Queen of Spades (House of Car...

Someone shook Alice's shoulder gently and she peeled her eyes open, jerking one of the headphones out so she could hear. An older woman was smiling down at her, eyes wrinkles and face crinkled with smile lines. Immediately some of the overwhelming dread and tension left Alice's shoulders as part of her realized that this was a woman who held no vinegar in her, only honey.

"Sweety, the library is closing. I'm sorry but you have to head home now." she explained. Alice blinked, chasing the last of her nap away as she stared down at her watch in stunned amazement. It was already nine at night, she'd spent the entire day sleeping!

"I...I...I'm sorry." Alice finally stammered, head feeling stuffed full of cottonballs. The kind old woman kept smiling down at her.

"It's alright dear. You wouldn't be the first student to come here and catch up on some sleep. Nothing to be ashamed of, at your age you need all the sleep and food you can get." she waved it off and waited patiently for Alice to gather her things. Ace scrambled to her feet and followed along quietly, startled to find that everything had been turned off for the night. A library after hours is actually a little more creepy than Alice had expected. Very horror movie.

"Thank you. I'm Alice." she introduced herself to the kind old lady.

"Oh I seemed to have misplaced my manners, I'm Tabitha, you can call me Tabby." the elder lady smiled and shook Alice's hand. Tabby's skin was warm and soft, the suppleness of youth long ago replaced by the texture of experience. Tabitha's grip was surprisingly strong considering how docile her demeanour was.

"Tabitha, do you need a student to help out here? I'm supposed to complete some community service hours for school and haven't found a placement yet..." Alice trailed off, hoping it would be that easy.

"Well that's sweet of you, but I think we've already got a couple of students helping out around here." Tabitha shook her head. Of course it wouldn't be that easy. Alice shook her head ruefully, after today you think she would have learned that for her, nothing would be easy.

They stopped outside the library doors so Tabby could lock them up. "Thank you again. Have a safe drive home." Alice bid the friendly librarian and started to walk towards the Walter's house. It wasn't a far hike, closer from the library than it had been from school, and for once hte weather wasn't making her regret her lack of proper jacket. Even though it was edging towards late November, the winter had held off thus far and it was chill but not snowy. Even if it had been a tortuous blizzard, Alice would have taken her time returning. Better to freeze to death than return to them. But she made it back death free and used her key to slide inside. Maybe she could just escape to the basement without them noticing she was home....

A hand sunk into her hair, jerking her head back sharply. Another one wrapped around her neck, tightening so she couldn't scream. "Well look who finally came home." Stuart breathed against her neck. Terror flooded through her, making her stomach cramp and she swallowed down bile. "Hmmm... you're still in the school girl uniform too. I'm gonig to like this..." he purred, hand leaving her hair and squeezing one boob painfully. Alice shot her elbow back into his solar plexus and his breath wheezed out, grip around her neck loosening. She twisted in his grip and stomped down on his foot. He howled in pain, letting her go completely and grabbed at his foot.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she heard demanded of her from the kitchen doorway. Alice whirled and saw Mr. Walter glaring at her. Mrs. Walter was standing behind her husband, eyes wide and shiney looking, as if she were holding back tears. "Do you really think you can come into our home and attack our son like this? It is simply not acceptible you ungrateful little slut!" Mr. Walter roared at Alice.

"I'll handle this." Stuart growled and grabbed Alice by the hair agian. He was hauling her backwards towards the stairs to the basement.

"NO!" Alice screamed, dragging her nails across Stuart's hand to try and get him to let go. He released her hair and backhanded her, the sudden ringing in her ears drowing out the harsh slap sound that echoed in the stairway.

"This is happening! Do you really think there is anything a pathetic little c*** like you can do to stop it?" Stuart laughed at her.

Alice ginergly wiped the blood off her slip lip and like in all the movies, spat some of the blood out at him. "I'm not just gonig to let you beat me and rape me. They may sit by in silence and let it happen, but I never will. You're a pathetic, weak, disgusting excuse for a male, having to take by force because no one is willing to give it to you." she spat the insults out at him. It was probably a terrible idea to rile him up further, but after her little speech to Mr. Vega this morning, she realized that every word was true. And a part of her whispered that if she pissed him off enough he might accidentally kill her instead. At least then this would be over. Alice wasn't suicidal by nature, she wanted to live, but the tiniest part of her recognized that it'd be a merciful release.

Stuart roared at her and charged forward, hands extended like her intended to throttle her around hte neck. Ridiculously an image of Homer and Bart flashed through her mind, but she tried to side step his advance. He managed to snag one of her wrists though and slammed her back against hte wall. Their family pictures rattled at the impact, and Alice had to try and suck in her breath again, a blooming ache in her back letting her know it would hurt worse tomorrow. Whil she was trying to catch her breath, he grabbed her hair with both hands and pulled her forward, slamming a knee to her stomach. She gagged and retched, breath an acid burn as her stomach felt the sudden need to empty itself onto the hard wood floors. Stuart didn't give her the chance to stand up from her doubled over position when he grabbed her hair again and pulled her over to the stairs. Alice shot her leg out, connecting into the side of his knee so that he grunted and stumbled. But he didn't just let go of her like last time. This time he shoved her back so she went sprawling down the stairs. With a solid thwack, her head met the bottom step and everything went black.

She wasn't sure how much later it was when she opened her eyes, but it was pitch black in the basement. Her head was a massive throb of agony, and she ginerly touched her scalp to feel dried blood clotted in her hair and an impressive goose egg bulging from her skull. She didn't need a mirror to know how bad the rest of her would look. The painful tearing down below and sticky mess on her let her know that once again, Stuart had gotten what he wanted. It made her feel nauseated and dirty and she carefully got herself into a sitting position. He'd dumped her on her bed, naked and messy from his use, and her entire body put up a fight to not be moving just yet. But now that she was awake, she simply could not stand to go without a shower. Pulling a housecoat around her battered body, she quietly made her way upstairs and locked herself into the bathroom. Once she got the shower started, she stepped inside and collapsed down to sit with her knees pulled up into her chest so she could sob with the water pounding on her back. She could only cry so long though, before her mind went empty of all emotion and she pulled herself back to her feet. Then it was the familiar routine of scrubbing her skin so hard it occasionally drew blood and she tried to wash the feel of him off of her. At least she'd been unconscious this time, there'd be no memories of it to haunt her nightmares.

She wiped the steam off of the mirror and stared at her battered face in numb contemplation. Her lip had torn open, scabbed but the hot shower had opened it up again. It stung and she could feel a matching scab inside her mouth where cheek had scraped against teeth. Probably from when he'd slapped her. Her back was a tye dye collection of bruises and there were some interesting ones down her arms and legs. She was so tender down below that it hurt to sit and there was still some wounds oozing blood. Her face was purpled and a neat shiner was starting to develop. It looked like she'd been beaten and she wondered briefly how the Walter's were going to explain this evidence away. She used to hope that eventually someone would realize what was happening to her, but always they bought whatever 온라인카지노게임 the handsome Mr. Walter told and the charming Stuart corroborated.

It was only six am, but knowing that she'd been unconscious for 8 1/2 hours made her a little worried so she decided to go to the emergency room just to make sure no serious damage had occured. She wasn't going to lie for them, she'd tell the truth and let them try and prove her wrong.

Making sure the coast was clear, Alice nearly sprinted from the shower back down to her 'room', grabbed whatever clean clothes were at the top and pulled them on, then bolted outside. It was Saturday and they would expect her to stay home since she hadn't yet gotten a community service position. But she refused to stay around and let this happen again. Because she knew Stuart well enough to know that he would gladly spend all weekend doing this to her. He enjoyed hurting her as much as he enjoyed forcing her.

She opened her cell phone, unsurprised to find no text messages in it. Just when she'd actually needed him, Mr. Vega had removed his offer to help. Thinking about that almost crumbled the wall of protective numbness Alice was using to keep herself moving forward. It was just another sign of how she could depend on no one but herself. She started to dial a taxi when a sign in the building window across the street caught her attention. She'd been walking towards the seven eleven so the taxi could meet her there when she saw a help wanted sign. She looked up and realized it was a pet store, and luckily was open at even this god forsaken time. With a curious frown, she put the cell away and decided to go see why they'd be open at 6:30 in the morning.

She stuck her head in the door and heard a flat sounding ding call out, letting everyone know someone had come in. "I'll be out in a minute, I'm wrist deep in dog poop!" she heard called out from the back room. The voice was female, but rough, like she had a three pack a day habit or gargled with turpentine.

"No rush!" Alice called back and winced, her split lip cracking open and bleeding again. She sucked the lip, tasting the copper of blood and grimanced at the icky taste. She finally took stock of the clothes she'd grabbed to wear and wished she'd put on something more impressive than yoga pants, a jersey and a sarcastic t-shirt. Somehow she doubts the shirt saying stressed backwards is desserts would make a good impression. Before she could talk herself out of the store though, the woman belonging to the voice stepped out of the curtain.

Alice's first impression of the woman was BIG. She was, without a doubt, the most intimidating woman Alice had ever seen. She was also the first full blooded Native Alice had seen outside of the Reservation. The woman was probably floating at 250 pounds, a mix of solid muscle and gooey fat. Her long dark hair was pulled back in stereotypical braids, but her clothing was all modern and practical. Her face was a rough looking as her voice was, but her eyes shone with supressed merriment. "Hello there little one." she greeted Alice. "I'm Salali, and welcome to my pet store. How can I help you?"

"I'm Alice. Ah...actually I was wondering if I could help you?" Alice stammered. Salali gace her a little confused look. "I'm a student and I need community service hours to graduate. You had a help wanted sign so I figured there could be no better bargain than getting hte help you need, for free." Alice explained, trying to woo Salali over to letting her work here. It amazed her that the woman had clearly noted the bruises and busted lip, but hadn't even mentioned it.

"Come into the back and lend me a hand. If you have the knack, then you can stay and help. I have another volunteer that pitches in but no students. The SPCA likes to dump recues on me because I have a way at rehabilitating them, so these guys are skittish at first. There's no point in me taking you on if you can't work with them." Salali explained. So Alice followed her into the back, a little overwhelmed at the varied smells. There was the sharp tang of urine, the earthy musk of feces, the dusty smell of feathers and the reek of wet fur. "I'm working with Muttley right now. He's a little rambunctious and likes to hug with his teeth." Salali warned.

Alice walked in behind the massive Native and spotted a wet pile of fur wagging a stumpy tail at them. There was a drain in the tiled floor, a hose still dripping and a raised ledge keeping the mess seperated from the rest of the room. "That's not a dog. It's an ambulatory dust bunny." Alice joked, looking at the scruffy ball of grayish fur.

Salali laughed and patted the wet dog on the head. "That he is! He's a good dog, just gets too excited and he's not the prettiest pooch to look at."

"Is his tail naturally like that or..." Alice asked, not sure how to ask if the dog had been tortured.

"I think it's natural because he's been like that since we rescued him. No scar tissue, no sensitivity. And no clue what his genetic makeup is." Salali admitted with a shrug.

"Alright, what would you like me to do?" Alice asked, pushing the sleeves of her jersey undershirt up. It revealed the raw looking bruises on her wrist and forearm, but besides making note of the other injuries, Salali made no comment on them.

Salali picked Muttley up and plopped him into Alice's arms. He was wet, and not easy to hold onto as he immediately started to try and sniff Alice and lick her all the while dodge Salali's hands with the toe nail clippers. They'd gotten three of the four paws trimmed when there was another flat ding from the front. "Oh that's probably my other volunteer. I'll be right back." Salali piped up and scurried out the door. For a big woman, she sure had some hussle. Alice could hear a murmurded conversation, not enough to pick out words but she could tell the other volunteer was a male. Unfortunately Muttley also heard the male's voice and he apparently recognized it because he started to kick up a fuss, obviously wanting to run out and say hi.

Alice was struggling to hold the puppy and not hurt him or herself more when none other than Malcolm Vega walked around the partition with Salali. He stopped dead in his tracks and Alice froze, suddenly horrified that he would be here of all places. His eyes were wide as they took in the bleeding lip, bruised face and marked up forearms. "What are you doing here?" Alice asked, voice soft. She hadn't meant to say it out loud, but it slipped out before she could stop it.

"What am I doing here? What are you doing here? And what happen..." he trailed off as he remembered the only reason she'd be looking like that. The slight consternation on his face was replaced with sudden vehement anger. Unfortunatly Alice thought it was aimed towards her.

She backed away a little and set Muttley back down. The little idiot was yapping at them all, friendly as could be and oblivious to the tension in the air. Salali was watching them like it was an entertaining soap opera. "I.... I should go. Sorry for wasting your time." She stammered at Salali and bolted out the back door.

"Alice!" she heard Mr. Vega call after her but she didn't stop. It's hard to run striaght when you're still suffering a serious concussion and trying to blink tears out of your eyes, so it wasn't terribly surprising when Mr. Vega caught up to Alice and wrapped his arms around her. He didn't say anything, just held her and for some reason that made her start to cry harder.

"I'm sorry....I'm s-sorry." Alice hiccuped as he refused to let her go.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for." Mal murmured, rubbing a soothing circle on her back.

"I do. I'm no good. You were right, I just mess up people's lives! I'm sorry." Alice sobbed, not making much sense as her defences crumpled. She couldn't even dredge up reproach for being such a wuss at the first sign of sympathy. It was pathetic really.

"No Alice, no. I'm sorry I said those things to you. It wasn't your fault at all. What Shawna did... it sucked but your text really just pointed out the whole issue with our relationship. You did nothing wrong! Do you understand me?" he demanded, carefully cupping her chin to make her look up. "You are a good person and you certainly deserve better than they give you. I'm sorry that I lost your trust. You should have been able to call me, instead I made you run. That's my fault, and I will find a way to make it up to you. But first, we're taking you to the hospital." he informed her. She opened her mouth to protest, even though she'd planned to head there originally, when he blew a puff of air into her open mouth. She shut her jaw in surprise and frowned at him. "It shut you up didn't it?" he demanded with a smirk. Despite having been crying a moment ago, it made her laugh. "There we go. Come on, Sal has the store closed so she can drive us over. I walked today." Malcolm explained, using an arm wrapped over her shoulders to guide Alice back inside the pet shop.

Salali considered Alice the newest employee at Animal Haven, her pet store slash sanctuary. She never turned down a rescue, and had an ongoing partnership with a farmer on the outskirts of hte city. He took the larger rescues like horses, cows, birds of prey and the occasional varmit, and in return Salali helped him out during calfing season when the cows would drop their babies by the busload. Which of course would mean that the meager volunteers would get the latest, most frustrating times to be on baby watch. Alice had the sneaking suspicion that Sal considered her a rescue too, but it wasn't a wrong analogy so she accepted it with gratitude. When Mal and Sal (Alice giggled at the matching nicnames) walked her out of the emergency room, she was a little giddy on painkillers.

For a surprise the emergency room nurse had taken her seriously when she explained what had happened. Even with the note in her file from the Walter's claiming that she was a pathological liar, the nurse believed her account of being attacked and raped. The only issue was the shower Alice had taken had eliminated the dna samples they would have taken to start building a case. Alice had stunned everyone in the room when she shrugged and remarked that all she had to do was fight back the next time this happened and she'd have new samples. The nurse had to get social services involved which brought Agent Useless to the hospital. The first thing the little Asian woman did was start arguing with the nurse. Alice was sitting on the otherside of the curtain and could hear it all clearly. Apparently the Walter's had given Agent Oblivious a whole speel about how Alice is known to injure herself and claim it was an attack blah blah conspiracy. But the nurse wouldn't back down, and instead seemed to get even more vehement to see the Agent's superior.

The Agent pulled open the curtain and sneered at Alice's bruised face. "It's amazing the depth of depravity you people will go to, jsut to get a little attention. The Walter's are a good family, you should count yourself blessed to be with them. Now get your things, I'm taking you home." she instructed. Alice opened her mouth to protest when the nurse interrupted.

"Actually that's not necessary. She was brought in my her employer and that kind lady had insisted on waiting to check on her. So if you don't mind?" the nurse asked, not bothering to make her voice match the polite words. Alice didn't wait for a second offer, she grabbed her stuff and bolted to Salali and Malcolm. The large Native didn't even hesitate to pull Alice into a careful hug, cautious of injured muscles. Malcolm and Salali had insisted that Alice take her pain meds immediately and she choked them down with fountain water, then collapsed in the back seat of Sal's car. It was an old muscle car, no longer shiney but the engire still rumbled so pretty. She had two stitches in her lip, a crack in the back of one rib and a plethora of bruises. The words the nurse had used to describe the damage down below weren't friendly but thankfully the damage was temporary and would heal with time.

The pain meds were blurring Alice from consciousness but she still caught snatches of conversation from the front. Mainly Malcolm growling at Salali,"I'm gonna to kill him." She wanted to sit up and speak her part, but the meds rolled her under enough that she didn't even protest when someone lifted her from the back seat and carried her inside. Wherever she was, it smelled like smoked meat and tobacco, not the unpleasant chemical smell of cigarettes, but the rich flavour of pipe tobacco. It seemed to relax something deep inside and Alice actually felt safe.

"Hey, we're not supposed to let you fall asleep for a while. They were worried about your concussion." Malcolm reminded, patting her gently to wake her up.

"Mhegmblbm." Alice mumbled in response, then her jaws stretched wide in a yawn.

"I have a langolier in my living room." Salali commented, humor in her voice.

"I'm not a Stephen King monster." Alice mumbled her objection, trying to focus past hte fuzzy allure of medicated sleep. She heard Malcolm's rumbled laugh and Salali snort before she slipped back into sleep.