Page 57 of Praying for Thunder

Ani rushed to the edge of the bed. “Niño, no!”

Swallowing, I reached out and touched his pant leg. Piercer may have looked and acted terrifyingly, but… “You’re not hot.”

Piercer repeated, as if doubting my smarts. “Hot?”

Sensing I was walking a deadly line, I slowly nodded. “Dio.”

Insanity. I watched it appear.

Piercer went from standing on the edge to jumping into an abyss of psychosis.

A fist lifted… then crashed down.

If I thought the wall hurt, I was a fool. Angry grown men have blows to last a seven-year-old a lifetime.

Stars dancing in front of my face, I tried to sit back up, instantly understanding why Ani had been slow to do so earlier. Not that she was slow to react now. Blurred movement flew through the air… and landed on Piercer’s back.

As if she wasn’t clinging to him, throwing blows of her own, Piercer stood up straight. “Yes.” He groaned in a sick pleasure. “Fight me, Pearl.” With barely any effort, she was snatched from her attack and tossed back onto the bed. Managing the bouncing this time, she quickly got to her knees, swinging fists at the one who dared strike her Niño.

She beat on his chest as he leaned his head back, sighing, and unbuckling his belt and jeans. “I’m going to punish my little girl.”

Her palm slapped his face as she raged. “I’m not your little girl anymore!” She hit and hit… until he grabbed her naked calves and pulled. Falling backward, her body was yanked forward, to the edge of the bed. Now, she panicked. “Please! Let him go outside!”

His upper body loomed over her fragile one. Forcing her legs apart, he smiled. “Nah.” His eyes met mine. “Let him see who he will soon be.”

“Noooo!” She thrashed, she fought, to no avail.

As his pants lowered, he told me, “Shut your eyes, and I will kill her.”

No!

Ani and I both screamed! Her out loud. Me, silently, as he began having his way with her.

What was happening was so appalling, my own body crawled backward, wanting as far from the crime as possible. Rape! Rape! I now understood why Dio didn’t want to tell me of this brutal act until I was old enough to handle it, if there is ever an age to grasp such violence.

My back to a wall, I sat there, so unbelievably traumatized, I shook as if being electrocuted. Eyelids so strained they barely touched my eyes, but I didn’t dare close them. Ani was already suffering horrendously. Even if I would never be able to sleep again due to this tragedy, I was going to spare her any more harm.

Due to the punch to my head, or the shock of my splintering mind, shadows started entering the sides of my vision from all angles. As they closed in, I tried so hard to keep my eyes open. I tried with all the power I possessed in my helpless young form, but I was too weak.

The shadows… won.

I felt like I was standing nowhere but sensed they had a celestial purpose. Engulfed in blackness were Dio’s manic emotions, searching for me. Between the two, it was surreal to experience ‘balance’ firsthand. In one, there was Dio’s frantic state. In the other was a blessed calm—a blessed understanding.

The voices that had spoken to me in the past now sounded as if one. It was neither male nor female. It just… was. “Give him permission,” it told me.

I didn’t quite grasp the meaning but suspected it had something to do with feeling Dio reaching out to me. It was physical, yet not. Mystical, yet as real as could be.

I dared, “Dio?”

The voice whispered, “Give him space to be.”

In the nothingness around me, I imagined an invitation…

That’s what he needed. His relief blew through me. “I got you, Little Guy. I got you.”

The now-made connection was able to manifest even more.

Flowing through the nothingness, and my blindness, knuckles of his fist appeared. They were distant, far in front of me, but kept getting closer. Even though I had just been hit so hard with a fist, the mere sight of his had me breaking into tears. “Dio,” I sobbed. “Rape! He’s hurting her!”