Title: Dreams
By: SSidle
Pairing: gen
Ratimg: PG
Summary: Elle reurns to that awful night in her dreams.

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Another painful night. She tosses and turns as the troubled dreams return. Ever since that day, that awful day that scarred her forever, night after night her dreams take her back to the torture, pain, and the terror that gripped her. Elle's mind drags her back once more…

Black. The barrel of the gun is so dark, and shakes slightly from the hand of the sick man holding it. He starts saying something about rules, but she doesn't comprehend over the roaring in her ears. Acting on instinct, Elle grabs for the gun, it goes off. Blood, so much blood. And the pain, the pain in her chest. She can't breathe, can't think as he comes closer. Elle wants to move away, away from him, away from the pain, but she is held in lace by the gripping fear and weakness. Just as she thought it couldn't hurt any worse, fresh pain explodes in her body. Frozen, she cannot turn away as she watches him dig his fingers into her wound. Shock, confusion, horror. Thoughts race she sees him paint a single word on the wall in her blood: 'Rules'. It doesn't make sense, what about rules? Why her? Who is he? Then her memory cuts through the red haze of pain. It's him, the perp., the so-called 'collector'. They hadn't played his game. Now she was the one to pay for the misstep. Her last thoughts before sliding into the darkness are of revenge, fear, and a hope that the others will make him pay.

She wakes. A cold sweat coating her body; she shakes uncontrollably. Elle resolves to do everything in her power to ensure that this never happens to another woman. The law, her sworn duty, and the rules of life are the last things on her mind. Nothing is going to stop her, nothing.

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