[b]November 3rd, 2017, 1:33pm, Waynesville, Southwest Missouri[/b]

Valentina could not sleep. She had tried for what felt like forever, and she couldn't even close her eyes - but in truth, she didn't dare. She remembered stories about witches. Hansel and Gretel. She felt like Gretel, except she had no Hansel for company. Or rather, her Hansel had died a long time ago. The snub-nosed revolver and knife sitting between her stomach and lap weighed heavily on her, as if calling out to her to be used.

Back in one of her sleep spots in an apartment building, she had cans of beer to help her with such a problem. Valentina remembered what her father had said about beer, but he was no longer around. She furrowed her brows. The thought of Daddy brought her back to the time of his slow demise, when he held back a whole ocean of the dead with the help of only a few soldiers. Valentina loved him, so, so much, yet she couldn't help but to hate him for leaving her, and yet she felt so confused about herself, about how it was possible to love and hate her own father at the same time when all she knew before was to either love or hate. Valentina's Daddy would have slapped her for it, but her cans of beer was helpful when it comes to sleeping.

In truth, it had only been 20 minutes, and by the half hour mark, Valentina fell asleep regardless, against all odds. In the faint thoughts that followed before sweet, sweet darkness came, Valentina wondered how it was possible that she could feel sleepy around the witch outside the door, especially one who could kill her no matter how much she struggled and screamed and kicked...

"What's making love?" Valentina asked, the words she had just heard did not make sense at all. There were too many questions, and no answers: How could love be made? How do you make love? Valentina thought the woman and her friend, who had just returned from somewhere, were just kidding. Valentina had not heard a joke ever since... he died, but she could not bring herself to laugh at all, as both curiosity and wariness was filling her mind.

"That's what she said before." The woman, who said her name was Marilyn, said light-heartedly to her friend, throwing her arms comically as she smiled. Valentina thought her smile was a little... scary for some reason, but she thought she was just tired - it had been a long day, trying to find food and then finding little. All she had found were more biters and bad-looking people. Marilyn and her friend were the first people who weren't trying to hurt her after spotting her. Instead, when Marilyn was alone, she had invited Valentina into the house even when she had tried to break into it.

"Is that so?" The man, who said his name was Manson, said. There was a look on his face that Valentina could not understand. It looked like he was smiling and happy, but at the same time he didn't, "How about we show you? It's a fun little something, you know."

"O...Okay..." Valentina stammered, suddenly afraid, like when she knew that a practical joke was going to be played on her by a boy and was still going to fall for it anyway. The smiles that her two new friends were wearing unnerved her a little. After agreeing to what she thought would be a fun game, or something like what a family would do, Manson lead her into a room where there was a huge bed, something that Valentina remembered her father would call 'Emperor-sized' jokingly. There, Manson carried her by the waist and laid her down on her back, "What am I supposed to do?" Looking up, she saw that the woman was behind Manson, smiling in a not-so-smiling way.

"Just lie down, baby and... Close your eyes." Marilyn said, thrilled at getting to play the 'game'. Valentina felt confused, but did as she was told, closing her eyes and waiting for the practical joke. On the other hand, she thought that they were about to give her a surprise. For a crazy moment, she thought that they were friends with Lieutenant Hugh, or her father, and was about to bring either one of them into the room for a surprise. Valentina held onto that thought, hoping that it would come true. For the first time in a long while, the young girl actually smiled. Marilyn seemed to like that very much: "Good girl! You'll do more than smiling next, sugar."

As Valentina waited, she could feel something heavy climbing into bed next to her, and that heavy thing coming, lying down on top of her, pressing down on her. The young girl could hardly breathe, yet she could smell that it was Manson - she could smell sweat, and something else that she could not name. In fact, both Marilyn and Manson smelt that way. As Manson slipped his arms around Valentina's back, the girl thought that it was just a family tradition that they had to do for her to be accepted into the family. She remembered about family traditions - every family had one. It was what Daddy told her. Valentina had all kinds of festivals and celebrations in the family that few other families had, and they would always visit Russia... 'Maybe this is their family tradition...' Valentina thought.

Valentina liked it. She had never been hugged before, not for a long time. She felt warmth and love, and thought this was what they meant by making love. The girl hugged back, and liked it... Until she could feel something moist and disgusting down her neck before feeling it shoved on her lips. Opening her eyes, she saw Manson, up close... Kissing her in the lips. Wide-eyed from surprise, Valentina was beginning to doubt herself and everything, and when she could feel the man's fingers digging into her back, and saw his face withdrawing and pressing itself against her chest, she began to shiver, and feel fear. Her back was beginning to flare with pain.

"Ow! You're hurting me!" Valentina protested, but it was as if Manson was deaf. Instead, the man was lifting her shirt up. Looking around at Marilyn, hoping to find help in her, all she saw was the woman putting a finger on her lips and then coming closer, and closer, looming over her. Marilyn was taking off her belt for some reason and Valentina could not understand, but more so, the fear in her was becoming terror. The man on top of her continued to pull at her shirt, managing to lift it up to her chest even when Valentina was trying to pull it back down, "No!"

"C'mon, you lil' cunt, give me some sugar!" The man said, and all of a sudden, Valentina found that she hated him, "You wanted it, remember baby?" He became rough, and soon Valentina could hear something ripping, and found that it was her shirt. Somewhere and somehow along the line, her pirate eyepatch had disappeared.

Valentina screamed as her shirt was torn down the middle...

Valentina screamed as she could feel the man on her bare chest...

She screamed as she remembered what to do, and started groping...

She screamed as she groped against the barrier of no hope...

As the man was trying to undo her belt...

Valentina screamed, but as she found the solid handle of Lieutenant Hugh's combat knife, her lighthouse in a sea of hopelessness, she unsheathed her weapon and brought it sideways into Manson's tickle zone desperately. It went all the way in, sinking down to the guard. Manson's scream was far louder than anything Valentina could muster. "Son of a bitch!!!" He cried as he writhed in pain. Valentina stabbed and stabbed again, the blood flowing in huge amounts onto her jeans and the 'Emperor-sized' bed. Into the lung, into his stomach, until Manson, in his effort to get away, accidentally fell off the bed.

Marilyn was staring, just staring, as it all happened, her own jeans loose as her belt was off and the zippers were undone. As soon as the woman made a move for her pistol, Valentina did the same thing with her revolver. Gunshots rang out, two almost in unison. Both of them froze, gun in hand, both believing themselves to have won... Before the woman whom Valentina thought was a friend fell over, coughing out blood from both her mouth and a hole in her throat.

Valentina cried, cried hard as she tried to sit up, and barely could not as she could feel pain all over her body - It wasn't long before she realised that she had been shot as well, and it was a long, nasty-looking thing on her shoulder - a graze wound. Had the woman fired her pistol a little more to her left, she would have been lying down next to her and Manson.

The girl tried to get off the bed, and tumbled down instead, finding it hard to move as her body felt used and bruised, as pain was all over her, not to mention her jeans had dropped as she tried to slip off the tall bed. Getting up, she found that she could barely stand up, much less bend down to pull her pants up. She had stopped crying, but couldn't help but to start again. "Dad..." She cried, suddenly missing him, really, really missing him, wishing that he was with her, wishing for his huge, powerful arms to be around her, only to feel the cold air of night and darkness, of two new ghosts watching her.

"Dad..." Valentina mumbled in her sleep as newly produced tears slipped out of her closed eyelids, wetting her pillow.