A harsh bark of laughter ricochets in my eardrums, sounding louder than anything should when you’re underwater. It hurts. It pisses me off. Red drips in front of my vision and I realize that despite my inability to feel it, I’ve ripped a nail back as I claw at the table in an effort to get away. Blood pools against the bed of my nail and slides down my finger, dripping onto the back of my knuckles.
A laugh sounds in my ears as I’m flipped over onto my back. The ceiling light is too bright for my eyes. I slide them shut, trying to think, but it’s hard to wade out of the fog that’s clinging to my thoughts. I grit my teeth as fat, beefy fingers find the collar of my shirt and rip it straight down the middle. My arm burns from where the needle came out of my skin.
My skin … it feels like it’s melting. It’s too hot. It’s too much. Everything is too much. I open my mouth as fire races along my nerve endings, burning me from the inside out. What the fuck is happening to me?
My head snaps to the side and I only realize in a belated moment of clarity that I’ve been struck. My eyes open again and I look up into the old, pockmarked face of Roger. “Stop yelling, bitch,” he snarls. “You’ll like it if you just … open … yer … damn … legs.”
I was yelling? I think. Why hadn’t I heard it? He struggles, breathing hard as he pries my thighs apart. Bile rushes up my throat. Jesus fuck. He’s going to rape me.
Fight, I snap at myself. Fight, you dumb bitch. I can’t let this happen. I won’t!
“You’re just like your fucking mother,” Roger says, licking his lips as he reaches for the waist of my pants, peeling them down. I urge my arms to move. To stop being so fucking useless, but it’s as if every muscle I’ve ever possessed has been stripped away. I have no strength in my limbs and my body isn’t listening to my mind as it screams for everything to just fucking stop! “There we go, darlin’.” Roger’s voice makes my stomach curdle as if there’s spoiled milk inside me. He licks his dirty fingers and pushes them down, between my legs.
This is what hell is. It isn’t a little red man dancing amidst the flames. It isn’t an ice cold monster struggling to free himself from his own personal prison as he freezes everyone around him. Hell is human. It is this man. This place. Right here. Right now. And after all the fighting and rage and cold, hard struggles I’ve gone through, I’ve finally fallen victim.
I gasp out, hating the pain of knowing he’s pushing his fingers inside me. I can’t feel it, but I know they’re there. Stretching me on the inside to prepare for him. There’s vomit in my throat, stopping me from saying a damn word. Silence echoes in my mind and all around.
I don’t want this. This isn’t me. This isn’t happening. Why is this happening?
My head turns to the side as the nausea overwhelms me and yellow acid purges from my stomach, coming up my throat—burning my esophagus, leaking out of the corner of my mouth. My arm flops up, weakly. I push against Roger’s face, shoving him back in an attempt to fight. It takes everything I have, every decibel of will, every fucking ounce of rage in me, to accomplish even that much.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” My ears ring when he scowls at me, pulling his hand back and balling it into a fist before letting it fly. It hits my jaw and my head goes flying back. “I’ve been waiting years to do this, you little cunt, and nothing’s going to stop me from finally getting what I deserve.”
Spots dance in front of my vision, shades of black and white and reds and blues. I can’t … my head weighs a hundred pounds. It’s a struggle to lift it. My eyes connect with the dirty popcorn ceiling and the water stains around the light fixture. In the edge of my vision, I can see Roger’s head bobbing. My legs are shoved wider, wide enough that I can finally feel the pangs of it as feeling begins to slowly make its way back into my limbs.
Too late, though. It’s too late.
The blunt head of his dick rubs against my folds.
Kill him, I think. I’m going to fucking kill him. Rip his intestines out and string him up. I’m going to watch him fucking suffer. God doesn’t exist, not in this place, but if He did, then He should know—He did this. He created this monster on top of me and I’m going to burn everything He made down.
I clench my teeth as Roger pushes into me and moans. “Fuck, yer so fuck’n tight, ya bitch.” He slaps my face. “Loosen up!”
A laugh bubbles out of my throat. I can’t fucking move. I can’t fucking lift my own head, but the moment is funny to me. I laugh and laugh and laugh.
“The fuck are you laughing at, bitch!” Another slap snaps my head to the opposite side.
My chest rumbles with my amusement even as he fucks me. He has no idea what he’s done. My mother was right. I’ve become a whore just like her. I hope he enjoys this pussy because I’m going to make sure he pays for it with every liter of blood in his body. There’s no escaping me anymore. If he doesn’t kill me before the drugs are finished running through my system then there’s only one end left for him. Death. By my hands.
Something sounds in the distance. Wood splintering. Glass breaking. “Who the fuck are—”
There are no words from the new person. There’s nothing but a tension so cold, I can feel it like a wave over my flesh. Suddenly, Roger’s body is ripped away. His pathetic excuse for a cock falls out of me and he’s gone.
My mind drifts, dreams of blood and rape and death echoing in the background. Somehow, I think I can even hear Roger screaming now. And it’s a lovely soundtrack to listen to as I finally pass the fuck out.
52
Dean
The sound of a grown man sobbing reaches my ears and I scowl. I want nothing more than to turn around and go back out there and take off another one of the man’s fingernails or hell, maybe this time, I’ll just remove the whole finger. I hadn’t been shocked to learn that Avalon was going home. What I had been shocked about was to walk in and see … that.
Even Abel, as angry as he’d been—as fucked up as we all were—had frozen at the sight of Avalon on the ground under some dirty, fat fuck with his dick pushing between her thighs. Sickness sits in my gut as I finish washing the evidence of blood from Avalon’s face, her hands, and her thighs. She’s been out for hours. Long enough that I’d contacted a local doctor and had them drive out to check on her. With connections like ours, we have people in every corner of the world and Plexton isn’t but a few hours from a few major cities.
I touch her forehead but there’s no fever. The man’s sobbing turns into high pitched screams of agony. I don’t want to think about what Braxton’s doing to him—all I know is that it hurts and I hope he keeps going.
The first few hours had been nothing but blubbering as we strapped him down. There had been no stopping that. Even Abel participated. And no matter how loud the man we now know as local drug dealer, Roger Murphy, had gotten, Avalon hadn’t once woken. It was only after Brax had dipped the motherfucker’s balls in water with a jumper attached to a car battery, that we had finally gotten more than crying and screaming.
No, we’d gotten something I hadn’t expected.