Trigger warning: This chapter contains mentions and descriptions of abuse and sexual harrassment and/or abuse. If this is your trigger read with caution. If you want to skip this chapter you can. I will have a brief recap in the next chapter about what happened in this chapter.  You have been warned.

***Shade's POV***

I was a bit surprised that he wants to know about that. At the same time though I guess I shouldn't be surprised. After all Hope and I are not the kind of people to start fights out of nowhere.

After what he tried to do to Hope and what he did to me I couldn't help but feel like he deserved to have his face pounded in. He's stronger and faster than I expected though. Then again, he has been here for years, and Hope and I have only been here for close to a couple months. So, I suppose it makes sense he has more experience.

"I'm not really comfortable talking about that, but I probably should." I say before taking a deep breath.

Alastor looked like he wanted to say something, but I beat him to it.

"It all started around the time Hope turned 13. Her loving parent had passed away and she was sent to live with her aunt. She would have gone to live with her sister but couldn't because she was in college and couldn't support them both. In case you're wondering her parent died in car accident."

"They were going done to see Emily one more time before Christmas because her mother had gotten sick and most likely wasn't going to make it to Christmas. On the way there though some idiot hit the car and that combined with black ice caused a crash. Mom died on impact. Dad while severely injured got Hope out of the car and made sure she was ok before collapsing. He died a couple hours later at the hospital. And just like that Hope became an orphan."

"As far as she knew there wasn't many people left on her father's side and none of them could take her in. Practically everyone on her mother's side was very reluctant to take Hope in. Her aunt decided to take her in, and she wasn't thrilled about it. She had Hope basically living in a dark and cold basement. It only had taken a couple days before Hope started breaking her aunt's impossible rules and that's when the abuse started, and I showed up."

"It started off as being given barely enough to eat before moving on to beatings. After the first two smack downs is when I showed up. Since then, I would always take control whenever aunt got physical with her. Hope doesn't remember any of it, but she knows what was happening with her aunt. One thing she doesn't know about what her male cousin began doing when she was 16."

"Apparently one of his told that if he masturbates, he gets dirty by having all these genital juices on his hands. Later on, this friend said that he said that as a weird joke and that he never knew Karl would take it as seriously as he did. Still don't know if I believe that or not. Anyway, Karl decided the best way to let out his sexually urges was to have me give him blowjobs. Before you ask no he never raped me. I think he may have thought that would be taking it too far. I want to object, but if I didn't, he would beat up Hope some more. Most of the time she was still recovering from her aunt's beatings, so I did it."

"I can't verbally express how much I hated it and how much I wanted to vomit afterwards. Thinking about it now still makes me nauseous. I made sure Hope never found out about that. There were times I tried to fight back, but they never worked out. She kept Hope weak but barely giving her enough to survive. Hope never had the strength to fight back so that never lasted long."

I think one of the nights I remember most was the night everything at that house came to an end..."

**Flashback**

I had just taken over as Hope was getting nervous. Hope was nervous because for the past 10 minutes Aunt Cindy was pacing and mumbling angrily to herself. She rarely ever does that. When she does though it's a bad time for me.

'Looks like a beating tonight. I wonder what for this time.' I think to myself.

Hope was never bad or deserving of the beating and hurt Cindy causes. Yet Karl and June could commit murder and she would defend them with everything she had. Entitled selfish bitch.

The sound of thundering footsteps coming down the stair breaks me from my thoughts. In no time Cindy is standing the doorway. She looks pissed. Before I could say anything, she speaks first.

"You ugly stupid bitch. This is all your fault. If you and your nosy fucking sister had never been born none would be happening. This is all your fault. Now I will truly make you suffer." She says and as she said the last sentence her angry look changed into a sinister grin.

After that she tied me to a shelf she had bolted to the floor. Seconds later she began whipping me. I tried not to scream or cry, but some did slip through.

Once she got bored of that she takes out a pocketknife from her pocket. She used a culinary blow torch to heat it until it was red hot. Once it was heated to her satisfaction, she pressed the dull end to my back. The sizzling and burning of my skin was too much and I began to cry out more.

She also got bored of that quickly and a truly evil grin came on her face as she brought the knife close to my face.

"You have taken so much from me. Now I am going to take something from you." She says sinisterly.

She used the knife to remove my right eye. I don't remember the pain very clearly. I don't think I want to remember the pain.

After that she began kicking me for a bit. For a few moments I thought it was over. I was going to die. Beaten to death.

She suddenly stops and runs away. Pain racked my body making it impossible to move. I'm not sure how long after she left before police and paramedics had arrived.

My life was touch and go for a while, but I pulled through. Emily had stayed by my side as much as she could. Her fiancée Jim later on had a very realistic glass eye made for me. I was very glad Hope still had other people who cared.

**Flashback end**

After finishing the story, I looked to Alastor to see his reaction. I could see many emotions on his face. Shock, anger, hatred, and more. One thing did have me concerned.

His smile was nowhere to be found.