A yellowy dull light flickered then abated as a door opened and closed again in her vicinity, she looked up ahead at the local public house to learn it was closing for the night.

Being one of the rowdier pubs in the Liverpool area, it was also one of the last to close. Last shouts and wotnot being served to the late stayers, then the publican getting shirty and turfing them all out.

Lou ducked across the street to try and stay away from any drunkards lurking or leaving the establishment.

The night surrounded her, the lamp-lights dull and every now and then she felt the cold river breeze drifting up from the murky Mersey.

Louise picked up the pace and continued on, trying to keep alert to all but at the same time she was oblivious to the danger lurking close.

Her torch flickered, the battery slowly but surely dying, she hit it on her open palm twice to see if it would magically illuminate brightly. Bloody cheap rubbish, should never have bought it mail order she mumbled to no one in particular.

Something moved.

Her peripheral vision catching the edge of the movement located behind and across the street.

Lou was suddenly on edge.

Eyes widened.

Eyes widened trying to take in all of her blackened charcoal surroundings.

The shiver from the icy breeze before now replaced with an icier shiver of panic which ran lacing and wrapping her body.

Making her tense.

Her heartbeat quickened.

Her hands shook.

Stumbling, as she hastened herself to flee, she held the torch in her hands, purse to her stomach.

Lou was alone..... John and Aunt Mimi's house 'Mendips' was still an age away.

A/N: Readers- caution please, violent scenes ahead. If you do not like violence please miss the remainder of this chapter.

They walked twenty paces behind and across the other side of the road now.

They were definitely following her.

If she paused at the cross roads they did.

If she turned they followed.

Her silent padding along the footpath grew increasingly fast but, just as before, they matched her speed.

All too soon two overtook and two stepped nearer, she felt them in the trepidation in her heart and the goosebumps along her arms.....

Hidden behind..... in dark shadows of the night.

The big figures ahead stalked ever closer...

All too soon she saw them, front and centre, blocking her way, looming over her.

Mean eyes staring into her. She had never seen eyes like that before but felt it was like a cat playing with a mouse.

She had never been a mouse.

She was always the strongest, the noisiest, the most fearless one when dares were made....she had to be.

She had to be smart and strong to keep up with three brothers and their assorted menagerie of male friends.

Lou had never felt like she felt tonight, how she felt inside right now...

"Aye, lad's nice night" She tried desperately to appear friendly, to keep the quaver from her voice. wishing no ill to herself but knowing she was in trouble.

Shoving the trepidation low and holding her head high she met their eyes.

A weak stance was useless.

At least if she was to be hurt, she would know she didn't shrivel and cower in their wake.

The two standing in her space nodded and one of them then moved to stand by her side under the lamp post. A mistake on his part or hopeful thinking on hers. He was shadows of features before, lit from behind.

She possibly would be able to identify him now, illuminated in the white beam. One piece of good advice coming from her work in the solicitor's office, she understood the need for good clear identification.

She analysed quickly, methodically.

He was rather tall, standing up to the first rung on the ornate bottle green lamppost, a ginger, around Harry's age she imagined maybe 25. Heavy set, rotten teeth one missing on the left. His forearm, as he lit a smoke to offer her, friendly like, had a tattoo of a small bird, perhaps a raven, as it was mostly black. He wore overalls, dark oil stains all over, like a grease monkey at the mechanics she thought.

Lou declined the cigarette and tried to move past the tall man to only have his friend, a heavier almost obese fellow with a gold earring in the left ear and curly dark hair, sidle up closer and make her automatically back up and that one step became two...... toward the lane.

The lane.

Four up from the pub and dark as hades. A tabby cat roamed the trash cans in the edges of the lamps miserable dull light.

Her largest mistake by far this evening was to let them stop her right here.

She took the flashlight and bandied it about in a useless way, hoping they would disperse in fear of her and her 'weapon'.

It was like pointing a tissue at a lion, pitiful and beyond hope of working. But she hoped with all her might they would just forget her and the bother, move on, leave her be.

Laughter rang in her ears.

The two lurking behind, Lou thought were the most dangerous.

They hovered in the darkness like shadows of death, and in that moment, she shuddered.

Her body relenting to the terrors she could see closing in on her.

Death, was this it?

She hadn't even had a life yet and here she was to be set on by strange men......

Four....... large... burly..... men.

Maybe she was deluded but she tried to see beyond the night she was currently buried in.

Craving to see tomorrow and be at Friday night's party.

Perhaps even flirting a little with Paul, giving George some sisterly hell and badgering and bantering with John, just like they always had.

Safe.

Happy.

With friends.

With her brother...

She truly tried to see all her tomorrows in the darkness of tonight as they roughly covered her mouth and shoved her down that narrow lane.

Neither a scream or a ruckus upset the still of the night.

She was paralysed at first, wide-eyed with terror then eyes squeezed shut with introduction of intense burning and searing sharp pain.

That first hand....

That first fist that lay heavy over her mouth, smelling like beer and dead fish. The second that replaced it- grease and dirt.

She stopped counting or even 'feeling' after that.

Would it ever end, this pain....

Will it ever stop....

Her entire body took a battering as they held her firm.

A few dirty hands may have covered her mouth and strolled oily over her skin. 

But more were touching, pinching, scratching......

And every disgusting appendage of theirs, that shouldn't be near her, was pushed, and buried, painfully deep inside her.

Over and over...

Again and again.

Her silenced young body was ravaged, burned, marked....

And that of her soul too.

They covered her with so much weight she could barely breathe and for many minutes over that endlessly long night..... she wished she wasn't.

She wished everything would end.

That the punishment would stop.....

Yet....

When the light dimmed and her heart shattered a little more...Somewhere deep inside she rallied herself.

She was brave, strong, willful to the core.

She would be resilient....

She wouldn't cry.

No............... she wouldn't give them any of her precious tears.