Romancing the Demon Lady

Chapter 024: A Dark Secret

Chapter 024: A Dark Secret

            "What?"

          It was an expected reaction after hearing something that sounded so absurd. The idea of sexual assaults and rape are the kind that you only often see depicted by the media and not really in reality. To find out that someone close to you had undergone such a terrible experience would be almost unbelievable. Unacceptable.

             Even I couldn't believe it myself when it happened to me. I still don't. I haven't accepted it either.

             "Mage is a victim of sexual abuse," she reiterated in a more acceptable wording.

          Her brief statement resulted into another defeating silence. They probably didn't know what to think about her revelation. They were probably too shocked to fully absorb what has been told to them and it may take a bit more time for them to process everything. 

          "Ho-How? How could that happen?" Uncle Harry stammered. "We didn't know. No one told us anything. She didn't tell us anything. It's... It's not possible. We would've known... we would've known!"

          Uncle Harry was never the emotional kind. When his brother and sister-in-law passed away, he solemnly mourned but he never shed a single tear. The last thing he said to me after their funeral, he told me, with a smile that "the world hasn't ended yet. The best is yet to come." The way he sounded as he was falling apart before me was more than a big surprise. It was unreal.

          "It happened last year at the S.U.S. after party," she began to tell the story of one of my worst nightmares.

          "We were all celebrating. Lucien-Heath won the general championship again. Then Mage..." She trailed on for a second, unsure of how she was going to proceed with the story without bringing up too much hurt for my family.

          "Well, Mage was having a really good time. That was the first time that I've ever seen her let go of herself. I really thought that was a good thing," Trinity proceeded with narrating the events of that night.

          "Then she probably had a little too much to drink and I don't know for sure... but maybe she was drugged, too. She just looked so... out of it."

          I could only imagine the look of dread that would have been etched on each of my family's faces when they realized how much vulnerable I had been in the state that I was during the S.U.S. party. The possibility and the reality of having someone take advantage of my less-than-perfect condition suddenly hit them hard like a slap in the face.

          "I saw her leaving - No, she was being escorted out of the party." She gulped loud enough for the sound to echo around the room. "My instincts told me something was up but I initially decided against it. But then after a while, I couldn't get rid of the feeling that something wasn't right so I followed them."

          Trina paused again, this time to probably get a hold of herself. It had been obvious the way she repeatedly inhaled and exhaled so deeply and loudly. It was not any easier for her to recall everything. After all, it was a memory I forced her to bury for me. A pain that she wanted me to shared with her.  Unearthing it should not have been pleasant.

          And it really wasn't. 

          Recovering from what seemed like a minor panic attack, Trina forced herself to narrate the rest of what had happened. 

            "It took me a while to actually track them down, but I did. They were at nearby parking lot. And that was where I found them... She was weak and drunk. There was no way she could have fought him off. But she did try... so hard."