92 Rue de Sasse - Run To Me || Rossian Snaps

Trigger Warning
The following scene displays strong depictions of violence. Read at your discretion.

The little bird had flown home.

The men heard the jingle of the keys and braced themselves for her entry. They'd been in silent wait for nearly an hour, needing no words. The plan was set, and Madeleine had been clear about what she wanted done. On principle, they weren't the sort to prey on women and didn't abide men who did, but this one hit close to home. Their cousin had come home in tears, her hair pulled and scratches all over. She'd wept bitterly over some young girl attacking her for her kindness.

The bruises were the most egregious. The English bitch had set her husband on their family, and he'd knocked her around like he thought they would take it sitting down.

Maddy had been adamant they not hurt the man for whatever asinine reason, but the sweet girl still required a message to be passed along.

They could do that.

The moment the door slammed shut, Kaiser sprang into action. He wrapped his elbow at her throat, pulling her flush against him while Emile and Antoine rounded on her. Antoine grabbed her roughly by the jaw, his fingers digging in while dark eyes took in this little girl who thought herself his cousin's better. She wasn't much, just a pretty face but nothing world-changing. Nothing to warrant the pomp that had seen her parading around like a peacock.

"Not so pretty, English bitch," he muttered. The man pulled the cigarette from between his lips, jamming the end that burnt bright orange into her cheek. "Not pretty enough." He pressed the fire into another spot, trusting Kaiser to hold her still despite the way she squirmed.

Emile grabbed her from his cousin, swinging her around roughly before ramming her into the wall front first.

"You're shit." The man tugged her from the wall before slamming her into it again. His hand rested firmly at the back of her head, shoving it into the concrete.

Behind them, more glass shattered. Kaiser was taking his old hoe to the few pictures they'd framed. The burly man hoisted it above his shoulder before bringing it down on the dishes set to dry.

"You're not better," Emile whispered by her ear before slamming her head a second time. "You're not prettier." He spun her around, barely giving her the time to recover before his fist struck her. "You're nothing. Do you hear me?"

The keys were still warm in her palm when her world crashed into itself. They slipped from her fingers, clattering to the floor while an arm, large and strong as iron hooked itself around her throat.

For half a heartbeat, she thought it was him. The sudden pull, the body at her back. Her mind reached for something familiar before it understood the force behind it. The familiar scent of her own hallway was replaced with sweat and tobacco, the comforting scent of cinnamon banished in the intrusion.

The goosebumps and apprehension that had met her at the front door were replaced with a terror that swept through her body in deep black waves. Her entire body revolted, her eyes widening in large blue orbs as two more men rounded on her, taking hold of her face so forcefully she felt her soft skin immediately bruise.

Three.

Her pulse stuttered in a harsh tremor.

Three.

The living room swung on itself.

Dark eyes bore into hers as the scent of salt invaded her lungs. Water slapped against something unstable. Wood slabs creaked beneath their feet instead of the gray tile that adorned her home.

"Not so pretty, English bitch."

A searing heat met her cheek, tearing the skin apart with burning ash. Her fingers clawed at the arm holding her captive, her nails digging into flesh as she gritted her teeth and fought against the pain as a second burn took hold.

“Not pretty enough.”

The words struck harder than the burn.

Her vision fractured at the edges. The world narrowed to breath and heat and the crushing pressure at her throat. Her body shook, not from weakness but from something deeper. It was a primal understanding that she was smaller. Outnumbered.

Her lips parted to beg, to try and reason with whoever they were. To tell them she was pregnant and beseech them not do whatever it was they were here to do.

Before a sound could be made, she was being yanked from the arm that held her and slammed face-first into the wall. A cry broke from her lips, her eyes squeezing shut at the sudden impact, her hands instinctively dropping to her stomach to try and protect her baby.

"You're shit."

She felt the first impact as her head slammed into the concrete wall, a resounding crack filling her skull and reverberating through every inch of her. Her teeth clashed together violently, catching her cheek between them and immediately filling her mouth with the taste of iron.

Somewhere in the room glass shattered in violent crashes, their home the next victim in the men's rampage.

The world spun as the man holding her pulled her back, her vision disoriented and spinning.

"You're not better." His whisper was harsh and cruel. Unbothered by the pain and terror he was causing.

"Don't..." she managed, before her head slammed into the wall a second time, splitting her forehead open against the impact. She cried out, tears flooding her eyes as she held tightly to her abdomen, terrified that for whatever she had done to make these men angry, had gotten herself and her baby killed.

"You're not prettier."

She didn't understand. Nothing made sense, not even the ache that was scorching through her head, slamming and pulsing with each thud of her heart. With a clearer mind, Rosie might have considered her father had found her and sent his goons to punish her, but as it stood, she couldn't focus on a single thought other than the tiny being she was carrying.

The man spun her around, and through the haze she tried to silently reason with him. Her eyes pleading, begging. She...she'd give them whatever they wanted. Anything. They could take everything in the house. She'd tell them where she'd stashed her father's money. They could have all of it.

"You're nothing. Do you hear me?"

His fist slammed into the side of her face, her jaw cracking sickeningly beneath the force while her lip broke open, blood spurting forth. She stumbled as her knees buckled and she hit the floor, her hands doing little to catch her.

She screamed, something raw and feral, as her vision began to darken.

No sooner had the little bird fallen than she was hoisted back to her feet. She hadn't been given permission to sit. Emile clamped his hand over her mouth to muffle her scream, uninterested in alerting neighbours when they weren't done yet. If she thought this was a fairytale that ended in rescue, she would soon realise how wrong she was. The trio of them would make sure of that.

"If you want your throat cut, scream again," he said darkly.

Despite the chaotic sounds of smashing and wrecking, a thick and uncomfortable silence passed between the two. He was watching her, daring her, waiting to see whether she understood or was preparing to throw her life away. Whatever her choice, he was fine to honour it.

Emile waited another beat until he was sure she wouldn't scream before removing his hand. It slid to the top of her head, where golden strands became stained by splotches of crimson. His fist curled in her hair, forcing her to look at him.

"I asked you a question, yes?" Before she'd broken down into hysterics that would get her nowhere. "You must be deaf." He yanked her off the wall by her hair, slamming it back into the wall by her left ear. "My accent, it's too thick? Do you hear me?"

Kaiser abandoned his smashing for the moment, sauntering over to the pair. He propped his hoe beneath her chin, forcing it to rise.

"Your husband, he works at the factory," as far as they knew. "Where is his money?" The man had already smashed several jars and upended the drawers in the end table but had come up with nothing. The only place left to check was the bedroom, and he didn't feel like spending the entire afternoon on a wild goose chase. "If you don't like the taste of metal, speak up."

He sneered at her, as if he saw something disgusting. The corners of his lips curled upward with derision.

Without warning, he reached forward, tugging so forcefully at her shirt that several buttons went flying. The fabric fell loose, opening her up to a different scrutiny. He helped himself, testing her stock for himself with an indifferent squeeze.

"My cousin said you're nothing. Tell him you've heard then tell us where the money is."

She didn’t feel the hands that grasped her or register the violence with which she was yanked back to her feet. In one smooth motion, she was eye-to-eye with her attacker again, his filthy hand clamped over her cut and swollen mouth. His threat registered, but only just, her consciousness fading back and forth, threatening to take the girl under.

A cut throat. They’d murder her in her own home. Maybe leave her broken body on the floor for her husband to find. Tears streamed from her eyes, realizing this is where it all ended. Her dreams of freedom, of chasing love and hope, of living life on her own terms with the boy whose eyes sang of stars and dreams…gone. All of it snuffed out for a reason she didn’t even understand.

She flinched as his hand found its way into her hair, smearing a trail of blood on its way. His eyes bore into hers as the girl shook, soft whimpers leaving her lips, taking place of the scream that had tried to be her salvation.

"I asked you a question, yes? You must be deaf. My accent, it's too thick? Do you hear me?"

Another slam of her head into the wall, and the girl felt her body slump with the force. A sound escaped her, soft and low as the pain radiated behind her eyes, causing sparks of light and red to flash before them. She couldn’t think straight, could barely feel her own body at this point. Hands that once covered her abdomen now instinctively reached for her attacker, trying to steady herself against the dark waves that swayed her.

Magic never occurred to her. In the first moments when they took hold of her, Rosie had been too terrified to even recall and incantation. Her wand was stashed away in the bedroom - something she never took with her to work, and her wandless was still an uncertainty. It worked in the moments she concentrated, but now, when her head swam with an ache and her mouth full of blood?

She couldn’t even feel her magic in her arm.

Something cool and metallic touched the bottom of her chin, forcing her gaze to meet that of the first man who grabbed her. His eyes were cold and empty, absent of any mercy or sympathy for the girl who had never so much as hurt an insect.

"Your husband, he works at the factory. Where is his money? If you don't like the taste of metal, speak up."

The factory. Cassian. Money. She tried, desperately, to make sense of any of it. Money, they had money but Cassian didn’t work at the factory anymore. But they knew him, knew there was money stashed around here somewhere.

Her father. It had to be him. Nothing else made sense to the girl whose world was spinning beneath her. If Cassian came home they’d kill him too. She had to get them to leave, before he did. Before…

She gasped, blood gurgling in her throat as the man yanked at her shirt, exposing her chest and helping himself. She closed her eyes, trying to dissociate, trying to take herself away from the horror that was surely about to befall her. Rosie had been subject to the hands of disgusting men before, and she understood innately where this was going.

A sob shot through her lips. A little dove escaped, only to be shot down, mid-flight.

"My cousin said you're nothing. Tell him you've heard then tell us where the money is."

For a half-second, she considered it. The money wasn’t in their bedroom. It wasn’t even in their house. She and Cassian had been smart enough not to keep such a large sum of money where it’d easily be stolen. Rather, they’d hidden it. Out in the yard, underneath her greenhouse in a small locked box enchanted with wards where disgusting muggles would never find it.

But then she thought of her sweet boy. Finding her crumpled and broken and violated. The sounds that would escape him as he tried to bring her back. The loss he’d have to endure of her and their baby. Their dreams, gone in an instant. He would need the money to get himself back to his parents’. To start over. To give himself time to heal and recover while he faced a life without her.

They couldn’t have it.

“Fuck you,” she growled, and spit a spray of blood all over his face. In the same motion, she used what strength she had to slam her knee directly into his groin.

If she were going to die, her husband would know she didn’t go without a fight.

It was a good kick; Emile would give her that.

The young man hadn't been expecting the sudden, bloody spray. He recoiled instinctively, the putrid metallic taste catching in his mouth. It got into his eyes, forcing them shut, and in that moment of unexpected vulnerability, he felt a sharp pain shoot through his groin. Searing heat overtook him, debilitating in the way it staggered Emile.

He gasped, falling away from her as he curled inward.

This wasn't the reprieve the little bird might have been hoping for. All it did was anger the remaining pair of men, who quickly moved to avenge their kin.

Before Kaiser could drive his hoe into her skull, Antoine grabbed hold of her. Of the three men, he was the one who most remembered that they weren't there to commit murder, though he held no particular sentiment for the English girl. He didn't save her life because her whimpers had tugged at his oh-so-delicate heartstrings. His action was automatic and built on the adrenaline that had been rising with each second they remained within the flat.

As Kaiser pulled back, Antoine reached forward, grabbing her and throwing her to the ground. In a flash, the man was sitting on top of her. His hands closed around her thin neck, feeling the erratic pulse beneath his fingertips.

She squirmed; he squeezed harder.

It grew weaker, as did her movements as she flailed against him. The deep gurgle emanating from her throat distorted her fractured breathing. His jaw stung from where she scratched him, a deep angry red line appearing from the corner of his nose back to the opening of his ear.

Antoine felt her strength leave her, and in another moment her limbs went limp on the ground by her.

He gave it only a minute more before easing off her, leaving the unconscious girl there on the floor.

He turned to Kaiser and Emile, nodding them toward the door.

"Forget the money, let's go."

They'd already been there too long.

Bastard.

There wasn't time to gloat at her vengeance. She bolted for the door at her sudden release, but the man that had burned her face was faster. He grabbed her, throwing her to the ground so harshly that it blurred her vision again, spinning Rosalie's world around her.

He was on top of her, his rage-filled eyes boring into the hatred that filled hers. She swung, again and again, flailing desperately at his face, clawing with her nails to rip at his flesh in any way she could. His hands squeezed at her throat, thumbs digging beneath her jaw as his weight crushed her into the floor.

Her mouth opened, but the breath she reached for didn't answer. Her lungs spasmed uselessly against the solid wall of his grip. The ceiling above her blurred, light breaking into pale halos that trembled at the edges of her vision.

Beneath his grip, her pulse thundered violently at first — a frantic storm in her ears — then began to stagger, each thud more distant than the last. The ringing grew softer. Even his breathing, harsh and furious above her, seemed to recede. The sounds in the room grew more muddled as her limbs began to anchor. She struck at him again, her fingers dragging down his cheek, leaving a long red scratch in its wake.

In the thinning quiet, reality arrived with unbearable clarity.

She really was going to die. Not in some distant abstract future, laying in the love of her life's arms as she took her last breath. Here, on this floor littered with glass and the destruction of what was once their life together. Beneath a man whom she'd never wronged in her life.

Cassian.

His name didn't form as a word so much as a pull in her mind, leading her away from the brutality that took hold of her. She couldn't see him clearly at first as the face above her grew fuzzy. Only fragments. The curve of a boyish grin that always made her laugh. Then soft freckles, little constellations that always drew her in. His eyes appeared, dark brown and warm, so full of love and devotion for the shy little girl that could barely hold eye contact.

Her hands found the man's wrists, and she clung to them as the last of her tears streamed down her cheeks. A touch, soft and gentle, desperate to feel something warm in her last moments.

The ringing in her ears softened until all sound was lost. The ceiling blurred further, light dissolving into pale smears. His face lost its edges. Everything did.

She wished, with all of her heart, she could have felt his arms around her one more time. That she could tell him -

The dark folded inward.

Nothing.

5:47 PM

---

He never wanted to see another hoe or shovel or basket or cow or pig again.

Cassian knew the moment he'd walked onto old Gabe's farm that he was in for a different sort of hell than he'd been in at the factory, but there was nothing quite like seeing for himself. His hands and arms were no longer covered in cuts. No. That was replaced by mud and shit.

Everywhere.

A week in, and the boy had discovered a new kind of exhaustion, one that came with working all day in the hot sun, carrying heavy things while being told nearly constantly that he needed to pick up the pace. The men he worked with were a different breed than those in the factory – just as strong but in different ways that he hadn't yet acclimated to after months hidden away from the sun with boiling glass and screeching machines. He knew that, with time, he'd adjust, but until then, the ache in his shoulders had worsened, and he wasn't likely to have any skin left on the back of his neck when the sun got through with him.

Cassian dragged himself to his front door. He couldn't wait to collapse on the couch – after the longest shower in his entire life – and listen to his wife's stories about her day.

Something unrelated to livestock or digging or potatoes was exactly what he needed.

The boy noticed at once the chaos of the flat. Broken glass, things thrown around... it took a moment for his mind to process what he was looking at. That moment barely concluded before his eyes landed on Rosie, laid flat on the floor, covered in blood and unconscious.

"Shit!"

He didn't have the presence of mind to shut the door before staggering his way over to her in a hurry. Cass threw himself down next to her, not sure where to hold or what to touch.

"Rosie? Rosie??"

Gingerly, he pulled her to him, his hand tapping lightly at her face while a terrible panic twisted his insides. "Can you hear me? What happened? Rosie!?"

Shitshitshitshit.

He could barely breathe. Someone had – someone must have broken in, but why? For what? They were barely making ends meet, especially after his drop in wages after leaving the factory. They weren't living the sort of life that would catch anyone's eye or have anyone coveting what they had. His stomach churned as his panic continued to climb.

She had to be alright...she had to be.

“Rosie?”

The sound was soft, distant and muddled. Somewhere in the vast nothingness that had taken the girl, she heard him, calling out to her and beckoning her back to him.

She didn’t want to go. In the deep recesses her conscious had escaped to, Rosalie knew the pain that would accompany it. An overwhelming agony that would seize her nerves the moment she answered.

Here, in the dark there were no evil men trying to hurt her. There were no stresses, no broken hearts, no misunderstandings to contend with. No parents whose love and acceptance she craved, no missing little brother. No friends who had disappeared one day.

“Rosie??"

He called to her again, could faintly feel the sensation of something pulling her back, drawing her into the space that had so brutally shut her out.

She couldn’t. Try as she might to distinguish the voice, try as she might to hang on, she was swept back into the dark where softness held her.

"Can you hear me? What happened? Rosie!?"

She knew him. Knew that voice, even though she couldn’t place it. It pulled her again, violently this time to the forefront of her consciousness, rousing the girl slightly.

Blue eyes, bloodshot and blackened with bruises opened slowly, her vision absent of anything but searing light that burned her corneas. A roaring pain seared through her head, flowing from the points of impact when it had hit the wall. Dried blood caked across her face, tightening her skin in the areas it had split open. Worst of all was the burn and heaviness in her throat - a fire that scorched beneath her skin.

Her lips parted instinctively, sucking in a shaky breath, the taste of iron still prevalent in her mouth. Her heart launched itself into a frantic arrhythmic beat as her eyes strained to focus. For a moment, they did, his face coming into view again as it had the moments before the darkness took her.

It hurt, even the effort it took to try and make out his features, and before she could try to call out for him, the last of her energy reserves vanished. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, the pain overwhelming her body and she drifted back into the nothingness.