This is my final chapter. Thank you all for reading and enjoying my story. I hope you continue to read and like the others I'm writing, and what I will write in the future.

Bad night.

Ethel shared a happy smile with her big sister Esmerelda. Both Hallow girls had managed to slip out of their mansion so they could have some time between themselves, though if Sybil was older than 12 then she would've been included. The blond girls had chosen a night where their parents would be out on business while Sybil herself was staying with friends for the night, so the older girls had the place to themselves. The Hallow sisters relished the chance to go out and just be normal teenagers instead of porcelain dolls their parents liked to see on the shelves, though sometimes the two sisters would just stay at home and watch a movie or something since the mansion would be quiet enough for that.

The Hallow sisters knew that their parents wouldn't be home until late and since they'd taken Sybil with them they didn't have to put work off earlier than they would have liked, so they had enough time to be out, and they were going to try and enjoy themselves. One of Esmerelda's biggest fears was her parents' business empire when it came for her to inherit it, would make her work on it 24/7, something she was afraid of. While being the eldest had some perks, they didn't outweigh the issues that came with it, but Esmerelda wasn't going to let those issues bring her down tonight. Tonight she and her sister were going to try to have some fun to themselves, especially after the past year.

Esmerelda was happy that Ethel and Mildred seemed to have settled their little feud, especially since Ethel had learnt that actions have consequences. The elder sister knew that her younger sister had been deeply ashamed of what she had made Mildred reveal to the entire school, but Mildred could easily have let Ethel be punished for what she had done. In the past, Esmerelda had always managed to make Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom back off a little bit when Ethel did something unbelievably stupid, but when Ethel had cornered Mildred and the story of the rape had come out, Esmerelda had had no intention of stopping Miss Cackle from punishing the girl. She had been so heartily sick and tired of Ethel pushing and goading Mildred, and while Esmerelda had wanted to know herself why Mildred seemed to be acting up, she had decided to let the girl get over it, she had been horrified by the story.

Ethel had come a long way in the past term, and Esmerelda was proud of her for outgrowing her childish tendencies, but she still had a long way to go. Esmerelda didn't have that many years at Cackles left, and she wanted to leave both of her sisters happy when she did. Esmerelda rolled her eyes, who was she kidding? Her sisters always got into fights while she tried to break them up, and she knew once she was no longer around the silly arguments would get worse, and the teachers would not stand for them.

"You okay, you look tired?" Ethel's voice broke through Esmerelda's reverie.

The older girl smiled at Ethel. "Yeah, I'm fine," she replied, deciding not to tell her sister about what she'd really been thinking about, and decided to tell her a total lie. "I'm trying to push my parents' lessons out of my mind."

Ethel had never really understood what life was like being the eldest child, but for Esmerelda she was constantly being forced to take part in opera nights, competitions with other witches and wizards and expected to win no matter what, but most of all she was forced to come and attend business meetings so she could see for herself how her parents' business worked. That was straightforward enough. Esmerelda was not the only witch child who had to go through something like that; she had lost count of the number of times she had met other witches and wizards on the same broom as her, and like her they had been expected to sit quietly and take notes about how their parents pitched business ideas, explained the product, and discussed the numbers while their children looked on and acted as invisible ornaments that were just there to observe. Esmerelda had never been given a choice in the matter. Her parents had always made sure she adhered to the code like a sticking spell, and that meant she had no wriggle room to break free, so moments, where she wasn't studying up for a competition or attending a business meeting or even learning about the Hallow family business for the twelfth time in a row, was more than welcome to the teenager.

For some reason, Ethel had got it in her head that the time she spent with her parents weren't as bad as Esmerelda protested they were. What made it all worse was how their parents and the teachers lauded her achievements when all Esmerelda had done was study, not realising that the teenager would actually prefer spending some of her time making friends and having fun.

"Come on, let's go and get something to eat," Esmerelda said before Ethel could say anything that dimmed the mood. "I could do with something sweet, or fatty."

The Hallows weren't really bothered about what their children ate outside of meals, but they did frown on too much fatty or sugary treats. It wasn't really a case of their children's health that concerned their parents, it was because they wanted their children to be fit and light enough to ride a broomstick. In theory, their magic should have been able to burn through whatever gunk was left in the body, but the elder Hallows didn't really care about that. It was rare for the Hallow sisters to even indulge, they couldn't do it at Cackles, but they could do it at intervals at home. Ooh, Ethel thought to herself as they headed off to find something to eat, Sybil is going to be sooo jealous.

During their little outing, the two sisters had eaten enough sugary and fatty foods to fill them up for three days, but they avoided any place that sold alcohol; the memory of how Mildred had broken down and told everyone how she had drunken some gin and become dopey enough to caught unawares by a rapist. The teenagers inside the Hallow girls wanted to be spontaneous and daring, but they weren't that daring, and besides, they had plenty of time and there would be many more nights like this one. No rush.

The Hallow sisters finally decided to return home after a few hours, and they began to head back. They weren't that far from the mansion, but it was still a long way, and both girls were determined to learn the transportation spell as soon as they could. The girls were prepared for the long walk home when they sensed someone behind them, but the two girls didn't pay any attention to them, and then they felt a pain in their necks like a needle being jabbed into their skin and then everything went black.

Esmerelda felt cold as she began to come to. "Ethie?" she muttered to herself, blinking her eyes rapidly. Everything was incredibly hazy for the young witch, and as she turned her head from side to side her vision cleared and her heart virtually stopped when her vision had cleared enough for her to make out what was happening when she heard a moan to the side. "Esme?"

Esmerelda looked in the direction of the moan, and her heart stopped when she saw her sister looking dizzily from side to side, much like she herself had, but Esmerelda could see that she and her sister were both lying on top of a bed, tied to top and bottom, completely naked. "Ethie, I'm here," Esmerelda said desperately.

Ethel's head turned in her direction. "Esme? W-what's happening?"

"I don't know but we've got to get out of here," Esmerelda replied, desperately looking around the room, hoping to find their clothes. But she took in the room itself. Done up in green, brown and beige, with the only source of light being a lamp, which highlighted the shadows of the room. The room was filthy. There were pizza boxes littered on the ground, beer and soft drink cans shoved into little piles in the corners of the bedroom, which stank badly.

The only way out of the room was a single white door. There was a window without curtains to the side, and Esmerelda somehow realised she and Ethel were at the top of a block of flats; she could see another flat block not far away, she could see the square points of light. Esmerelda wondered if she and Ethel were on the same estate as Mildred and Julie Hubble, and her heart went cold as she considered the possibility and the likelihood of the rapist who'd raped Mildred lived nearby, but it was not unexpected, really.

"Esme, what's happening?" Ethel whispered, her voice scared. Esmerelda swallowed her own fear, if only for her sister's sake, and she was about to use a spell to break them both free so they could leave this flat when the door opened and a man entered wearing a dressing gown. He was stocky, with a scrubby beard and short, messy hair, and his dark eyes were set into his Caucasian skin.

"Who are you?" Esmerelda asked, "What do you want?"

She wasn't stupid, but if she could keep him talking long enough then either she or Ethel could cast a spell together or by themselves to deal with him and get out at the same time.

The man smiled. "I want you two," he said, his eyes scanning the two naked girls on the bed, and he licked his lips, making his intentions more than obvious to them both. Esmerelda swallowed a little in fear. This was a nightmare, something she hadn't even imagined happening to her or her sister. She was about to cast a spell when the man went on. "You know, I've had to wait months since last summer to have another go. I mean, that brunette bitch was cute and all, but I rushed it that night."

"Brunette…?" Ethel whispered, her eyes wide with horror. "It was you."

The man's face crinkled in surprise. "What was me? You mean, you know that stupid brunette girl?"

"Mildred," Esme whispered.

"Whatever her name was, she was a good lay," the man grinned crookedly, or at least he tried to grin roguishly but the Hallow sisters weren't amazed. "And now you two are here."

"How did you get us up here?" Ethel asked shaking her head in frustration. "We're at the top of a building, and unless you brought us in one at a time, you'd have been seen-."

"I knocked you both out," the rapist shrugged casually like it made no difference, "and I brought you both here. You were coming in and out of unconsciousness. I told everyone on the way who saw me that I was helping you."

"You're lying!" Ethel sneered, but Esmerelda knew her sister well enough to detect the uncertainty in her voice. She herself didn't think he was lying, they were both in his flat, they were both naked on his bed and bound to it so they couldn't escape. He was probably telling the truth.

The rapist seemed bored by the line of questioning, it was clear he didn't really care about what they believed. "Does it matter now?" he asked. "You're here, and by the time I let you both go, who knows, you might have a baby blasted into you." The rapist grinned in a disgusting manner that made both girls grossed out.

But what made Ethel and Esmerelda feel sicker was how casual the rapist had described what he was going to do with them.

"What if we told you we know the girl you raped?" Ethel sneered, ignoring her sister's urgent attempts to shut her up.

"Ethie, what are you doing?" Esme hissed frantically while Ethel ignored her.

The rapist chuckled. "Do you really? How nice, but I don't care." The man paused a little, glancing between one blond to the next as he tried to work out which sister he should rape first when, as if magic answered their prayers, there was the sound of a door being smashed in and a voice yelling out "POLICE!"

Esmerelda and Ethel looked at one another and screamed, "We're in here!"

The rapist growled at them, but he was panicky and surprised by the police's arrival but before he could anything to deal with the situation, the door to the bedroom burst open and three police officers rushed in and grabbed the squealing man who protested his innocence though there were two naked teenagers on the bed, and yanked him out of the room.

Fortunately for the Hallow girls, the police officers who came into the room to untie them kept their eyes firmly on the job, and they were quickly handed their clothes. They had been taken off delicately and put in the other room.

A short woman with her hair cut into a neat but sharply severe bob approached them. "I'm DCI Delia Porter, I'm glad you're alright," she said.

"So are we," Ethel replied, keeping the reflex greeting traditional to magical people to herself.

"How did you know what he was doing?" Esmerelda asked curiously.

DCI Porter (the sisters didn't know what DCI meant, but they imagined it was something important) smiled grimly. "We've had this estate under watch ever since that teenager was raped the last summer-," she said, but Ethel interrupted her.

"Mildred Hubble, we know her, we go to the same school," she said.

DCI Porter's expression softened. "I met her," she said, "she's a nice girl, and you could see her world had been shattered by that bastard. Anyway, we kept a watch on the estate during our investigation." The woman's expression darkened in disgust. "That filthy animal just cannot keep his dick to himself," she added.

"What, you mean he's done it since Mildred?"

"Yes. He raped someone on the other side of town only a week ago, and then two nights ago someone near here. We released an urgent plea to the public to report anything suspicious," DCI Porter explained. "But I pushed for police officers to keep watch here, and they saw him take you two out of his car. They've got photographs of him picking you both out and taking you up to this flat. The good thing is he's got a record, so we know his name."

Esmerelda was delighted non-magical people were good at their jobs, but she wondered if Mildred herself even knew about these steps to bring the rapist to justice.

DCI Porter was leaving the Hallow residence, disgusted by the virtually cold attitudes of the girls' parents. As was the protocol in the police she had escorted the girls home to let the parents know what had happened to them, and what could have happened if they hadn't arrived in time.

But while Mrs Hallow was upset for Esmerelda, she didn't spare any time for Ethel. DCI Porter, like all senior police officers, was trained to not interfere in the affairs of a family unless that family was involved in a dangerous crime, but while she had noticed it she hadn't said a word as her job forced her to do, but that didn't mean she couldn't be angry on Ethel's behalf inside her mind.

The girl had almost been raped, why the hell wasn't her parents interested in that?

To make matters worse, when she had announced there was a good chance they would have to testify in court, the Hallow parents had reacted badly, going on about what their friends would say, and Porter had needed all of her training, all of her experience to stop herself from lashing out. But Esmerelda had spoken up, and she was furious with her parents, telling them they cared more for their friends than they did their own children. DCI Porter had left the mansion, fed up with the arrogant parents, but not after telling Ethel they'd be in touch.

DCI Porter took a deep breath as she got into her car, and drove away. She had lots to do - she had to arrange with the magistrate to get that twisted bastard into prison and make sure he stayed there. She also had report to compose and file, and a lot more to do. But she would never forget the torture the girls - Mildred, that girl on the side of town, the girl from the same estate, and now the Hallow sisters - had gone through.

What do you think?