“Xander?” she whispered softly.
His eyes kept staring forward at some unknown spot on the wall, and he never even blinked to acknowledge her presence.
“Xander,” Spider repeated, deep within his sub-conscious. She smiled as she looked down at his beaten body, stroking her fingers along Genblade’s chest. His hands were all over her, and she motioned for him to stop. Instead, he got up and slammed her to the ground, sucking on her neck hungrily. An obscene look of pleasure filled her face, a small moan escaping from quivering lips. She turned her head to the beaten teen about ten feet away from her, speaking to him even as Genblade persisted in slowly working her clothing off of her. “You’ll have to pardon Adam,” she said to Xander. “He hasn’t had a go since you locked him away, and I think he’s suffering from withdrawal.” She paused, and for a moment the old, evil Eve was back again. “It’s Sara’s reproductive organs that are shimmering with pleasure for him now, remember. She’s still inside of me, telling me how much she loves him. How he’s a better lover then you could ever be...”
Pain filled Xander’s eyes, his pupils shifted a little from their fixed position. Just enough that Cathy thought he was acknowledging her, finally.
“When I was in the tub, I don’t think I was scared,” she blurted out finally. “I think I was hopeful. I hoped that Al and Raine would come in and find me, and maybe they’d want me. Maybe somebody would finally want me. All these years, I’ve been watching you and Mike and Derek fawn over Sara. Since the party, Mike will barely touch me anymore, and I wasn’t even good enough for Grendel to rape.” She paused, nodded as the tears began again, then repeated herself. “Not good enough to rape.”
“...but then, I’m crazy,” Spider reasoned, the words muffled slightly as she bit on Genblade’s ear. Her expression grew serious then, as she just let Genblade do his thing and no longer paid him any attention. “It’s all coming, you know boy. Even now, you’ll start to see it. The explosion at Engen may have dulled your senses for a time, but they still hear the firing of the guns, hmm? The war is coming, Drew. Those that you call allies today will destroy you come the morrow. Those we count amongst our allies today will have betrayed us yesterday, and themselves in the morrow. The actions you take now lead you not to peace, but to bloodshed. To pain. And you will love it, for that is your power.”
Xander rose, confused. “I don’t understand,” he said, and Cathy sighed.
“What?” Genblade snarled as he used his nose to fondle Spider’s breasts. “Isn’t she being direct enough for you?”
“There are trails ahead, the stars are singing it so,” Spider said musically to Xander, her body again racked with pleasure from her husband. “But the man in the moon is terrible jealous, for he has no voice. Only eyes. He can’t sing and make the girls love him, but he can watch. Oh, yes he can. He watches everything.”
Finally, Xander began to clue in. The third rapist could see them. The victims, he’d seen them all before, known about their problems and lives. He knew them, somehow.
Spider laughed, as Genblade ripped off the last shreds of her jumpsuit. “Now you’re starting to think like a Womb.”
“What’s not to understand?” Cathy asked. “Nobody wants me, they just want my body. And it’s getting to the point where that’s going to be good enough. I’ll let them have it. They can take it away so that I don’t have to deal with it anymore,” she sobbed, collapsing onto her friend’s chest. “I don’t want it anymore, Xander,” she convulsed. Her hand reached up to brush against his lips, to have him kiss her hand. To have her feel as if someone wanted her for something other than a cheap lay.
Xander grabbed her hand out of the air and looked down at her, his mind snapping back to reality. “How did you get here?” he asked, his voice almost accusatory. “Why are you crying?”
Her lower lip shook violently. She snatched her hand away from him, her moist eyes becoming even more so. She shook her head, jutting a palm towards him to shut him up. She realized that again, he hadn’t been listening. That not even he cared. “I can’t…” she started, but couldn’t even finish before she left the room and the house completely, leaving Xander in a well of his own tears, feeling completely useless.
-BEEP-
-BEEP-
-BEEP-
Tim sighed as he peered in through the doorway to Greer Donaldson’s hospital room, listening to the tones emitted by the machine next to her as it coldly kept track of her heart rhythm. He was only vaguely aware of the woman next to him who had been going on for almost ten minutes about stats and hospital regulations and medical jargon, none of which he found particularly useful.
What he had come to see was in there.
Past the forest green door propped open with a rubber peg and behind all the equipment dedicated to keeping her breathing, was what he needed more than anything else in the world right now: motivation.
If his conversation with Roxanne that morning hadn’t made him feel bad enough, his one with Mike had sunken his heart even further. He had left the boy with a feeling of uselessness caked on him so hard that he didn’t even think a shower would get it all off. The worst part
