Snow Bound

9

They spent the day shopping, at least that's what it felt like to Whitney. Well, first they went to the lawyers and then the bank. When Whitney saw how much money they were giving her she about passed out.

"What's wrong, Whitney?" John asks worriedly.

"So much money," Whitney whispers hoarsely.

"Most of that was the amount paid to your mother for you. Add in the price of the drugs she got when she slept with my father, the rest is part of what we owe you."

"No, no, you don't owe me. Neither of you owe me." Whitney just can't wrap her head around the amount given to her.

"Whitney, listen, we can't give you back what was lost and taken from you. There is no monetary value to what you lost. There is nothing we can do to make it right, this is the best we can do. Please, you deserve so much more and we just don't have it."

Whitney looks at John, "That's why he was willing to free the others."

"Both of us will do our best to give you what ever you ask, but there will be some things we just won't be able to give you."

"I-I understand. But you don't need to keep giving me stuff. This is too much money."

"Seriously, the amount paid for you wasn't near the amount your mother should have received. The work that you have given us has been very fruitful. Your efforts on our behalf have made us a lot of money. This is just a small amount of what you should be given. More will be deposited to you as we are able to free up the funds, but with the transition it will be difficult."

"No! John, please, no more. With the gifting of the building, it will be more than enough." Whitney does her best to impress on John that she doesn't want more money.

John sighs and nods. He'll figure out another way for her to get the reparations though. "You never asked about your mother."

Whitney scoffs and sneers, "That bitch was shooting up drugs even as your father introduced me to the joys of forced sex. She didn't even look at me as I screamed at her for help. I don't think she even heard me, if she did she didn't give a shit. I lost my mother the day my father died."

"Well, I guess it won't bother you what happened to her. She blew through the money in less than a year as she bought drugs from my father. After she didn't have more money my father allowed her to use her body to pay for them until she reached the amount he should have paid for you, then he cut her off. She eventually died of a drug overdose less then a year after you came into my father's loving care."

Whitney sniffs, but doesn't realize that there were tears falling down her face that betrayed her true feelings. "Couldn't happen to a better person. She get tossed into a indigent grave or just left to rot on the streets or drug house?"

"One of your relatives paid to have her buried with your father." John hopes that she won't ask him the next question.

"So did any of them bother looking for me or wonder what happened to me?" Whitney asks bitterly.

"No, not even a missing persons report was filed. That might be due to my father's influence in the force though. They might have tried but the paperwork disappeared." John tries to give it a positive spin.

Whitney says bitterly, "I doubt it. Once my father died his family wanted nothing more to do with either of us. My mother's family barely kept in contact and refused to help my mother when she needed it the most. She begged them for help to pay the bills, to take me so at least I would have a decent life. They told her to shove it up her ass and told her to not call them again."

John looks at her appalled. "They didn't."

"They did, I heard them, they were very vehement about it and were very vocal. That was the last time my mother called them. I heard things no child should hear their so called family say."

John feels compelled to ask even though he knows he won't like the answer. "What did they say?"

"They said that I should die and that would take care of my mother's problems. That my mother should never have had me or married that piece of shit man. They told her not to marry him and that she would regret it.

"They told her that she should just leave me at the side of the road and I'll either get killed or taken into protective services.

"They told her that if she got rid of me that they would take her in and help her get back on her feet." Whitney wipes the betraying tears away absently still locked in the horrid memories. "They hated me, John. Absolutely hated me. I was always a princess to my father and to go from that to the shit they were saying and then to what your father did to me. It destroyed me, absolutely destroyed me."

John decided in that moment that he would go after the family members that were so callous towards her. Just to give them a taste of the hell Whitney went through.

"I excelled at the lessons because I hated the pain. Your father beat me after violating me, because I couldn't stop crying. It hurt so much and he beat me because I cried from the pain. He then took me again. I was on fire from the pain and couldn't stop crying, I tried desperately but just couldn't. By the time he was done beating me the third time for crying I was damn near dead. It took me weeks to be able to move without wanting to scream in pain. Months to be able to breath and move with out any pain.

"I learned then to hide the pain and cry only once I was alone. Then the whippings started, a whole new level of pain or rather a whole new kind of pain.

"I feared any time someone opened my door. I never knew if it was for lessons or for failing some rule or lesson. I lost all track of time, every day became one big blur of pain and lessons. I focused on the lessons to take away the pain. I learned to take myself away from the situation and the pain from the rapes weren't so bad.

"I followed every rule and still I was taken and made an example of to the others when they wanted to cause pain. I honestly thought I would die there."

John is sickened by her story. He had known it would be bad. It had been bad for him and to a lesser extent Michael, but Whitney had it worse. He has a feeling that there is more than a little favoritism being played there in the house. He will deal with the head guard later. He'll invite Whitney to watch as he receives the same punishment that he handed out to Whitney.