Thanks to WAA01 and Killerarmyguy for the edits.
There's no sex in this if that's what you're after I suggest looking elsewhere.
*******
The pocket sliding doors of the den sounded in a thump as John closed them. Turning around, seeing how it was only Ruth and her sister in the room. Noting how the woman beside Ruth, whose body language screamed out 'Don't touch!', had hidden herself in oversized clothing.
"Give us the room," Johnny said, looking over at Ruth. He knew she would never understand what her sister went through. Even if she was drugged at the time. It was still a violation.
"You sure?" Ruth asked; her amber eyes glanced to him, then back to her younger sister.
"I'm sure," Johnny nodded. "You wouldn't understand."
"But you can?" the woman asked, peering intently at John.
"More than you know," Johnny said ominously.
"Listen to him, Yasmine," Ruth uttered in a plea as she placed a hand on her sister's forearm.
"Why? What could he know?!" Yasmine shouted.
"Because I was raped for two years to your one time," Johnny said darkly, narrowing his eyes at the woman. "So I know a lot more about being violated than you do. So don't assume, at all, that you think you know more about rape than I do."
"Johnny, I think I should stay, just in case you need me to calm you down," Ruth said, seeing that look in his eyes. The same look she had seen at the lake.
"Suit yourself," Johnny shrugged. "I'm gonna sit here," pointing to the love seat across from Yasmine, "so you don't feel threatened."
"I don't?!" Yasmine said, getting defensive.
"You do; your body language says so," Johnny said, lowering himself onto the seat.
"Why should I listen to anything you have to say?!"
"Sis, I asked Johnny here for a reason; he doesn't like talking about what those men did to him. This is a big step for him, do not fuck this up," Ruth warned in that older sisterly voice.
"Didn't you tell me he was just a crazy..."
"I think we're done here. If I want to be insulted, there are better places for that," Johnny said, getting up from his seat.
"Johnny, wait?!" Ruth said, surging from her seat. "Please, don't go; Yasmine is just being difficult. You know how it is. You, yourself, were like this. Just please talk to her, help her see there are places that can help her."
"Does she want to be helped?" Johnny asked with a pointed look. "It seems to me she doesn't. Seems like all she wants to do is be angry all the time. Understandable, I was too, still am," he admitted.
"Then tell her why you aren't the same boy I met when you were sixteen," Ruth said with pleading eyes.
"If I do that, I'd have to start from the beginning, and I don't think she can handle it," Johnny said, pointing at Yasmine.
"Try me, crazy boy," Yasmine sneered. Jumping in her seat when Ruth struck her upside the back of her head.
"You do not call Johnny that?!" Ruth growled, coming to John's defense.
"Y-you hit me," Yasmine stammered in shock.
"Damn right I did! I'll do it again if those words come out of your mouth," Ruth said bitterly. "Please, Johnny, retake your seat, and let's try this again," she said, looking over at him.
"You know this is so weird coming from you," Johnny said in a matter-of-fact manner.
"I know," her voice held the shame of her past actions, "yet I am getting better, am I not?" Ruth asked once John retook his seat.
"I'll give you that," Johnny agreed.
"Fine, I'll play along," Yasmine grumbled, thinking John had no idea what being raped felt like. "So, when did it happen?" Seeing her sister glare at her at the tone she had taken.
"The first day I was in Raven Dale and every day after that for two years," Johnny said coldly. "It's why I don't go by my given name. You might not remember what happened to you. I do not have that luxury. Every night, every day, every fucking second of my life. I hear his voice in my head. Smell his foul breath. The feel of his hands. The..." Stopping himself as his fist curled around his shorts. Feeling his anger bubbling to the surface. The urge to stick a fountain tip pin into the man's neck like Julia had done to her own rapist. "You were only raped once. I'm not saying this to disparage your ordeal. I'd never do that. But you have no idea what it's like to listen every night to the screams that haunt me. To the pleas, to the beatings, to every single fucked up thing those people did to us. For two fucking years! So you sit there playing the victim when there are far more people in this world that have and had it worse than you. You lash out at people that want to help you," Johnny said, gesturing to Ruth. "I get it," he spoke before Yasmine could utter a word. "Took me a long time to open up about it. Do you have any idea what it's like having grown men violate you over and over and over while you're chained to the ceiling in one night do you? No, you don't, and I pray you never do. So don't sit there and say I do not know what it's like to be raped. Have a train run on you for six hours, then get back to me, and we'll compare notes."
Ruth sat there in shock and wide-eyed. She never heard this from him before. She could even see her own sister shocked and revolted by what John was telling them.
"Yasmine!" Ruth called out as her sister raced from the room after John had been detailing the events of life in Raven Dale for the past thirty minutes.
"Ruth? Is everything alright?" Bill asked, stepping into the den, seeing how green in the gills Ruth was at the moment.
"I don't think she could handle the truth," Johnny said, peering over at his older brother.
"What truth?" Bill asked, confused.
"Everything," Johnny said vaguely.
"Define..." Turning around when he heard someone approaching.
"Hello, Bill," Yasmine said, still feeling queasy after hurling the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl.
"Hello, Yasmine," Bill greeted, looking back at Ruth when that was the most polite greeting she's given him in the past year. Wondering just what was being discussed in his family's den.
"Give us the room, would ya? I'm not done yet," Johnny said, looking up at Bill.
"There's more?!" Yasmine and Ruth exclaimed in unison.
"All you've heard was what happened in the first month. I still have a year and eleven months to detail," Johnny said truthfully.
"The first month?!" Ruth muttered slack-jawed. "
No wonder he was so angry! Hell, if it were me, I'd be a raving basket case
?!" she spoke in her mind.
"Please, I believe you," Yasmine stammered, sitting down next to John on the loveseat. "I don't know if I can handle more," she said in defeat.
"I guess you can stay then," Johnny said, turning his attention back to Bill. "That is if Yasmine wants an audience for this."
"Bill knows. I'm okay with Bill."
"Get the door," Johnny said when Bill started to walk towards the couch that Ruth was sitting on. "Not everyone needs to hear this," he stated when his brother gave him a look.
"Okay, so what are we discussing?" Bill asked, taking a seat beside Ruth. Looking over at her as he felt her trembling at her light touch.
"Shh! We aren't, we're just observing," Ruth whispered when John turned his sole attention to her sister.
"Where was I," Johnny muttered, "ah, yes, that little fucking room," he seethed with hate. "Every night, I would wish that chain would snap so I could strangle the man with it?! How I just wanted to shove all those bastards into that room, slit their throats and drown in their blood. At least then Julia would still be alive, even if I wasn't. Yet... that isn't the case; no, that can never be the case. I must endure. I owe her that much even if I have to listen to her screams in my dreams every night." A single tear rolled down John's left cheek. Ignoring how Ruth kept Bill rooted when he started to get up. "Yet... that isn't the worse of it..."
"It's not?!" Yasmine muttered in shock. What she had heard so far was far, far worse than her one time. Sure, yes, she was violated, taken against her will. However, she was drugged and couldn't remember a thing. Not like what John was telling her of his experience.
"No. It's not. When they had their fun or one of the more sadistic ones was on shift at the time, they would join in. Not in the rape. They got off on my pain and fear as they would whip me with a metal coat hanger or a belt with metal studs on it while one of their pals was raping me repeatedly." Seeing Yasmine look at the other two, who nodded that they had seen the scars. Only to cause Yasmine to feel her stomach heaving once again as she bolted out of the room at the revulsion of how sick some people are that could do that to a thirteen-year-old boy.
