The Shadows in Her Wae

Fear is a curious creature...and when mixed with so many other emotions...emotions that should never be mixed in the same pot, it made everything that much more complicated.

Tyler had been staring at Mikhail for almost two hours without saying a word. He would stare back every now and again, daring her to speak a word with dangerous eyes, before directing his attention to his cell phone.

A twisted part of Tyler found it comical, even through all the fear, that someone as dangerous as Mikhail new how to text so well...it was even more comical when she thought about how it had looked when he was learning how to text. One could not point a gun or spew threats at phones as one could do with humans.

She watched him as he spoke in heavily accented Russian to someone on the phone and visibly began to smile when she thought of him texting something like, "OMG" or "LMFAO." Was it possible for Mikhail Petrova to ever, "LMFAO"?

"Would you like to share what is so funny with the rest of the class, Tyler." Mikhail's stern voice yanked her kicking and screaming from her thoughts, but she refused to answer him regardless.

Tyler simply scowled at him, and imagined that somehow, her gaze could burn a hole through his head.

Mikhail let that cocky sneer pass over his face, and the message it sent was received loud and clear. It read, "Just give me some time, and I will provoke you into making a mistake."

He regarded her with curious, but unreadable eyes for a moment, before pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offering her one.

She reached out and took one, but never broke the contact held by their eyes. Everything Mikhail did had always had a double meaning. Even the smallest of gestures...Tyler lit up her cigarette and took a long drag off of it. She had never been much of a smoker, but in her eyes, this situation warranted tobacco.

"Ah...I know..." Mikhail broke the short silence finally, as he too lit up a cigarette.

"And what do you know, brother dearest." Tyler sighed, feeling slightly braver on the other side of the Limo and out of arms reach.

Mikhail ignored the sarcasm, and reached into his pocket to pull something else out. "Nadia asked that give this to you tonight." His voice had suddenly turned icy cold again as he let dangle a gold claddaugh ring from his fingers, the perfect and polished green emerald shimmering against the soft glow of light from one of the over head lights.

"You do know what this is, do you not?" Mikhail asked, and as the realization dawned on Tyler's face, his expression became almost devilish.

"M...m....My mother's ring..." Tyler whispered, dousing her cigarette in the crystal ash tray on one of the center consoles and reaching for it...an action that she immediately regretted when his long fingers wrapped around her wrist and forced her across to sit beside him.

"Nadia is still there." Tyler said aloud, though only meaning to think it to herself as she gazed at her mother's ring.

"Oh yes...but, she is, thanks to you and Aaron, far better behaved than the day she disobeyed me and helped you run away...I'm afraid that you will not be able to expect her help again..." Mikhail stared at the ring thoughtfully before moving to place it back into his pocket.

"That isn't yours!" Tyler shrieked and reached to grab Mikhail's wrist.

The whole world stopped for a moment. Tyler stared into his eyes once again, and saw the quiet storm that brewed in them. He had won...again. A rather quick victory she had given him and she knew it. The way he held her gaze caused her almost to feel dizzy...hypnotized...drunk on the power behind the calm exterior of this man.

"Tyler...Did I give you permission...of any kind...to touch me?" His voice reminded her of the soft, barely audible growl of a predator making ready to capture it's pray.

"No...no Mikhail...I'm sorry..." Tyler whimpered, the ring forgotten as she pulled herself away from him and attempted to escape across the limo once more, but before she had been able to make a move, he had acted.

The cruel, merciless fingers that had given her so many nightmares to begin with wrapped quickly around her wrist and dragged her down onto the leather of the seat. In a flash, her arms were pinned above her head and Mikhail hovered over her. "Tyler... I think you have forgotten a few things well you have been away, so allow me to refresh your memory..."

Tyler felt him busying with something below her and only began to struggle when she saw that Mikhail had undone his pants and was now busying himself with pulling her shorts down with one hand. "What the fuck..." She began to protest, but the back of his hand flew the air, stopping just before it struck her cheek.

Once again, caught like a small trapped animal in the hypnotizing gaze of her brother, Tyler quieted. "Why am I about to do this Tyler?" Mikhail asked dangerously, his lips grazing ever so lightly against hers...

"Why am about I about to do this to you Tyler?" Mikhail asked quietly, guiding her to her knees in front of him.

Tyler was beyond shaking at this point. She was beyond being scared anymore. Deep down she was actually terrified of her step brother, but her body no longer responded to it as it once did. It was already in too much pain from the daily torment he derived from beating her for seemingly no reason in particular.

"Because you can whatever you wish, Mikhail." Tyler repeated this for what must have been the thousandth time since her mother and step father died.

Tyler squeezed her eyes shut when she felt the belt snap cruelly against her back. This torment would be quick...he had left her shirt over her back...

"Count Tyler." He ordered, obviously irritated that she had made no sound.

"One." She allowed a whimper to escape in his voice...hoping it would satisfy him into stopping...it did not..

"Two..." She whimpered again when he continued, the pain in her voice real this time...he was striking harder.

"Please don't Mikhail...please not this....you can have any woman you wish, from anywhere in the world...please don't take this from me..." Tyler burst into tears, and began to struggle again. Not this...The pain he always delivered was on the outside. He could never get into her thoughts if she did not wish it. The pain he gave was the only way he had ever been allowed to possess her. Tyler felt terror coursing through her body as she realized he had finally figured out a way to possess her completely.

His cruel laugh sang through her thoughts, and this time he let the back of his hand fly, allowing it to continue on it's path and violently strike her cheek.

Tyler felt her underwear and shorts slide off...and then Mikhail's large hand was pressed firmly over her mouth as what seemed to be a mind altering pain shot through her. She could not tell how loud she screamed against his hand, or how hard she tried to lift her mouth up to bite him.

Pain...pure unadulterated pain. He had pushed his large girth into her without any lubrication and somehow managed to continue to drive it into her over and over again.

It was over faster than it began. Mikhail grabbed her jaw and dug his fingers in as he shuddered on top of her, stealing the only thing she had been able to call hers as he came and forced her to stare into his eyes as he did.

"You...are...mine...." He growled, giving her a violent shake to accentuate each of his words before he pulled off of her. Tyler watched him, numb to everything except for the pain coursing through her as he readjusted his pants and suit with a grace she never thought possible for someone who had just raped another person so completely.

'Get dressed. I'm sure you would not like your precious brother to see you this way." Mikhail snapped, pulling out another cigarette, lighting it and turning his attention back to his cell phone.

Tyler yanked up shorts, and climbed back onto the seat opposite Mikhail. She pulled her knees into her chest and dropped her head onto her knees. "Think of something else..." Her mind urged her.

"Aaron."

The thought entered her mine...and did not accomplish anything but to make her being to worry. She had not seen him since the night they both ran away...in opposite directions, deciding that it would be best if they split up...it had worked for a little while.

The sound of a whip cracking split through her thoughts, followed shortly after by Aaron's pained screams when they had caught him that night.

"Do not feel sorry for yourself." Tyler forced herself to think. Nadia, Mikhail's biological little sister who was a year older than Tyler, and Aaron had been with Mikhail the last three years paying for the fact that she ran away...Well now they would be safe...Now she was back...and she would do everything in her power, even it meant going through what just happened a thousand times over, to keep Mikhail's attention off of the two of them. She owed them that much.

"This..." Mikhail's voice broke through her thoughts, and almost as though it were against her will, she looked up when he spoke. He was holding her mother's ring...the ring her mother had given her...the ring Mikhail's father Yuri had given to Tyler's mother for no reason at all. "This, you will get back when I feel that you deserve to get it back...and no earlier than that. Is this understood?" Mikhail asked as he dropped the ring back into his pocket.

"Yes Sir." Tyler said after a moment, her eyes dropping to the pocket where Mikhail held the memory of her mother hostage.

Mikhail's face was blank as he watched her. "You will make it through this Tyler. Just do as I say...and you may actually find yourself the happiest woman in the world one day."

Tyler seriously doubted that.