Broken Souls

Friends

During the commotion at the gala, security quickly came to dissolve the fight. Xandy was set on not letting Kiko out of her sight for anyone. Once she was started, there was no going back. One of the guards pulled at her dress, forcing her to lose grip on the woman below her. The three men could not subdue Xandy, making a guard taser her. Estelle shrieked as she lunged forward to aid her best friend but was caught by Jiyong's arms.

"Estelle, calm down! You're not going to anything but make it worse!" he advised, tightening his grip around her waist. In a blind fury, Estelle retaliated and elbowed him in his jaw. His arms released from her as he groaned in pain while holding the side of his face.

"Jiyong!" Seung-hyun blurted, bolting across the room to his side. "Are you okay?" His right hand moved to touch Jiyong before his friend smacked his helpful hand away. Seung-hyun's eyes now housed a hurt expression, while he watched him practically writhe in pain.

Daesung and Young-bae strode across the room to hold Estelle back with their own brute force. "They're going to hurt you too if you don't calm down!" Young-bae scolded, watching her horror stricken face visibly lose all hope. "It's gonna be alright. Just breathe." His voice changed to soothing, noticing her breathing pick up speed. Her body continued to fight weakly against the two men, ebony locks displacing with every movement.

Everyone attending the gala around the group gasped in shock and confusion while they clamored for answers. No one dare moved closer to the circle of people for fear of getting hurt in the process. Xandy continued to shout angrily as she slowly lost consciousness in security's arms.

"Xandy!" Estelle's voice was weak and hopeless at this point. This was the worse she'd ever seen of Xandy. She knew if it ever got to this point, everything she helped Xandy achieve personally would be for naught. "Xandy!" Her voice turned faint and garbled in her friend's mind as she drifted into deep unconsciousness.

"Jesus fuckin' Christ! Why won't that thing shut the hell up?!" A middle aged man squawked, throwing a beer bottle at the wall to make his point.

"I don't know! Xandy, come on. Stop crying, honey." A woman replied fearfully, rocking her newborn child to sleep the best way she knew how. The child always hungry. The woman's husband wouldn't allow her to breast feed the baby. And formula was scarce from the lack of money to afford such a thing. Her husband figured that alcohol was a better investment than baby food for a baby he didn't want in the first place.

"If you won't shut the thing up, then I will!" The man belted as he stomped to his wife and snatched the child from her arms. She protested which was returned with a back hand to her face with his free hand. "Touch me again bitch and the little shit dies." She held her face in shock as she watched her husband take her child into their bedroom. After a few seconds, the crying ceased completely. The woman darted to the room to see her child with one of his socks entirely in the child's mouth. She feared for her child's life to act on the punishment. The only thing she could do was cry and fall to her knees onto the floor. From then on, the child hardly cried at all from such harsh punishment every time she opened her mouth to make a sound.

As the child aged a few months, she knew better than to cry at this point. Whenever she desired attention from her mother, she'd flail her arms. Her father saw this as bothersome every time he wanted to take his sexual frustrations out on her mother. When she'd ask for attention the only way she knew, her father would throw her into the crib and strap her down to the crib bars. He would tighten them so hard to the point that she still has scars from the fabric rubbing against her skin so roughly.

Her father would stand over her whimpering in her crib and laughed derisively at her helpless state. "I bet you really wanna cry now, huh? Stupid little bitch. I can't believe I actually let the whore have you." He would say to the child.