Chapter 58
(Kara's POV)

I eye Lee, Cottle and the Old Man warily as they march into my room, looking remarkably like a firing squad.

"What do you want to know?" I ask, trying to keep them from seeing just how freaked I am.

"What happened with Jonas?" asks Cottle, who will probably be the hardest one to deflect.

"You already know," I growl, not wanting to talk about it... not that anyone is asking for my opinion here. I guess I should be grateful that there are no buckets in sight but that doesn't mean that this is going to be fun or that this is not an interrogation.

"Not enough."

"'Not enough'?"

"No, what did he do?" he insists.

"He molested me, want me to draw you a frakking picture?" I snap... so much for keeping them from realizing how freaked I am.

"Kara," warns the Old Man.

"What?"

"Don't," he says, shaking his head, and I can't help but to cringe at that because the truth is that I do know what they mean, I know what they want to know and I know that in the end I'm going to tell them. The problem is that my every instinct is rebelling against what I have to do here. I have only been cornered into talking about this once before and that was a very long time ago.

"The first time it got bad I was ten..." I begin before trailing off, not quite sure of how to proceed. Yes, I know I have to tell them, and I know they are not going to enjoy this any more than I will, but that doesn't mean I'm looking forward to it.

"What do you mean by 'the first time it got bad'?" prods the Admiral.

"Well, I kind of had it coming, to tell you the truth but..."

"You 'had it coming'?" he interrupts me, looking almost confused at that.

"Yes."

"Believe me, you didn't," he says, shaking his head.

"Yes, I did," I insist.

"What happened?" he asks and I'm relieved to see him dropping that particular issue, not that I am naive enough to think that that was the end of it.

"When I was ten my mom started 'dating' Jonas and after she had passed out sometimes he would come into my room. It wasn't every night or anything like that but..."

"What did he do?"

"Not much, at least not at first. Sometimes he would touch me, usually he would make me touch him. It used to creep me out but he wasn't really the first one to do that and seeing how he wasn't beating the crap out of me I figured it could be worse," I explain, just wanting to get this over with but knowing that we still have a very long way to go. "Anyway, one night he came in, sat on my bed and made me kneel in front of him. He wanted me to give him a blow job. I was ten frakking years old, I had never done anything remotely like that and I thought it was gross. I felt like I was choking and I just wanted to get away but he was holding my head down and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't break his hold. I didn't really know what to do so I did the only thing I could think of: I bit him... or tried to. I was too freaked to bite hard enough to do any real damage so the only thing I managed to do was to royally piss him off but it startled him enough to cause him to let go and I was finally able to pull away... I was so relieved but he wasn't done with me, not by a long shot. At first he just started beating me. It was bad but it wasnÕt like I had never been hit like that before so I knew I could take it and I figured it was worth it but then..."

"Kara?" prods the Old Man, reaching for my hand.

"All of a sudden he just stopped and then he told me he was going to teach me a lesson."

"What did he do?" he asks gently.

"He threw me on the bed, pulled off my panties and stuffed them in my mouth. I managed to spit them out but... he said that I was going to learn to keep my teeth to myself and then he..." I trail off again,Ê knowing that this is it, that there is no turning back and that they will never look at me in the same way again.