Something happened to me when her name crossed my mind. For just one random second, there was a memory so strong that it ripped me out of my present reality and set me back to finally getting to kiss her for the first time.
I dove deep into that memory, trying to recall every little detail. The way her soft skin slid across my palms and her silky strands slipped through my fingers. The smell of her perfume—a little sweet, a little spicy. The taste of her vanilla chapstick. The sound of her little needy whimpers.
I put everything I had into it.
And for a blissful couple of moments, I was there instead of the shitty building with the drafty windows and the filthy floors and the makeshift table full of torture devices.
Snapping back to reality was rough as new pain flared through my system, stealing my breath away as I looked down to see that I’d somehow been so caught up in my memories that I hadn’t felt them being inflicted at all.
Decision made, I leapt right back into my memories of Louna in those first few blissful days of our new relationship. We hadn’t been able to get enough of each other, texting and calling and video messaging all day long, often falling asleep with each other over one of those outlets at night.
And when life permitted, we spent every stolen moment we could together. Even if it was just getting to drive her from the gym back to her parents’ house.
But I lived for the times when we could get more than a few minutes. When I could sneak in and cuddle up with her on her bed and watch her favorite movies while she gave me all the soft and sweet of her that she never showed to anyone else.
Of course, yeah, the memories drifted back to other shit too. Especially when the pain kept getting more and more intense and the sweeter, more innocent memories weren’t cutting it anymore.
Lulu had been even softer and sweeter then. It was maybe the only time I’d ever seen her nervous. That first time. Our first time. Her first first time.
After that, though, she’d been wild and demanding, barely able to keep her hands off of me, gaining confidence with that sort of intimacy the way she was sure of herself in every other kind of situation.
Eventually, the pain stopped. Mostly because Curtis got tired and wanted to go get a little rest before it started up again.
I didn’t have what it took to bring back any more memories then. I was too hurt. Too exhausted.
Pain could do that to you. Sap every last ounce of energy in your body.
So I’d been dozing in and out of consciousness when I heard a noise that suddenly jolted me fully awake.
I immediately figured it was Curtis, having gotten a little cat nap, and ready for more bloodshed.
Then I saw her.
For a short moment, I hadn’t really believed my eyes, thinking that the pain had maybe made me a little delirious and made me hallucinate an image of her to help ease the pain again.
If I were going to conjure an image of Louana, though, it was going to be a naked one. Not one with grim determination on her face and a wrinkled old brown bag in her hand.
Louana had come in to save me.
Kind of a new interpretation of the guy-saves-the-girl trope.
If ever there was someone ready to shatter glass ceilings, though, it was Louana.
I mean, the woman was able to quietly get me back down onto my own numb feet when I far outweighed her.
And I knew if, given the chance, she had to haul me out that window because her reckless ass came to save me without backup, that she was more than capable of it.
Then, fuck, then she gasped.
I knew.
I knew in the millisecond before my head could even raise what had happened.
Then Curtis spoke as I watched him grab her and drag her back, just out of reach.
As if I could even reach.
My arms were dead at my sides, weighted and useless, being stabbed endlessly with pins and needles. I clenched my hands over and over, trying to get the blood flowing again, trying to get some life back into them.
Because if I knew one thing, it was that I could not let Curtis get his hands on Louana for more than a second.
If he did, it was all over. He would use her to torture me. And I just… I couldn’t live with that.
“A pretty little rescue crew, huh? The fuck you think you were going to do, you sweet thing? Steal him from me? Naw, girl. I’ve been looking for him for a long time. A long, long time. Can’t be having some pretty little thing like you stealing him from me, can I?” he asked.
My gaze was on Louana then, wondering why the hell she was letting him move her further and further away from me.
Louana was a good fighter. A great one, even. She had the kind of training that could easily make up for the fact that Curtis was a fuck up a lot bigger and stronger than she was.
A couple of carefully placed moves, and she could take him down. I’d seen it. With men bigger than Curtis. Back when she was even smaller than she was now.
Yet she wasn’t using any of that training. She was just letting herself get pulled around by him.
Did she have some sort of plan?
Had she frozen up?
It seemed impossible. I mean, this was Louana we were talking about. She didn’t freeze up.
Unless, maybe, she knew about Curtis, knew what he was capable of, what he’d done to women in the past.
Maybe it had sort of short-circuited something in her head at the idea of being on the receiving end of something like that.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
Life was coming back to my arms and strength to my legs. All I had to do was get to the table and grab some sort of tool.
Then I was going to do what I should have done a long fucking time ago.
Bash the fucker’s head in.
Or damn near slice it clean off his body.
Whatever it took.
To get her safe.
To get her away from all this shit from my past.
Really, I shouldn’t have underestimated her, though.
Because as I was contemplating whether I should grab the hammer or the serrated knife, she was finally moving, using all those old maneuvers she’d had beaten into her during all those training sessions she loved so much.
Curtis never saw it coming.
Not the elbow to his ribs that must have made him see stars. Nor the punch to the junk. The way she used her own body weight against him as she broke free of his hold, hooked his leg, and made him slam back onto the unforgiving cement floor.
The problem was, she went down with him.
Desperate, I started moving, making my way to the table.
I didn’t need to decide between the two. I grabbed both the knife and the hammer and started to approach.
I never should have doubted her, though.
Because through some complicated mat work, she suddenly yanked away and jumped back onto her feet.
“Nice try, bitch,” Curtis hissed, grabbed the backs of her legs and pulling hard, making her lose her balance and fall backward, crashing down on the ground with a hiss at the impact.
It was in a blink he grabbed her and flipped her onto her stomach. Which, I remember her telling me back in the day, was what Aunt Lo called the “rape position.” Because you never wanted to give up your back. It limited your chances to get away. It made it easier to overpower you.
Which was exactly what was on Curtis’s mind as he pressed all his weight into the backs of her thighs and reached out to grab the waistband of her pants.
“Let’s give your man a little show, shall we?” Curtis asked. “He’s going to love hearing you scream.”