Written for Whumpmas in July, "Denial" (Day 24, but it fits today...)
Follows right after [Over].
[Angel Masterpost]
Dany changes cars.
Content / Warning: BBU, abduction, character death, a bit of dissociation (panic response), a lot of blood.
It took a while for the world to take shape again, for words to form over the shrill ringing in her ears, just drifting fragments of a broken reality.
"Dress", Dany made it out, then faces around her, the taste of metal on her lips, a hand pulling her upright, a sudden relief around her wrists.
"Get out of your dress."
Someone pressed her down again, into a puddle of sticky red on a metal ground, and her stomach lurched at the smell.
Hands roaming over her back, the noise of a zipper, a soft draft caressing the now bare skin of her back.
Frankie had helped her put her new white dress on, minutes ago.
Frankie, whose blood pooled on the floor and stained her dress red, now.
The fabric was pushed over her shoulders, a hand around her waist lifted her up, before the dress was swiftly pulled off.
She wondered how hard it was, to undress a tied up stranger. How often one had to do it, to become efficient at it.
She wondered, if it was the first time she'd tasted Frankie's blood on her lips.
She wondered, if she grieved him.
"She's dissociating."
Her hands were wrestled onto her back again, wrists zip tied again. Had she been free in between?
She didn't think it mattered.
"Good. Hold her down."
Somebody approached her, twisted her arm slightly.
Cold steel broke through her skin. Dany gasped. "Shhh," a voice hissed, as a hand pressed onto her shoulder. "Shhh, we're not hurting you, just drawing a little blood."
Wasn't there enough blood already? Not hers, she figured. Hers was more important, somehow. Better than Frankie's.
She felt the blood leave her body, watched it run into a clear bottle. It filled up fast.
Dany was dizzy.
The needle was pulled out. "Good girl," someone whispered, and petted her cheek. "All ours, already, aren't you?"
They turned around, left, vanished. There was no plaster being put on the wound. Strange.
"Where's the decoy?"
Dany blinked. Long golden hair caught the light outside the van. Hair just like hers. Hers, before it had become stained with her ex' blood. She wondered if it'd ever be clean again.
The hair belonged to a woman, tall and lean, who stood outside the van. She was naked. Then again, so was Dany.
The woman stared at her. Restrained panic spoke from from wide blue eyes. She wasn't a mirror. Dany's own eyes were light brown. Brown and empty.
There were more differences, on second glance. The woman's skin was lighter than Dany's. No freckles. Instead - scars. Over and over. On her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. Most were older, fading. Some weren't.
On the woman's wrist, stark black against pale skin, was a bar code.
Dany's stomach turned.
"No," she breathed. "No no no no."
"Well, Ms Hammond is back," the masked man next to her stated. "Don't worry, sweetheart. It'll pass."
Dany tugged at her restraints. "You can't do this," she begged. "They'll know, my Dad will know, he'll fucking obliterate you."
"That's why we make sure he won't know," the man replied.
"Don't do this to her. Don't to this to me. I have money, whatever they pay you, I can match it. Please."
The woman - pet - no, woman, held something in front of her. Short, white, spattered with red. Dany's dress. The woman swallowed. "Sir?"
"Put it on."
The pet didn't hesitate. The dress fit her perfectly.
Dany twisted to her side to get up, her bound feet scratching over the slick floor of the van uselessly, unable to find any footing.
"Tsk. I thought you were a clever one." All it took was a boot on her shoulder to pin her down. "No need to fight, Danielle. Your life is over."
"No," she yelled, tears springing to her eyes. "No. Run. Run, pet, please."
The pet just tilted her head.
"Don't listen to her," the man said mildly. "She's a pet, too."
"Run! They'll kill you!"
The pet remained silent, just tugged at the hem of the bloody dress.
Dany kicked at the man with her bound feet. Missed, by far.
With a sigh, he reached down and easily lifted her up, pressing her close to his body, as he stepped out of the van and into the garage. "In your line of work, princess," he mumbled into her ear. "I thought you'd have known. Death can actually be a mercy."
He pressed her elbow down, before she could jerk it into his face. "If not, you'll learn soon enough."
"No," she sobbed.
"Pets don't say that," he whispered. "But that's a lesson for another day. For today, your lesson is way simpler."
He stopped in front of a SUV. Hydraulics hissed, when the trunk opened, laid out with plastic.
"Good girl," a voice echoed, from back at the van. "Camera on. Now. Turn around, and run for the exit. You've practiced this, haven't you? Seen the videos of her? You'll do so good. Run, just like she would."
"No," Dany's voice broke.
The man's hand curled up into her hair and slammed her head into the edge of the trunk. Pain exploded behind her eyes. Her vision swam with tears.
A shot rang through the garage. Then another, a third.
Dany couldn't breathe.
"You don't get away from WRU," the man said softly. "That's your lesson, princess. Safe ride."
The hood slammed shut over her, plunged her in darkness, cut her off from the outside world. Left her alone, with her pain, with the taste of blood on her lips - and with the dawning realisation, that behind them, on the concrete floor of a parking garage, Danielle Hammond had just died.
