Tu Es Ma Lumière

153 - Attack *Modern* *Mature*

It is said that when the body goes into shock, the mind goes blank. Should you experience something awfully traumatic, it will become nothing but a dark abyss over time. All that pain, that suffering, the uncertainty, will amount to nothing but a blip in the memory. The mind will block it out to save itself that pain, the trauma, the uncertainty.

Would it really happen so soon, however?

Mary doesn't even know what happened. One minute, she's calmly asleep in the bed in which she shares with her husband when they take a trip to France. The next, the door is being barged open and suddenly she's on the floor and her arms are being pinned to the ground and then-

She lets out a shuddering, tearful exhale, roughly scrubbing at her face, ridding herself of the tears that burn the cut upon her lip in which she'd been struck down by the one who'd-. No. She couldn't think about that. She didn't know him. She didn't know any of them. All of a sudden, they were in her bedroom and then she's on the floor. Over and over, being held down, with hands tightening and tightening around her throat, until her lips began to tingle and her vision began to fade into nothingness.

She let out another gasp for air, retreating from the faucet. Is the water scalding hot? Or is it freezing cold? She cannot tell.

This wasn't supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a lovely trip to see their families in France and then sort out some business for their merged company. Not this. Anything, everything, but this.

"Mary," a voice said. Mary spins around with a shriek of surprise, before calming at the sight of her frightened mother in law. She's so small, was Catherine always that short? Did she always look to weathered? When did she get here? Of course, her mind tells her, she'd burst down the door after hearing such a commotion. She'd been too late to stop it, but she'd caused them to scurry out of the window like scolded dogs, she'd picked up Mary's limp, bloody, abused body and screamed out for help. And then, they were here.

"Catherine," she whispers. Was her voice always like that? So raspy and tired? Why did it sound like that?

"It's alright, my dear." Catherine begins slowly, taking a step closer to the young woman of who'm she'd risen from time to time until she was nine years old. She looked like the child Catherine remembered, confused and unsure and weary, not like the powerful young woman that her son had fallen for -hard- when they were teenagers and finally married when they were twenty one. "But," she begins, her voice choked, swallowing down the lump that had formed in her throat. "you have to tell Francis, my child." Mary let out a choked sob at this, shaking her head. "you must," Catherine pushes. "he's your husband, he has been for five years, Mary. He must be told of this." she pauses. "We need to call the police-"

"No." she croaks desperately, sagging onto the bathtub, sitting down upon it. Her head hurts, her body hurts. Will it ever stop? "No police." she whispers miserably. Mary closes her eyes. She hears her own scream as the first one pushed into her, she hears them yelling. She hears glass breaking. The thought brings a chill to her spine. She whimpers, wrapping her bruised arms around herself.

"Mary-" Catherine comes closer to her, walking slowly, as if Mary was a frightened animal that her mother in law did not want to spook. Why was she moving like that?

"No." she sobs miserably, looking up at her mother in law who now towers over her at a grand measure of five foot. "We-" she breathes. "We're already on tumultuous times, this will only make things a million times worse." she says, wiping her tears. "All this-" she gestures in front of her face. "trying to have children and failing to keep a baby, it's already rocked us. We-we just need to forget it ever happened, okay?" she breathes croakily, running her hands roughly down her face with another sniffle.

"If we do-" Catherine comes closer, hunching at Mary's feet. "those men will get away with it. You know me, you know how I work, I will never, ever, let anybody get away with this if it happened to one of my daughters. You're included in that." Catherine tells her, her hazel eyes burning holes into Mary's golden ones with the furiocity of her passion. "Mary, I know we've never been the closest, even when you were a child under my care, when your mother was too unfit to take care of you, before you got taken back permanently to your father. And I haven't been the kindest I could be to you, more specifically when you and my son were dating as teenagers, but you make Francis happy."

"I can't do this to him-" Mary heaves. "It's bad enough that I can't give him a baby, I can't tell him that-" her voice broke and she collapsed into another fit of tears. She cried into her hands. Her mother in law watched, helpless, for Mary would scream if she tried to touch her.

"Mary, don't do this." she says. "Tell somebody, anybody-" she pleads.

"Why?" she cries. "Ev-everything I've done, accomplished will amount to nothing, everybody will just know me for the fact that I-" she chokes on her tears, shaking her head again.

Catherine looked down, taking a breath of courage.

"I-I was raped." Catherine de Medici-Valois-Angouleme confesses. "I was seventeen at the time, and-" she sighs. "I didn't tell anybody and I've kept it with me all this time. You know of my first child, Clarissa?" she asks.

"The-the baby you gave away young?" Mary heaves, wiping her tears.

"Yes." she whispers. "She was the product of it, Mary. I still haven't told Henry, and perhaps, if I did, he would have taken away the memories that I had from that day, and-and the guilt that I felt when he had Sebastian and I couldn't get pregnant again. I thought it was my punishment, for giving her away, not having another child. But even after we got pregnant and had Francis, I fell into a deep depression, more than just post partum, and then-" she trails. "God." she says, taking the Lord's name in vain, but Catherine says no more.

Mary inhales through her nose, shakily. "I'm so sorry." she croaks. "I-I've never-" she whispers.

"Nobody knew, as I've said. You-you're the only one that does. The men who did it, they got away with it. I suppose I tried to become a lawyer so that nobody else would get away with it, but that fell through when I married Henry and was ingratiated in his businesses. I think about it often, after all this time. "Boys and men, girls and women, they've had it happen and it's wrong, Mary. Those who think that rape is justified or something good should be in prison." she stands now, and Mary is the one who looks up at her. "You must not let them win. You must not put any women at risk for it happening to them."

Mary chokes on her cries, but she says nothing. Her body hunches over, and she seems so, so small right now.

{ / }

Heyy

I hope you enjoyed this kinda dark oneshot. I was recently gifted a new keyboard, and whilst setting it up, I found a skeleton plan for a really dark modern story. I wrote the first two chapters whilst writing Tampered Beauty, and that was a long time ago. It's similar to another one on fanfiction that I read, so I was reminded of it, hense why I promoted it on this oneshot entity when all this virus thing got serious. Would you guys be interested in reading it if I was to publish it and begin updating it? It's next on my list for completion, since now I've finished the Le Blanc Duchesse three part mini book and the The Billionare's Daughter 20 chapter book and have all my time and energy focused on it. What is above is the first part of the first chapter, so do you guys wanna read something dark and painful Frary? Let a girl know! If yes, keep an eye out for The One Winged Raven!

Just a reminder for anybody who's requested something lately, I have alot of things still in the works (not just books/mini books) but pieces for this entity and that takes a while. So, I promise things are still in motion, they're just going to take a while. And if you request, please specify modern/period and give specifics! It really helps!

Love,

me

:)