~ (it's safe to read again)
                              
Elonore sat in the bath tub, pulling glass out of her knees. The water swirled around her, pink from her wounds and she'd long ago cried herself out. She felt hallow and broken inside, literally and metaphorically. He'd...taken what should have been a wonderful first experience and tainted it, making it something sick and wrong. She didn't understand how her own father could have done something so abhorrent. Lone got out of hte water, turning the shower off and looked in hte mirror. Hours ago she'd looked at herself and felt nothing. Now she saw a raw hamburger coloured face painted liberally with dark bruises.
                              
She looked in the mirror and saw someone else in the room with her. Looking over her shoulder, no one was there, but in the mirrror, he was behind her. Her dream man, the one from her delusions. She reached bloody fingers to the mirror and tried to touch his face like she had as a child. "I wish you were real." she said softly, seeing his sad, self recriminating eyes. "I wish you would come to me again. Take me away from here." her voice was empty as she said it, flat and dead. Her hand dropped away from the mirror as a tear streaked down his face, mourning for her. "But you're not real, are you? I'm just a crazy, broken girl." she admitted to herself. She looked down at her bruised, slightly bleeding body and gave a smile devoid of happiness. "Goodbye my shadow man." she said to him. "I think you should never have come to save me back then. I'm sorry you wasted your time." she turned from the mirror and pulled on the house coat, knowing it was useless but she needed to be covered.
                              
After he had finished, he had stumbled away to the couch and opened another drink, not even bothering to get dressed. Lone had drifted into unconsciousness while he was using her and she woke up, bleeding, naked and sticky. She had carefully gotten to her feet and made her way to the bathroom, shaking and tears streaming down her face silently. She bit her fist to keep from making noise, drawing more blood from the old scar in the process.
                              
Lone went back to her room and broomed the broken glass up, throwing it in hte bin. She then got dressed into whatever clothes her hands fell on. She stared at the room for a moment and without thinking about it, packed a bag up. It was a battered old army bag and she stuffed in clothes, a few books and anything of value she had hidden away. It was a pitifully small pile in her bag, her life's possessions fitting into a rucksack. She walked towards the front door, grabbing her book bag with jacket from under the table. 
                              
"What are you doing?" he demanded, standing there. Her father hadn't even gotten dressed, just drank a beer naked, abdomen sprinkled with her blood in little droplets.
                              
"Leaving." she said, voice dead. It hurt to breath and she had to be careful, convinced he'd broken one of her ribs. She knew she probably had a concussion but couldn't really feel any of her injuries right. They'd flare up but then fade from her attention.
                              
"No, you are not." he denied, face darkening. It sent a thrill of fear down her spine, making her instinctively cower. But then she saw the image of the shadow man watching her from the hallway mirror. He looked at her and she somehow felt brave, knowing he was watching her.
                              
"Yes I am. You are a disgusting monster who should be put down. Now get out of my way." she said, still empty of real emotion.
                              
Her words brough him to instant rage. "You little bitch. I am your father and you will not disrespect me like that!" he snarled at her and clumsily lunged towards her.
                              
Lone dropped her bags infront of her to trip him and moved to the side. It should have her, her rib was broken, her body abused and cut, but she didn;t feel it. Instead she shoved her father as he came at her and he fell into the wall, knocking over hte mirror. It shattered adn some of her bravery faded without her shadow man watching her.
                              
He came after her again and she shot a fist out, finally striking back. Once she got moving, her training in kickboxing roared to life, body moving without conscious thought. Long locked away, her own rage came boiling to the surface and she couldn't stop. She hit him, knocking him back, beating into his body all the pain and humiliation he had made her suffer through for years. He lay on the floor begging for her to stop. She shook with the need to just kill him, but she stopped herself and backed away, a little horrified with how violent she was. She was just like him. Disgusted with herself, she turned her back on him and bent over to pick up her bags.
                              
And he stabbed her in the back of the shoulder with a piece of broken mirror. Lone screamed out, falling foward. He jerked the glass out of her shoulder and raised up to stab her again. She didn;t think about it, instead grabbed a piece of her own off the floor and thrust upwards with it. THe glass hit resistance for a moment, then plunged in. Hot blood washed down on her and he toppled to the side, shard in his throat. He coughed around the glass, staring at her with wide, disbelieving eyes that faded with life while she watched.
                              
Those little butterfly lights lifted from his body. It reminded her of what she'd seen as a child and she feared one would come for her. But they swirled, lost and weak and eventually faded into nothing, without going to anyone. Distantly she heard sirens and realized that one of hte neighbors had called the cops. She just lay there, looking at her dead father and felt nothing. The police arrived and she couldn't focus. They rushed around her, paramedics suddenly there and checking her out. She looked at the crowd of people fussing, asking questions, bothering her. Just past all the people, for a second she thought she saw him standing there. Her shadow man. THen the darkness on the edge of her vision swam up, takign her away.
                              
####
                              
Gavin howled and threw the mirror against hte wall. Arc Gabriel stormed into the room, drawn by the Guardian's agony. As soon as he looked the other Angel in the eye he knew what had happened. In this incorporeal plane, there was no need for speech for somethings. He could take teh thoughts out of his subordinates. And he knew now that not letting the Guardian return to his charge had been a mistake.
                              
"I am so sorry." he said sincerely. He truely had not believed it would have come to this. It horrified him, the depravity humankind was capable of. He rarely ever assumed physical form because their chemical natures confused him so.
                              
"Don't you dare apologize to me." Gavin retorted harshly. "Don't." he shook, hands clenched into fists. He'd been watching her, unable to do anything to stop the molestation. He'd wanted to, had actually tried to assume physical form to go help her. But despite having more than enough ability to do it, his physical form would not manifest, still locked away by Gabriel.
                              
"Go to her. Find her and see what can be done to make some kind of restitution." Gabriel instructed, wings flaring as he summoned power. He released Gavin's physical form back to him. Then he approached the Guardian and put his palm to his forhead. Gavin wanted to jerk away but the Arc held him still.
                              
Wings rustling against each other, a light flared, consuming them both briefly. When Gabriel stepped away, he was exhausted and utterly drained. Gavin however, glowed with a new, unique light. "I give you the task, I give you the power. Go Guardian Arc. You have no other mission but to find her and save her soul if you can. Don't let her fall to darkness." he commanded, voice shaking and weak.
                              
He'd given Gavin what could be considered a promotion. He sacrificed his own personal power to make Gavin an Arc. An Avenging Angel, with the gifts of the Guardian woven into the strength of the warrior.
                              
Without another word or a backward glance, Gavin walked out of the traveller's room. He closed his eyes and breathed outward. Opening his eyes he looked into another empty travellers room. He grabbed the mirror from there and looked down into it. He opened it up to see through a mirror in the physical world and stepped through it, becoming real again.
                              
It'd been years since he'd worn flesh, but standing there, adjusting to the effects of a reality based in physics, it felt like he'd never been away. His body strummed with power, wings hidden away while he was in public. Once again he wore black BDU's and combat boots. This time though he wore a blue tshirt with no sleeves, he looked down at his hands and noticed that the gift of rank from Gabriel had left a physical mark, his hands glowed with a reddish light that he had to fight t supress. Locking away his otherworldly nature, he strode out of the bathroom to try and orient himself and beguin his hunt for Elonore.
                              
Now that she'd been forced to take a life, the Descended will be after her. They'll want lure her farther into thier world. The incest her father had done to her and the violence were all making it easier for the devils to tempt her and track her, and made it harder for him to find her and save her