“Ah'm sure she'll turn up,” Applejack spoke into her cellphone with a worried tone, pacing around her small apartment. Stepping over her beat-up air mattress, she went on, “She's been gone for how long? Mhmm. Yea'. Well, did she say anythin' t' you? Could she be stayin' with a friend?”

With a distressed sigh, Applejack ran her fingers through her hair. She leaned out her barred window and glanced around in the falling darkness. Feeling entirely useless and upset by the news, she bit at her lip uneasily. Switching her phone to her other ear, she held it there with her shoulder and fidgeted with her fingers.

“She ain't answerin' her phone neither? Heaven's, what's gotten into that kid?” she groaned and shook her head. “Ah'll look for her m'self in th' mornin', Ah doubt Ah'll find much in the dark. Ah know. Maybe she'll gimme a call, she mentioned somethin' about bein' upset with things lately, maybe she's just lettin' off some steam.”

Going over to the bathroom and looking at herself in the mirror, she noticed the growing wrinkle lines on her forehead and the dark circles appearing under her eyes. She was clearly stressed out, and the disappearance of someone who meant so much to her did nothing to help. Hearing some more voices over the phone, she snapped back to attention.

“Listen, Granny, we'll find her, al'right? Ah'll make sure of it. Ain't no little sister of mine gonna be lost for long, Ah swear it.” Applejack said in a determined tone. Looking up into the reflection of her eyes, she swallowed her anxiety for strength. “Ah know, sleep well Granny. Ah'll take care of it.”

Hanging up her cell phone, Applejack let out a bothered breath and leaned over her worn bathroom sink. The news she had just received upset her greatly, and she had never felt so uncertain and helpless. Going back out into her main room, Applejack glanced at the far window, which bore condensation in the form of rolling beads along the glass. Getting enough of a hold on herself to begin imagining reasons and answers, she shook her head.

“Oh Apple Bloom, what have you done?” Applejack asked in a murmur, though the girl could never have heard it from wherever she had run off to.

Applejack went over to her refrigerator, a small and half-broken thing as it was, and opened it up. Inside, there was merely a few bottles of beer, some milk, apples, and scattered miscellaneous objects. She was about to reach for one of the beers, but paused as she did. Knowing that drinking was no answer to her problem, she closed up the fridge and went over to her air mattress. Flopping down on it, she folded her arms behind her head and stared up at her stained old ceiling.

There was nothing that Applejack could do so late at night, she knew that, but still, she felt restless and troubled. She spent nearly an hour watching the clock, hoping the slow changing of moments would help her get to sleep. Still though, she was wide awake and bothered to the bone. It just seemed like nothing was going well for her: not at home, not at work, not with Rainbow Dash, and not with her family. Her self-pity was interrupted, however, by a quiet noise.

Applejack rolled over on the mattress, feeling the half-deflated thing whine under her, and glanced at her cell phone. The light on the front of it was flashing, and it turned slowly as it vibrated across the floor. Reaching out and taking the object, she opened it and brought it to her ear.

“Hello?” Applejack tiredly answered, listening very carefully.

“A-Applejack? That you?” a voice replied in a whisper, and Applejack had to strain to hear it.

“Apple Bloom? Oh ma stars, are y'all al'right? Where are ya?” she hurriedly asked, scrambling to get to her feet.

“Ah can't talk long—shh! A-Ah'm scared, Applejack, Ah need ya t' call someone, okay?” her younger sister spoke in a shaky voice.

“Scared? Apple Bloom, what happened? Where are ya?” Applejack stood up, rushing to get on her jacket and shoes, throwing a scarf over her shoulder and around her neck.

“Rumble an' Ah were plannin' on runnin' off,” Apple Bloom started, but paused and dropped her voice even lower, “But-But, it's worse than Ah thought, his, his brother's—”

“Hey, who're you talking to, ginger?” a deeper voice asked, and it sounded somehow uneven or intoxicated.

“Ah gotta go, please Applejack, A-Ah'm at—” the call dropped suddenly, leaving Applejack in silence.

“Apple Bloom? Apple Bloom?!” Applejack called into the phone, but there was no answer. Clapping it shut and shoving it back into her pocket, she started out the door, growling, “Damn it, what trouble have y'got yourself into, kid?”

Slamming the door behind her, Applejack sprinted through the hall and out the back door, nearly slipping on the icy steps outside. She fumbled with the keys in her pocket before managing to find her truck key, squeezing it between her thumb and index finger. Stomping through the banks of snow without care, she nearly slammed right into her truck as she reached it. Without pause, she hopped into the cold vehicle and turned the ignition.

Though it was terribly unsafe on the slippery roads, Applejack sped out of the alley and raced down the street. From what her little sister had managed to tell her over the phone, she imagined there was just one place she might be. She retraced the route she had taken but once before, and in a matter of painfully long moments, she found herself at her destination.

She pulled the truck up crookedly in front of the beaten-up old apartment complex and hardly waited until it was off before she jumped out. It looked just the same as the previous and only time she had been there before: Rumble's apartment. She had remembered Apple Bloom mentioning trying to run off with the boy when she had visited the Joint, and it seemed the most plausible choice considering she had mentioned Rumble's brother in her last words, someone who Applejack knew lived there too. Under the loom of the midnight darkness, Applejack crept towards the building. Glancing up at the few windows, she noticed one of them that had a light on inside, and from what she could tell, music playing. She could hear some faint voices, and carefully measuring the floor and window number, she crept inside.

The doors were left mostly ajar, a good deal of which were broken or kicked in. She could hear some babies crying from the open doors, along with sickly coughing and something like dripping water. Applejack was accustomed to the grime and gritty atmosphere, but something about having her sister lost in that danger changed the way she felt about it all. She actually felt scared.

Making her way to the second floor, she judged her position relative to the layout of windows she had spotted from outside. She came upon the correct door and paused in front of it, leaning her ear against it in case some distant sounds could breach the thin wood. Easily enough, she could hear some familiar murmurs under the rumble of some bass coming from a poor radio station.

There was clear drunken ranting, followed by some angry shouting and something breaking. Applejack pulled away from the door as she heard it and covered her mouth to keep from cussing, feeling her blood boil to imagine that her sister would be inside. Her fears were realized as she caught the sounds of whispers and distraught sobbing or whining, something she knew right away as her sister's voice.

“Ah'm comin' Apple Bloom,” Applejack whispered in an irate hiss, swallowing her urge to kick the door down and storm inside.

She pressed against the door, turning the knob ever so slowly, and to her good fortune and surprise, it opened. The noises became louder as she breached the barrier, and she could hear some hollering from down a small and narrow hallway. Being shielded by a small protruding corner and a pile of old shoes, Applejack managed to sneak inside without causing a stir.

“—Think you can just up and leave, like you're so much fucking better than all this? I can't risk you squealing, you little snitch,” the tail end of some argument reached Applejack's ears, and she silently listened in. “I need your useless ass for welfare, don't fucking forget that!”

Hearing the angry man storm off further down the hall and make a ruckus, Applejack carefully sneaked out from her corner and peeked into the next room. She could see Rumble clearly, and he looked more than simply roughed up. His cheek was swelling and his eye was black, and if she looked carefully, she could see a cut or two along his arm and jaw. Her heart stopped dead when she leaned out more and caught sight of the girl in question: her younger sister Apple Bloom.

“You goddamn kids, just, just fucking stupid,” he rambled on from the next room, and Applejack heard him pause to take a drink. “You're never leaving this house, Rumble, and if you want your little brat around too, she's going to have to start providing something. One way... or another.”

Applejack flinched when she heard that, and hurried to sneak her way towards the younger kids. Keeping an eye down the hall, she darted over to the living room, catching the attention of Rumble and Apple Bloom. Placing her finger to her lips, she gestured that they be silent as she came a little closer.

“Applejack? How did you—?” Apple Bloom began to ask in a hush, but her sister cut her off.

“There ain't time f' that, Ah dunno what's goin' on here, but it don't sound good, c'mon, Ah'm getting' you outta here,” Applejack told her as she waved towards the front door.

“Sis, this is serious, did you call any—?” the younger girl tried again, her voice squeaking quietly as she tried to get a message across.

“Hurry, we ain't—” the barmaid was silenced, and for a moment, stunned. Suddenly though, everything went fuzzy, and she hardly registered the shock to her body as she hit the ground. Groaning, she rolled her head and glanced over at her younger sister, whose terrified expression trailed up to some looming shadow above her. “R-Run, Apple... Bloom...”

Before she could finish, the image of Apple Bloom nearly crying slowly faded to black.

A spinning sensation was never a welcomed feeling to wake up to, and Applejack learned such a thing first hand. The was a pounding in her ears that she certainly imagined, and she hardly had the strength to open her eyes as she came to. She noticed, however, that despite the pain in her head, she was rather comfortable, having been placed on some piece of furniture it seemed. The mumbles of distorted words began to make sense, and Applejack groggily listened in.

“—Is she doing here?! Breaking into the apartment?” a stranger's voice could be heard, and the barmaid tried to turn over and pull herself up, but she could barely move.

“Please d-don't hurt her,” some pitiful sobbing breached the tense air, and Applejack recognized the voice as her sister's, and her position as down past her feet and the end of the couch. “J-Just let her go, she-she won't tell!”

“T-Tell?” Applejack moved her mouth to whisper, but no sound came out. She winced as she felt an aching on the back of her skull, but couldn't move to feel what it was.

“What the hell, you snitched, didn't you Rumble?” his voice called again, and the shifting volume told Applejack that he was pacing around in front of her. “Fucking little bastard! After everything I've done for your sorry ass?!”

“I didn't snitch, Thunderlane, honest,” the younger boy's voice could be heard above Apple Bloom's stifled snivelling. “She doesn't know anything—she's only here for her sister. Apple Bloom just got freaked, okay? You were yelling and drinking, an—”

“She shouldn't be here—neither of them should be!” came with drunken slurs, and Applejack tried to peek out her tired eyes to see the man. “As usual, I'm gonna have to clean up your fucking mess.”

Applejack managed to touch the back of her head, though it hurt even to graze. She could feel her scalp swelling in a particularly tender spot, but felt no open wound or blood, thankfully. Managing to catch a blurry vision or two, Applejack saw that she was laying down, facing some cluttered and disorganized shelving unit. Along with several boxes and beer cans, she spotted large bags bulging and teetering off the shelves, all stuffed with various suspicious substances. From the way the clear and white-cloudy blurs appeared in the light, and from the way Thunderlane was twitching and overreacting, Applejack gauged that whatever was contained in those bags was not only illegal, but addictive in its dangerous effect.

The slamming of an empty beer can on the coffee table caught her attention immediately.

Narrowing her eyes as the man leaned down over a cluttered coffee table, Applejack watched as Thunderlane tapped something against the glass of the table. As her vision came back, she noticed him cutting something up with what looked like some kind of card, his hands shaking to do so. He pushed the powdery substance across the glass, past some old, wrinkled baggies of green-gray debris, until it lined up nicely in some narrow row. Before she got a chance to gasp or get a good look, his face pressed right up against the table, his skin dragging across the glass with a quiet squeak. He jolted back at once and snorted, slapping himself on the side of the face and hissing and groaning. Shaking his head wildly once or twice, he caught sight of Rumble and his girlfriend, sitting together on some makeshift couch.

“This is all your fucking fault, ginger!” he barked suddenly, nearly tripping over the corner of the table as he scrambled to his feet and charged at the younger girl, grabbing her by the collar of her shirt. “Ever since you came around, shit's been going to hell! I should fucking—!”

“Stop,” croaked from Applejack's throat, and all eyes darted to her. She struggled to adjust herself to glare at the man past her feet, propped up on one shaky elbow. “S-Stay away... from ma sister.”

“Apple... jack?” Apple Bloom whimpered, her watering eyes wide and affixed on her sister's troubled expression.

“You,” Thunderlane growled, looking back at her over his shoulder. Releasing the younger girl suddenly, he turned to face Applejack. She felt her blood run cold as she caught a dangerous look in his eyes, but it made her even more anxious as she felt something worse than animosity radiating from his intoxicated state.

“Ah'll make you regret ever even thinkin' 'bout layin' a hand on ma sister,” Applejack tried for intimidation once more, but from the way she could hardly sit, up, she realized she wasn't much of a threat.

“How about...” Thunderlane came over right away, leaning so close Applejack was forced to lay back down on the couch to cringe away from him. With a grin creeping across his features, he shakily finished, “I lay my hands on you?”

“What?!” Applejack and her sister both yelped at the same time, and Apple Bloom jumped to her feet to go over to Applejack, but was stalled in fear.

“I'd never have such a hot girl in my house, and not doing anything to her if I had the chance.” Thunderlane snarled, climbing onto the couch and digging his knees into the plush yet malleable cushion of his furniture.

“Don't touch her,” Apple Bloom tried to sound tough, but flinched even before Thunderlane grabbed an empty bottle of beer and threw it at her, smashing it to pieces as it hit the wall just behind her.

“I'll fucking kill you too,” the man sneered, and Apple Bloom went pale to hear his intentions. Rumble rushed to her side at once, holding her shoulders and shaking her to try and get her to calm down. “Now...”

“G-Get away from me!” Applejack shouted, fighting him off as best she could in her still half-deleterious state.

“Shut up!” accompanied a hard hit to Applejack's head, and she was stunned for another miserable few seconds. As she fought off her dizziness, she heard the tremors of her sister's cries and the sound of her belt buckle being heedlessly tampered with. She realized then how futile her struggling was, as she knew her own limits all too well. Thunderlane had her. “You dirty fucking whore.”

“Apple Bloom,” the barmaid managed to whisper as her clumsy hands fought with the man on top of her, soliciting another hit as he slammed her against the armrest and nearly broke her wrist. “D-Don't look, don't watch.”

“But...” Apple Bloom squeaked in a terrified voice, her wide eyes caught on her sister's weak-seeming body, just as unable to move as Apple Bloom was.

“Don't—” Applejack whispered before Thunderlane's hand wrapped around her throat, pressing it deep against the permissive couch.

Her chest felt cold as Thunderlane's fingers ripped the buttons of her blouse clean off with his eager and intrusive touch. Still, as his disgusting urges surged from his violent hands, Applejack continued to defiantly stared straight into his eyes. She could tell, even as the darkness threatened her once more, that something had a hold on him that allowed him to act out his tendencies without remorse. And she had no chance of fighting him off.

Suddenly, the pressure stopped, and his dangerous eyes became vacant. His breath snagged in his throat, and his body became limp on top of Applejack. Without warning, he fell forward, tipping and landing half on the couch and half on the floor in a messy heap. Applejack was still for a few seconds, realizing the sight of a shadow, holding the base of an old, broken lamp, standing above Thunderlane's fallen body... was Rumble.

Applejack scrambled to get a hold of herself, shrugging Thunderlane's body to the floor while holding her shirt together over her chest. Her pants were still mostly done up, and she was thankful for that. The young red-head still shook nervously from her place a few paces away, saying nothing but staring at two of the most important people in her life dealing with a situation she could hardly stomach.

“A-Are you... all right, Applejack?” Rumble found himself asking, as if to rationalize his actions to himself. There was blood on the bottom of the lamp he held, but he could not bring himself to go and check on his brother.

“Yea', Ah'm fine.” Applejack did the honours, reaching down and touching Thunderlane on the side of his neck. She could still feel his heart beating, but he did not move at all. “Rumble, put that down, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed uneasily, nodding as he placed the lamp back down.

“We have t' call th' police, he could—” the barmaid went on, but Rumble had something to say.

“No, we can't. He'll know it was us, he... he has a lot of dangerous friends, trust me. We can't trust the cops around here, nothing good can come of that,” Rumble yammered on, putting up his hands defensively. “We just need to get out of here. I doubt he'll remember all of this in the morning, and he won't risk calling the cops and getting himself in shit.”

“Right, help me up,” Applejack groaned painfully as she tried to get herself to her feet, but Rumble rushed to her side and helped her. “We... we gotta get Apple Bloom outta here, first.”

“Apple Bloom, come on,” Rumble spoke to his girlfriend, though she still hardly blinked in response to the scene. “Apple Bloom?”

“What've you done?” she blankly murmured, her eyes nearly watering again.

“I had to, you know that. Snap out of it,” Rumble spoke more authoritatively, making sure Applejack was well enough to stand on her own, which was questionable. “He'll be fine, we have to get out of here.”

“R-Right,” Apple Bloom absently nodded until her sister reached her, taking her by the hand and ushering her out the front door.

As Rumble pushed some stray objects aside and propped his brother up in case he came to or began choking on blood or other fluids, which was entirely possible due to how many terrible toxins he had consumed, the Apple sisters made their way into the hall. It was still vacant, and the lights flickered with the shadows of bugs and poor wiring. Rumble hurried after them, noticing his brother making guttural sounds and possibly coming to. He rushed out of the apartment and closed the door behind them, making sure they knew the way back down to the street.

Piling into the truck, Applejack patted her jacket pockets until she found her keys. She tugged the sides of her jacket together firmly, doing it up to hide the near invasion that had just barely been prevented. They pulled out from the apartment in a rush, skidding across a patch of ice as the wheels spun. Applejack huffed and heaved as she adjusted the rear-view mirror, catching Rumble's nervous and regretful expression.

“It'll be al'right, Ah know it will,” Applejack told him firmly, and he nodded over and over absently.

“He's not usually that bad,” he tried to defend his brother, and Applejack felt sorry for their relationship if it was truly so strained. “He had a lot to... well, he had a lot.”

“An' you knew about all this? An' didn't warn me?” Applejack asked her younger sister, whose nervous expression turned to defensive.

“Yea', why d'you think Ah was always tellin' y'all that Rumble needed to move out? Ah told ya it was serious, y'never listened!” she argued, but went quiet as the rest of the car remained silent. “Where're we goin'?” Apple Bloom piped up suddenly, with a question no one had ventured to answer.

“Ma place,” Applejack told her firmly.

“Ain't that too small for all of us?” her sister wondered, looking over at her.

“Ah'll take th' floor, an' you two can—” the barmaid paused as she caught sight of Rumble in the mirror, remembering his relationship to her sister. “On second thought, Rumble can take th' floor, you an Ah will have a... slumber party.”

“Eww, no way,” Apple Bloom bickered, pouting her lip and looking away.

“After what just happened, y'wanna complain?” she snapped back, and her younger sister shut up. With a sigh, Applejack went on, “Either way, you'll be safe there.”

“I don't know about that,” Rumble murmured from the back, searching through his pockets to no avail.

“What'd you mean?” Applejack carefully asked, suspiciously eyeing him in the mirror.

“Apple Bloom texted me where abouts you lived, in the city,” Rumble began, and Applejack listened carefully to the explanation. “But... in the rush, I forgot my phone back at the apartment. If he finds it and checks through the messages, he'll find us.”

“Oh perfect,” Apple Bloom moaned as she buried her face into her hands in the front seat, and Applejack could visibly see her shaking.

“Ah, uh, well,” Applejack swallowed as she spoke up, and both the younger kids in the car looked over at her. Squeezing her hands nervously on the steering wheel, she went on, “Ah do have one other option.”

Author's Notes:

Shit just got real.