“Yeah, come and get it.”
I said that?
Before I can even compute, my fists are in the air—but I’m not waiting for her. I’m charging at her like a bull out of the gate.
Now she’s ready, though, and her knuckles connect with my jaw, making me almost fly backwards. Holy crap, that hurts like crazy, and there’s a flash of white light behind my closed eyelids. I’m down and I’m vulnerable now, and she’s coming at me like a tiger, so I know this is it. If she pins me, she’s going to be raping me with her fist. Somehow, I just know this—and I refuse to let it happen. No longer am I drugged and hazy, unable to defend myself.
I am strong. And I am fucking furious. I’m awake and I’m alive and as long as I am, she’s not going to hurt me anymore.
I jump up, more quickly than I would have thought I could have, my fists at the ready again by the time she’s there. This time, when she swings, I block it with my arm, and then I unleash the fury. My right fist connects with her jaw just before my left one follows it. She’s still standing, swinging back, but something has clicked in my head. It’s automatic now the way I am avoiding her fists and connecting with mine.
I actually have to move forward to punch her again.
Oh, the blood. There’s blood coming out of her nose.
But I can’t stop myself. Another fist connects, and this time her cheek looks bloody. Whether it’s from her nose or another gash, I can’t tell. And I keep it up until she falls backwards, hitting her head on the tiled step to the shower.
I’m standing there, fists at the ready, air rapidly moving in and out of my nostrils, my lips pursed, my teeth grinding.
For a second, I realize that now my knuckles also hurt and they’re covered in blood.
She’s not getting up.
Then panic sets in. Did I kill her? Or, rather, did she die from hitting the step too hard? Swallowing, I also realize this could be a ruse. She might be faking it to gain the upper hand. So I stand there longer and then bend over, keeping myself out of her arm’s reach. As I continue to stare at her, I see her chest moving up and down ever so slightly.
Meaning, instead, that this was a knockout.
And I better get the hell out of here.
I go back to the sink and marvel at how the water turns pink as I wash her blood off my hands. But, scrubbing the knuckles, I see that some of it might be mine. My hands show signs of the scuffle, so I dry them off quickly and get the hell out of there. Just as I walk out the doorway, here comes the guard.
Good thing I have my hands folded behind my back.
“Let’s get you back to bed, Clawson. You’re not gonna be bugging me the rest of the night, are you?”
“No, sir.” Not unless he hunts me down later outside my room.
18
How the hell do boxers and fighters do it? Now I realize why they wear gloves and wrap their fists, because my knuckles have been throbbing.
Of course, so is my arm where Bobbi grabbed it and where my back connected with the sink. But all of the pain from those injuries is finally starting to subside a little.
I really can’t judge how much time has passed, but the concept of seconds, minutes, hours, and days has finally started to come back to me—and I suspect it’s been at least an hour. That also tells me that either someone hasn’t found Bobbi yet or she’s awakened and slunk back to her hole on her own. Either way, I’m beginning to think I’m in the clear.
And even if not, it was self-defense. Not the way Joe used that as a courtroom plea but truly defending myself. Had I not, she would have harmed me more than she already had. I know now that she’s done some unspeakable things to me in the past but I’m fortunate enough to not recall the actual incidents.
After a while, I grow sleepy, but I’m still sitting up in bed. As fatigue overtakes me, I rest my head against the wall—and it isn’t until I hear Joe’s voice that I realize I gave in to it.
“Anna, you ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Hurry. I figure we have a minute at most before he comes back around.”
Standing up, my back sends lightning bolts of pain through my body, and I must make a sound I don’t even realize.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
I’m not even sure where we’re going, but I follow him through the door. He opens it without unlocking it and sticks his head out the door, looking both ways. “Come on.”
We’re practically running down the hall but he pauses at the bend. Then, once we’re around the corner, we move a few feet until we get to a locked door.
The locked door, one of the few that leads out of our limited existence.
In his hand, he has a flattened paperclip, but there’s a bit of a bend at the end. That tip he slides inside the lock while taking another flattened paperclip with a loop at the end to it. I don’t want to distract him, but I have to know. “How’d you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Just open my door back there. You didn’t do this.”
As he jams one of the pieces of metal in and out of the lock, he says, “Tape. I put a piece of scotch tape over the latch after I unlocked it. If the guard pulls on your doorknob, he’ll figure it out, but this time of night, they’re pretty lazy.” With the clip he’s been jamming in there, he suddenly turns the knob, pausing before using his other hand to turn it all the way. Then he’s pushing the door open. “Go,” he says as he removes his hardware and glances out the window. “Get down,” he says, actually waving me back toward the door instead of down this new hallway.
The window at the top of the door is big and full of that crisscross-y wire. I join Joe as he hunches underneath it, staying away from the glass panes on the side of the doors. He’s looking to one side out of that glass, and I know why now. He’s waiting for the guard to walk past before we move away.
He’s not looking at me when he asks, “What’d you do to your hands? Everything okay?”
I don’t want to talk about it, but he needs to know. “Bobbi tried raping me in the shower.”
“Oh, fuck, Anna.” Now he turns, taking his eyes off the hall. “Maybe we shouldn’t even be doing this.”
“She didn’t succeed. I knocked her out.”
“Seriously?” He’s grinning now, easy to see with the light spilling in from the hallway we just left. “That’s my girl. Goddamn.” After he moves forward to kiss my forehead, he pulls back and I see his gaze shift to behind me.
To the glass.
His voice is but a whisper. “Here he comes. Stay still.”
Not only am I unmoving, but I’m holding my breath.
I’ve been squatting this whole time, and my muscles are starting to quiver. The guard pauses just in view, and I’m convinced he’s spotted us. But Joe, who can see him even better, isn’t raising his hands or even standing, so I’m following suit.
After a few more seconds, I see the guard begin to walk away, and I finally let out the air I’d been holding in my lungs. I whisper, “Was he looking for us? Did he see us?”
“No, he was on his phone talking. I wanna give him another minute to clear out.”