The front door of the two-story mustered yellow house creaked open just as twilight settled over Draxton, the last pale blue of the sky bleeding into deep indigo above the quiet lane.
Ira stepped inside barefoot, school bag hanging limply from one shoulder, torn shirt clutched desperately across her chest with both arms.
Her skirt was wrinkled, stained with bathroom floor grime. Her face was blotched red from crying, eyes swollen almost shut, lips trembling, hair a wild, tangled mess clinging to damp cheeks.
Aunt Meera was the first to see her.
She froze in the kitchen doorway, wooden spoon dripping curry onto the floor.
"Ira… Dear?"
Her voice cracked.
Uncle Raj appeared from the living room, newspaper slipping from his hands. His face drained of color.
Ira couldn't meet their eyes. She stood there — small, shaking — like a bird that had flown into a window and couldn't understand why it hurt so much.
Meera rushed forward, hands hovering, afraid to touch.
"What happened? Who did this to you?"
Ira's voice came out thin, shattered.
"Some girls… at school… they tore my shirt… took my bra… threw it…on the Krossvales....in front of everyone…"
Mr. Raj's breath hissed in sharply.
"The Krossvales?"
Ira shook her head — once, violently.
"Yes. Those monsters ."
Meera pulled her into a fierce hug, heedless of the dirt and tears soaking into her clothes.
"Oh my baby… my poor baby…"
Mr. Raj stood rooted, fists clenched at his sides, eyes burning with helpless fury.
"We moved here to keep you safe," he whispered hoarsely. "We thought… we thought the debt would be the worst of it. Not this. Not the monsters turning your school into their playground. Not our girl coming home like… like this."
Meera guided Ira to the sofa, hands gentle on her shoulders.
"Sit. Please, Dear. Sit."
Ira collapsed onto the cushions, still clutching her shirt closed, body curled small.
Meera knelt in front of her, brushing sweat-damp hair from her forehead.
"Who were the girls? Tell me their names. We'll go to the principal tomorrow—"
Ira's words were bitter, broken.
"The principal… he can't do anything. The Krossvales own the school. They're the board. No one will help. No one can."
Mr. Raj turned away sharply,
"Those bastards… they've taken everything. Our city. Our safety. Now our daughter's dignity…"
Meera cupped Ira's face gently.
"Did they… did they hurt you ?"
Ira shook her head, tears slipping free again.
"They were hunting for me like hungry monsters.... Aunt Meera, aunt Meera, I am so afraid . "
Meera pulled her close again, rocking her gently like she had when Ira was small.
Ira looked up at them — eyes raw, pleading.
"I just wanted to go to school. I just wanted to draw. I just wanted to be peaceful."
"Don't worry dear," Aunt Meera whispered softly. "You are our light. You are our heart. And no monster — no matter how powerful — will be able to take you away from us."
Mr. Raj knelt beside them, placing a heavy, trembling hand on Ira's back.
"We'll figure this out," he said, voice rough with unshed tears. "We'll find a way. We'll protect you. Somehow."
Ira buried her face in Meera's shoulder and cried — not just for today, but for every day since her parents died, for every day she had tried to be brave in a world that punished bravery.
Inside this small house, a family held each other tighter.
Because in Draxton City, love was the only shield they had for each other.
----
After some moments.
The moon hung low and indifferent outside Ira's window, spilling thin, silver light across the small bedroom like spilled mercury. The room was quiet except for the faint tick of the wall clock and the occasional creak of the old house settling. Her single bed was still made, untouched; she hadn't even tried to lie down.
Ira sat on the hard floor with her back pressed against the edge of her bed, knees drawn up tight to her chest, arms wrapped around her shins as though she could fold herself small enough to disappear. She wore an oversized gray sweatshirt—hood up, sleeves pulled over her hands—and soft cotton pajama shorts that barely reached mid-thigh. Her bare feet were cold against the floorboards, toes curled inward.
There was a bandage on her scraped knee .
She hasn't cried since night has fallen. The tears had simply… dried up. What remained was something heavier: a slow, pulsing ache behind her sternum, like a bruise spreading inward.
Her gaze was fixed on the opposite wall.
Every inch of it was covered.
Charcoal sketches. Pencil studies. A few hurried watercolors that had bled at the edges. All of them Vernon.
One large portrait dominated the center—his face in three-quarter profile, long dark hair falling across one sharp cheekbone, eyes half-lidded and distant.
She had drawn him looking slightly away, as though he were staring at something just past her shoulder. The shading on his jaw was meticulous, almost obsessive; she had spent hours getting the shadow under his cheekbone exactly right, the faint hollow beneath it, the way tension lived permanently in the set of his mouth.
Smaller drawings surrounded it like satellites:
His hand resting loosely on a railing (she remembered the veins, the long fingers, how they had flexed when he pulled the man's intestine out).
The line of his throat when his head was tilted back slightly (she had imagined the pulse there, quick and alive).
His silhouette from behind, shoulders broad under the dark blazer he would wear when he visited the school, tied hair spilling down his back like spilled ink .
A quick, angry sketch of just his eyes—narrowed, unreadable, staring straight out of the paper as though he could see her looking at him right now.
She hadn't drawn anyone else in months. Not her parents. Not her old friends from before the accident. Only him.
Tonight the wall felt different.
Every line she had hauntingly rendered now carried a new, sick weight.
She could still hear her own voice splintering inside the stall.
*Please don't rape me—please—please don't—*
The memory made her stomach lurch. She pressed her forehead hard against her knees and squeezed her eyes shut.
He had stood on the other side of that thin door.
He had told her to shut up.
He had threatened to kill her if she made another sound.
And yet—
—and yet he didn't do anything to her.
Even the monsters didn't come for her— that means he didn't tell them she was there.
She lifted her head slowly. Her eyes—still puffy, still rimmed with red—traced the largest portrait again.
"Why didn't you do anything to me?" she whispered to the drawing.
The painted Vernon didn't answer.
To be continued...