Senza Paura

Though it ought to make sense on its own, I feel it necessary to mention that this is a bit of backstory for a character involved in other storylines in my head, years after the night described here. There will be mentions of underage drinking, illegal drug use, and vaguely described but implied rape. If you're offended by these things, don't read it.



They’re unaccustomed to fear.

After all, they’re young. Carefree. Rich, pampered. They have everything they could want. They’re invincible. They can partake of anything, without consequences. People like them don’t get addicted, or killed in car crashes, or pregnant.

Tonight is no different than usual. Too many people in not enough seats, car windows down, music blaring, the scent of danger and alcohol and sex and weed thick and heavy in the crisp night air as two shiny new cars race side by side down a narrow two-lane road.

They arrive at their destination intact and pour out of the cars, giggling and shouting. There are eleven of them tonight; the oldest, Wade, is barely nineteen, while the youngest, Aspasia, just turned fifteen. Mostly friends and some strangers, they’re celebrating her birthday tonight. Bottles of the finest wine pilfered from their fathers’ cellars, vodka and tequila from the backs of their mothers’ underwear drawers, whiskey somehow acquired come with them, some already open and emptying. Friendly arms slung across her shoulders and around her waist guide Aspasia into the home they call Manderley, the dark, abandoned place that is home for them on nights like these.

Music blares still. Someone with a head for wiring had siphoned electricity from the nearest neighbor, and that allowed for someone else’s sound system to be installed. There’s no heat, but their bodies are warmed by adrenaline and alcohol and contact.

Aspasia sprawls on a couch as she is presented with gifts: a bottle of Guinness accompanied by a kiss on the cheek from Jude, something in a Victoria’s Secret bag that makes her blush and laugh out loud from Melia, a small baggie of weed she’d never smoke and a sparkly plastic tiara from Cassandra. She accepts them all graciously, until she opens a bottle of wine passed to her by Vega. She pauses and seems to sober. She sits up straight, knees properly together, and almost absently pulls the tiara from its skewed position on her head.

“What’s wrong, Pacie?” Vega asks, visibly concerned by the sudden cloud that has ensconced Aspasia.

“This… This was my mother’s favorite.” A dim ripple of understanding passes through the room; most of them vaguely recall that Aspasia’s mother died a couple years ago, cancer or something like that. There’s a moment of awkward silence before Braedon thrusts his gift into her hands while Vega tugs away the offending bottle of wine and sets it on the floor out of her sight.


A tall figure unfamiliar to her settles next to her on the couch a while later. She’s holding the bottle of wine again, her fingertips tracing the smooth curve of the glass. His warm hand is suddenly over hers; she glances up and finds herself lost in the deepest espresso eyes she’s ever seen. A charming smile curves his lips up, and she can’t help but smile in return.

He produces wine glasses seemingly out of nowhere. “May I?” His voice is as dark and sultry and warm as the rest of him. She nods numbly as he pulls the bottle from her hands, a corkscrew magically in one of his hands. She accepts the half-filled glass with ingrained grace and smiles shyly when he touches his own to it.

“Happy birthday, gattina,” he murmurs, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Her eyes close. She longs for affection. It’s one of the things she loves about this group of friends. Hugs and cuddles and lying on and against one another are nothing but camaraderie and comfort and friendliness. Occasionally drunkenness, but usually just easy closeness.

This is different, though, she realizes as he refills her only half-emptied glass and massages her shoulder with his other hand, a finger or two maybe accidentally slipping under the neck of her shirt and brushing over the soft skin of her back. There is a tenseness, an urgency, a sense of demanding beneath his slick, too casual movements. She notices a darkness lacing his laughter but can’t help but giggle with him over one thing or other through their conversation.


She’s sprawled on the couch, much less gracefully than before. Her feet are propped on Vega’s lap, who succeeded in stealing her shoes and throwing them across the room almost half an hour before. Her torso rests in the stranger’s lap, she never did quite catch his name, and her mind is too fluttery right now to focus clearly. She glances at the mostly full glass of wine somehow still in her hand. She doesn’t know how much of the bottle she’s drank; he’s been keeping it on his other side but graciously making sure to refill her glass. She’d refuse him, but it’s damn good wine. Celestina always had good taste.


The lights are dim, the music is quieter. There isn’t as much shrieking laughter around her. Her mind is swimming, but it’s a pleasant feeling. Everything is bit fuzzy, but she’s warm, and comfortable, and from where her cheek rests against a firm shoulder, she can inhale a rich blend of good leather and musk and spice and all things masculine and power and just a bit too sensuous. It’s lulling, if a bit dangerous. The hand playing through her hair, rubbing the back of her head, makes her eyes droop sleepily while the other gently squeezes her leg. She hardly notices when her wineglass slips from her hand and shatters on the once-grand hardwood floor. Numbly, her body refuses to protest when he gracefully lifts her from where she rests bonelessly. And then she’s in his lap, chin on his shoulder, his hands gripping her hips too hard and something else hurting her while he whispers in her ear, his breath hot and sending terrible shivers through her body, and she can’t pull away.


She briefly recognizes she’s cold and on her back and something’s heavy on top of her and oh fuck it hurts but she can’t move, can’t make a sound, can’t open her eyes and see what it is and can’t do a damn thing. And then there’s nothing but black and dark and even the pain is gone.


Months later, years later, there remains a hole in her memory, a night that stubbornly stays outside of her consciousness. All she knows is she dreams of it and wakes up shaking, sweating, sometimes screaming. Whether it comes out as a wordless cry or a shriek of “nodon’tpleasepleasestopno” makes little difference. All she recalls is pain and terror and helplessness.

She never touches that wine again, either. She attributes it now to it being her mother’s favorite. She doesn’t know why else the aroma alone could cause her stomach to turn and heave and her head to ache and her heart to pound unhealthily.

She’s unaccustomed to such fear, and she does her best to deny its existence. But on the nights she dreams, she lies awake shaking, curled as tightly into herself as she can, praying for either daylight or quiet obliviousness.