt out of their throats and stomachs as she brought them to their ends despite her trembling hands, and Thomas reached out to grasp both of her delicate hands into his, both pairs stained with the blood of others, forever joined in the trauma of murder.

Annabel used the opportunity of the chaos that ensued to steal a water pouch and slip into the safety of the darkness of the jungle. One, two, three days, she walked, in a torn dress, running on no rest, when an indigenous woman who was on the bank of the river where Annabel had finally came to rest, giving up on her survival, found her and rushed to her. The woman, Aiku, called her fellow tribeswomen, and with their help they carried an unconscious Annabel to the heart of the reserve she had stumbled upon.