Hope On The Rocks/Issue 75

This is Issue 75 of Hope On The Rocks, entitled "Belongs to Bobby Lunar".

This issue is Lia-centric.

=613, Belongs to Bobby Lunar== After everything Bobby Lunar did to us, I don’t regret my decision; I killed him, but otherwise he would have killed us. I didn’t have a choice. That’s what I tell myself. I am on the back of the pickup truck, sitting with Kerri, Margaret, Dani and Texas. Apparently, only a few made it out. I’m sad. Esther is gone, Ridley, Peter, William, Doug, Skylar, Alice, Nellie. They’re all gone and I feel guilty. Guilty for wanted to be saved. If they had just ignored the fact that we were taken, maybe they’d all this be alive. Too late to change that now, though. “Are you okay?” Kerri asks Texas, sitting with a screwdriver and a razor, trying to get the bullet, that Texas caught, out. Texas is moaning, eyes closed as she does this. “Just get it done.” Texas mutters under his breath. I look away. All that blood. I can’t take it. Margaret and Dani are both sitting staring at the decaying farms and fields we pass by. “Hey.” I say, sending Dani a smile, which she returns. “We’ll take you in, don’t worry.” Dani nods, still smiling. “Thank you.” Besides Texas’ moans of pain, the rest of the trip to the Tallie Family Farm goes in silence.

At the farm, Miles instantly takes me inside where he gets me dressed. I don’t even look at what the others do, I just go with Miles; the boy I love. However, he acts weird. I just accept it, thinking that it might just be me because I’ve spent four or five days down in that basement. “Are you... okay?” Miles says, sounding weird, always looking around. I nod with a shy smile. It’s great to see Miles again, but he acts weird. As I take off the shirt that I took from Johnson’s body, I hold it in my hands. Flashes of my time down there. At one point, Johnson set me free from my chains, and forced me to follow him into a bed room. The bed was pretty big, but he didn’t even touched that. Instead he tied me to the wall, arms and legs apart. He gagged me, blindfolded me, and then... That was the worst two hours of my life. “What’s that?” Miles asks, pointing at my left breast. I look in the mirror. The brand mark that Bobby Lunar and his men made, saying ‘belongs to Bobby Lunar’. Since I haven’t seen the brand mark before now, I break down on the floor, burrying my face in my hands. Then I cry. Now Miles is holding me, comforting me. I know something’s wrong, though, but I don’t want to think about that now. I just want to be with Miles right now. This brand mark will never disappear. It will be on my breast forever. That’s what’s hurting. That and the fact I will never get to forget Bobby Lunar. I look at Johnson’s shirt through my fingers. It’s laying on the floor, just like nothing ever happened. Something did happen. I got raped four times. They got what they deserved. “Hey.” Miles mutters. I don’t say anything, just sobbing. “It’ll be okay.” Miles says, sounding like there’s something that bothers him. “It’ll be okay.”

Deaths

 * None

Credits

 * Miles Vance
 * Lia Camper
 * Kerri Mavis
 * Texas Starr
 * Margaret Wing
 * Dani Kestor