SCARLETTVictory.I can already taste it and oh how sweet it is. Aurora is watching me, has been for awhile now and I've been waving, flashing her my victory smile. There's something about winning and the taste of your opponents tears, or their blood. In this case, I will settle for tears, and maybe a little depression to go with it. I don't care if this makes me a bad person but I'm going to love taking that smile off her face, I will relish in it for all the nights I've spent without my husband, the days my husband has spent touching her and not me. She's going to feel the anguish I felt when I went to bed alone knowing Caelum was with her.Xenastra approaches me, waving a huge cotton candy my way. “Do you think your husband paid for this? It sure is a lot.”“No," I sigh, taking the candy from her. I overhead Caelum offer to cover the cost but Emelia wouldn't let him chip in because it was all paid for by her and Aurora's friends.I'm on diet, but the way the cotton candy tastes is

EMELIAIt's been three days, three days of unsolicited anguish and trauma. Everyone is grim about what transpired at Layla's birthday but, Aurora got the biggest hit. She hasn't spoken more than a few words to anyone and I feel guilty for giving her daughter to that woman, but it was the best decision in that situation. Yet I do partially indict Scarlett, if we hadn't invited her and her friends then Xena's cousin would have never found out. Of course there would be suspicion because Xena was seemingly obsessed with Layla's appearance but she's not so bright. Everyone that saw Estelle knew she was Layla's mother, well her biological mother to say the least because Aurora is Layla's credible mother. She took that child in and gave her a home, she loved her, they formed a mother-daughter bond with each other. She might not have birthed her but she chose her, she chose her over everything and the other woman did nothing but put getting her hit of crack, or whatever addiction over her chi

AURORA AGE FIFTEENSeconds pass, and I'm still as ice, unmoving. I hide better, my gaze peeking behind the trash bin where I could be sought out.Another man comes into view with a girl I recognize, she was at my school last year. Hanna is her name, she is in college now, studying a course too much for her. She's dressed in a pretty white dress that's now coated in droplets of blood. Hanna is pleading when she gets dropped next to the other girl. One of the four men I saw smoking a joint from a distance drags the other girl up, pushing her ahead, he only gets a few steps away from the men and one follows him. The girl is pleading too, calling out to Hanna for help, the man that dragged her slams her up against the wall and she screams, startling me. My heart beats faster, my fight or flight instinct kicking in but not knowing how to react right now. I don't trust myself not to scream so I cover my mouth with both my hands, trembling beside the trash can, my breathing too loud for my o

CAELUMI was mad at Aurora, mad at myself for being so blindsided. It took one day in Afghanistan to find the truth I've been solely seeking for months. I knew Aurora didn't leave me like she has so claimed, she never could, as much as she wanted me to believe that lie I never would. I wish she had told me, trusted me enough to speak to me about her past, year trauma but no, I had to slit it out of her kidnappers throat.When Ryker brought me the news and Cassian connected the dots to Afghanistan I was mad, I was so fucking livid about the matter. I've never killed as many people as I did yesterday, and still, even after killing each and every man and woman involved in her kidnapping seven years ago, I felt nothing, I still felt infuriated. The slow painful deaths they endured was not enough to compensate for what the did to my little minx, her and many other women they trafficked.All that hostility and frustration I felt disappeared the moment Ryker interrupted my torture session wi

CASSIANSicily was unsettling, I had a feeling we were in for some shit but after the things I saw and heard, my admiration for Aurora has grown. I'm a man that kills, I've taken so many lives in ways so despicable that get whispered about in our circles but when I saw what they did to Aurora, my stomach churned. She didn't deserve to hurt like they made her, and whoever had the bright idea to record her and the other girls while they did horrendous things to them has a special place in hell, close to devil. I'll meet him there, heaven isn't a place for men like me and I've long accepted that and now, I have something to look forward to when I meet times end.One of the men we raided in association to Aurora's kidnapping got three bullets into my arm, that was enough of an excuse to let Caelum give me a five minutes to play with him and I took every second I was handed and broke that man, I broke and ripped every body part I could. For Aurora and for every woman he hurt, and for the o