Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't sue.

Chapter One

The house was, for once, empty.

No one was scrambling to get out the door on time, to find their gear for practice, to get a raise on their allowance because the movie was in ten minutes and they were broke. In a household of seven people, it was hard to imagine a time when the house was completely silent.

Yet it was. Totally, blissfully, silent.

Casey took a moment to savor that word.

Silent, quiet; devoid of all noise, speech, and, most especially, Derek, who managed to disrupt the house just by breathing or, god forbid, smirking.

Oh, yes, today was a very good day.

And, on top of that, she had just finished her paper on Wuthering Heights, which put her three days ahead of schedule on her English homework. And that also meant that she had ample time to just enjoy the silence.

Casey had been waiting for this day all month. This was the day that George and Nora had designated Family Fun Night – Out. She shook her head just at the thought of it. Only her mother could come up with something that corny.

Casey was more than willing to forgive her mother any corniness, though, as it was also what had gotten her out of the hellish – to her mind, anyway – trip to the bowling alley for the "All Night Bowlathon." Translation: All Night Opportunity For Klutzilla To Strike Again. So not good.

Thankfully, Nora had been made to see reason. Well, it was more along the lines of "Derek gets to skip for a date. Why can't I stay home, too? I have actual work to do."

Of course, her parents had caved. And it was not like she had actually lied. She did have something important to do. Making herself a fruit smoothie was hard work. Really.

Okay, she might have lied a little. But really, Derek couldn't have all the fun. It would not be…equal. It was almost like Casey's responsibility to make sure that there was an equal male-female balance in perks for Edwin, Lizzie, and Marti to look up to.

Casey smiled at her smoothie. She would have to remember that to use on her mom sometime. Maybe she should write it down…

She hopped off her chair and started hunting around the kitchen for a piece of paper. She knew they kept a notepad by the fridge, but someone had managed to misplace it again.

"There is a reason I put the notepad in the same place every time I find it," she muttered to herself as she rooted around in the cabinet over the sink for it.

"Ha!" she exclaimed as her hand closed around it.

She pulled it out and considered doing a victory dance – hey, she was home alone – but decided against it. There were too many things in the kitchen that she could knock over and break.

She wasn't against humming as she walked back to the table. Luckily, Derek had left a pen there when he was writing his latest fling's address down on a napkin that morning.

Casey began to write her "devious plan" down with a flourish. She was halfway through the second sentence (just because it was a plan to get out of family gatherings did not mean it couldn't be properly punctuated) when she heard it.

Footsteps. In the living room.

She checked her watch uncertainly. It was barely after ten – the Bowlathon was just getting started. She doubted Derek would leave his latest girlfriend so early, either. His plans had not sounded like the standard dinner-and-a-movie combo. Unless it was an X-rated movie, anyway.

She was probably being paranoid, she told herself. There was no reason for her heart to be racing so fast, for her eyes to be frozen wide open, for her to be tense and coiled to spring from her chair and run as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

No reason at all.

"Derek?" she called out, trying to disguise the tremor in her voice. If he found out she had managed to frighten herself after trying so hard to get to stay home alone he would never let her live it down.

There was no answer.

She was sure of it, though. There was someone in the house. And that someone had just started getting a lot closer.

She jumped out of her chair and all but ran to the telephone.

Please don't let him hear me. Please don't let him hear me, she chanted in her mind.

She pulled the phone off the hook and started to dial. A hand closed around her wrist.

Casey screamed.

"Uh uh, honey," a man said, clapping a hand over her mouth. His voice was low, rough, the kind she'd heard in horror movies and laughed at.

She wasn't laughing now.

The man increased the pressure on her wrist until the phone dropped from her hand. He grasped both of her hands in one of his own and held them behind her back, twisting her arms painfully. He took his hand away from her mouth, but before she could scream she felt something sharp poking her in the back of the neck.

Casey grew cold with fear.

A knife. Oh god, he had a knife. She began to tremble.

"Please don't hurt me," she said.

Was that her voice? That squeaky, trembling thing? That couldn't be her voice, this couldn't be her body, because things like this just didn't happen to her.

The knife pressed harder into her skin. She let out a hiss of pain as it cut her, the blood welling from the cut instantly.

"You're not gonna scream," the man whispered in her ear. "You're not gonna run away. And you're not gonna do anything stupid or else you're gonna find out just what I can do to you when I get angry."

Casey began to sob.

The man pulled something from his pocket and set it on the counter behind them. Then he pushed her forward, one rough hand ripping her shirt half off. Another tug finished the job.

"Please, please, please, please," Casey pleaded. "Don't do this. Oh god, please don't do this. We – we have money and – and computers and stuff. Take it, take all of it! Just please go away. Please, please, please."

She was deteriorating into a crying mess, great hiccupy sobs leaving her throat. The knife's deadly presence at the base of her skull only served to make things worse.

The man backhanded her viciously. Her head flung back and hit the counter.

"Quit that," he ground out. "Makes you look bad for the camera."

Camera? What camera?

Casey spied it sitting on the counter. Her sobs began to increase.

The world was spinning in circles. She could barely see through the tears. That made it slightly better; it was like she wasn't even there, like she was watching someone else being attacked, but she couldn't do anything to help.

The man grabbed her breast roughly, practically ripping her bra off in his haste to grope her. Casey stared down at his hand, eyes wide and terrified. Her feeble struggles were quickly fading as she gave way to shock, her disembodied sobbing seeming even louder in the sudden silence.

She snapped out of it, though, when the man began tugging her jeans down. She screamed without thinking. The man stopped his pawing at her to smack her again. This time her head hit the counter with a sickening crack. Her vision flashed red, then black, and suddenly everything faded away.

a/n: So here it is, my very first Life With Derek fic. Would love feedback/reviews, so click the little button at the bottom of the screen! And I promise this fic will get cheerier. xP