Chapter Text
When Lance was young and still naïve, her Mama would often hold her before she went to bed. Some nights she would sing Lance’s favourite lullaby or re-enact Lance’s favourite story in funny voices. Whenever the day was particular bad, Mama would stroke her hair and recite a quote she tried to drill into Lance’s brain. “No one can break you unless you yourself want to be broken. Stand up and fight for yourself and the ones who need protecting. Make your Mama proud mi niña querida.”
Lance learnt the hard way that the world was a cruel place. She learnt how to use her beauty as a weapon. How to get what she wanted.
-
Lance was 8 when she had her first brush with death.
She was walking home from school after swim practice. The sun had just started to set, and most people were walking home. Everyone knew that the streets were dangerous after the sun went down. That was when the monsters came out to play. They preyed on the unlucky ones who weren’t indoors, stealing their belongs, beating them up, or worse. If you got caught up in it, you were seen for dead. No one would help the person who was foolish enough to get caught. It was you and your family against the world.
“Mierda,” Lance swore. The sun was about to go down in 10 minutes and it took 20 to run from school to home. She prayed that she wouldn’t get caught. Mama had warned her siblings and her that she was to never go out after midnight. That was when bad things started to happen. Her Mama had told them what happened to Sophia, a girl Lance’s age who lived down the street. She was caught by one of the gangs after dark when she wandered into their territory. They had played with her like animals, chasing after their prey and pinning them down. They took their wicked way with her and after they were done, they left her defiled body just before their territory, warning everyone about what they were capable of.
After that story Lance swore to herself that she wouldn’t get caught. She wouldn’t let herself be as helpless as Sophia was.
Lance ran past the grocery store, waving to old man Alejandro. He was packing up the store, bring his produces in. He was a friendly man, though tough on thief’s. Alejandro had helped Lance find her Mama after she had gotten lost, enticed by a shining seashell on the sidewalk. When she looked up, her Mama was gone.
After the grocery store was the park and then the street Lance lived on. By the time she approached the park, sweating profusely and flyaway’s running in the wind, dusk was approaching.
She stopped at the park, leaning against a tree to catch her breath. While she got her breath under control, she looked up to the stars. The stars were her favourite after the ocean. You could get lost in them, trying to count all the stars but ultimately failing and being reminded that you are just a speck in the grand universe. Lance loved counting them, being reminded that her life was one of many in all the galaxies that littered the universe.
A snapping noise brought her out of her revive. The sun had gone down and Mama was going to skin her alive for being out past dusk. “Uggh. Mama’s going to kill me!” she cried.
“Not if I kill you first little girl,” a malicious chuckle sounded behind her.
Whirling around to the left, Lance’s heart began to beat faster. There were three men dressed in black surrounding her. They all held various weapons. The man who looked like the ringleader held his hand to the light, showing off brass knuckles. He chuckled when Lance whimpered at the sight. The man to the left of him held a baseball bat on his shoulder, smirking when Lance met his eyes. Whimpering, Lance turned to the man on the ringleaders right. He held a crowbar in his hands and beat it against his palm when he saw Lance looking at him.
Terrified, Lance gripped the strap of her backpack and closed her eyes. When she opened them again all of this would be gone and she would awaken in her bed with her Mama shaking her shoulder, trying to wake her up.
A chuckle made her eyes snap open and focus on the ringleader. He stepped forward, intimidating Lance. Gulping, Lance took a step backwards for every step forwards the man took. When Lance was backed up against another tree and had nowhere to go, the man bent down towards Lance.
His breath tickled Lance’s cheek, mouth in line with her left ear. “Hahaha. Poor little girl, nowhere left to go.” He looked up, a smirk filling his face. He paused, seemingly to inhale her scent. His eerie black eyes bore into hers. “If you can get away from me and my boys, I’ll let you go,” he whispered. “If not? Well, you’ll know what we do to pretty girls like you,” shrugged the man.
Lance’s breath caught in her throat. Surely, she could outrun these men. She could run home and Mama and her siblings would hug her, telling her that she was safe. She would be free from this chilling experience.
“Run!” the man shouted, leaning back from Lance as she tore past him and his men, further into the park. The last thing she saw as she looked back was a crazed grin on his face.
-
Lance could have been running for minutes or hours. Time held no meaning for her in her state of primal fear. All she could hear was her heartbeat and the blood rushing through her veins. She lost count the number of times she had tripped and fallen, grazing herself. Her fear propelled her forward, through the haze of pain. Crazed laughter followed behind her.
Occasionally, she looked back, praying that she wouldn’t see a flash of black against the park greenery. When she did see a flash of black in the corner of her eyes, her heartbeat skyrocketed. Half out of her mind with fear, she wondered what they would do with her if they caught her. Would they knock her around a bit, then let her go? Or would they torture her? Or m-maybe they would rape her like Sophia was raped? Lance sobbed, tears filling her vision.
-
Lance stopped, falling to the ground on hands and knees, physically unable to go on. How long would they toy with her! She moaned. How long would they make her run until they caught up with her?
It turned out not long.
The man with the baseball bat caught up to her, kicking her in the back of the knees. She went down with a pained grunt. Stalking around her limp figure, the man kicked her in the side, rolling her until she was on her back, blinking dazedly at the stars.
“Pathetic,” the man growled. “How does the boss have any interest in you when you barely even lasted ten minutes?” he snarled, kicked Lance in the ribs.
“Ahhh!” Lance cried out, feeling a rib or two give out under the force of the kick. She moaned, eyes tearing up from the pain.
A smooth voice reached her ears, “Now now, Antonio. She’s tougher than she looks. Isn’t that right niñita?” Chided the ringleader. He leaned down, caressing Lance’s left cheek with his knuckles.
Lance moaned, jerking her head to the side, away from the oily touch. The man frowned, gripping Lance’s jaw in his hand, turning her head to the front. “Let’s teach her some manners, why don’t we?” he smirked. He straightened up and turned to his right. “Diego you do the honours.”
Diego grinned, mouth stretching wide. “Certainly boss.” He swung his crowbar over his head and brought it down hard against Lance’s legs.
After that, everything blurred together in one massive pulse of pain for Lance. Occasionally she could hear snippets of conversations.
“- going to last?”
“Hush, ….. her a lesson.”
“Not responding …..”
As she laid there, Lance’s last thought was ‘I’m never going to this helpless again. I’ll die before I’m this vulnerable.’ Before she slipped into darkness.
-
“Mi pobre hija.” Greeted Lance as she awoke. Arms found themselves around her as she struggled to open her eyes and sit up. Upon opening her eyes, her mother’s arms were wrapped tight around her. “My querida hija. You’re alright!”
“Mama?” Lance chocked up.
“I’m here hija,” Mama cried, wrapping her arms around Lance tighter.
“I want to learn how to fight,” Lance breathed out, looking into her Mama’s eyes stubbornly.
“Of course, hija. You’ll be my little fighter,” Mama sobbed, leaning her head against Lance’s.
“The best fighter,” Lance huffed, falling asleep in her mother’s safe embrace.
-
When Lance turned nine, she never went anywhere with out her retractable staff hidden at the small of her back. She learnt how to wield her beauty as a blade and how to switch masks at the drop of a hat. Lance fooled the world into believing that she was a happy, carefree child.
Mi niña querida - My darling girl
Mierda - Curse word
Niñita - Little girl
Mi pobre hija - My poor daughter
Querida hija - Darling daughter
Hija - Daughter
I don't speak Spanish so all the translations come from google translate