Page 109 of Hidden By His Side

“Not so pure anymore, are you?” the boy holding her said in her ear.

The one grunting over her held her shoulders down as he moved, making her hurt even more.

Behind his shoulder, the room blurred through her tears. The wood of a pool table was closest, but there were couches nearby, and a dartboard over his other shoulder, the darts sticking out from places other than the bullseye.

The boy on top of her shuddered and slumped.

She couldn’t breathe. A hand covered her mouth and nose, and weight pressed down on her lungs. She saw someone else hovering, but her eyes slid away. She stared at the wood of the pool table instead, stared hard at the swirl in the wood.

“Roll off. Let me have a go at her.”

The hand left her mouth, and she sucked in air, too empty of breath to scream. A new hand clamped down, this one damp with sweat and tasting of salt.

“You’re a slut now. You’ve had more dicks than most of the girls in our school.” The new boy laughed as he tore her open.

That’s what it felt like. She felt ripped and sore and aching, and it wouldn’t stop. It would never stop.

These moments of being unable to move or beg or scream, they were all that she would become.

“You did this to yourself, coming here.” The boy covering her mouth laughed. “This is what you wanted when you snuck out, isn’t it?”

The voice was no longer his. It was her mother’s. “You’ve already spread your legs in sin. God gave you consequences. In order to not lose your soul completely, you’ll have this baby. God wants you to. It’s divine retribution.”

Her feet perched on the edge of a bridge, the idea of jumping calming the panic inside.

Summer opened her eyes to a dark room. She could still feel their hands on her body, pain radiating everywhere. Shehuddled in the corner near the wall where they’d discarded her like the trash she was.

No one could love her. She’d thrown away God’s offer of forgiveness. All she had left was sin and shame and a brokenness that would never mend.

Ramiro had promised to come, but he hadn’t come. Even he knew she didn’t deserve to be saved.

She closed her eyes, dreaming about the bridge again. Ramiro found her there.

“You want someone to take care of you? I’ll fill that role.”

Summer let him lie to her. Her body shook with pain, and she cried as she clung to that lie.

Chapter 33

“Summer.”

Her name was a shout inside Ramiro’s head but only leaked out of his lips. His eyes felt seared shut when he tried to open them.

Naz sat at his bedside, staring at him.

Ramiro stared back, confusion adding to the swirling fog in his head. His body was one big ache, his head the worst part of it, nausea adding to the shifting currents of his bleary thoughts.

“Where’s Summer?” Ramiro slurred, needing her. His heart thudded in fear, but he didn’t remember why, only that he needed to see Summer.

Naz shook his head, pushed to his feet, and headed to the door, a limp in his step from his prior injury.

Ramiro didn’t have time for his fucking head shakes. He liked the kid, but he needed someone to tell him what the hell was going on. He didn’t recognize the room he was in.

He struggled to push himself up, the nausea getting worse as his side throbbed along with his opposite shoulder. His hand lifted to his head, and he found a bandage wrapped around both.

The last thing he remembered was being shot in the hand and Summer screaming. The memory slid sickeningly through his mind.

Ramiro dragged his legs out of the sheets, swinging them over the edge of the bed.

---