Page 25 of In My Blood
“He said alive. He didn’t say in what condition though,” a second voice sneered, then I could feel cold hands at my waist, my leggings being ripped downwards. Bitter frigid air hit my thighs as my bottom landed on wet snow and panic overcame me. I struggled to get free, turning over and fighting to breathe enough to crawl away as I started to scream, but I had no chance with three of them over me.
“Stop or I’m gonna cut up that pretty face!” The cold tip of a knife touched my left cheek after I was violently turned onto my back again, and I froze. I knew the fight was up. I was a mess, still barely getting any air in, head fuzzy, and beyond exhaustion. A knife was just too much.
My vision cleared enough to realise it was Mr. Clean cut leaning over me with the blade. He had a tattoo on his wrist of some kind of star with a writing I didn’t recognise in a circle around it.
“Better,” he hissed at me. “Keep still if you want to keep both fucking eyes.” He pointed the blade right at my eye in warning, then he lowered it to his side as he unbuckled his belt noisily.
“Don’t do this!” I cried. “Please…I….I’ll go with you. Don’t do this!” My words were desperate stuttered cries between my frantic breaths. Tears were pouring down my face and the instinct to fight was bursting out of me, but I didn’t. I was too scared to. Instead I begged and pleaded more as he pulled his cock free of his trousers and forced himself inside of me. I screamed in pain, and also in defeat. I had lost. Failed.
I moved between sobbing in despair and screaming in pain as he started to move inside of me. Every single movement felt like I was being torn apart inside, and I knew I was powerless. Even if I could have fought him off of me, the other two stood over me, watching on with pleasure.
“Stop! Please st-stop!” I cried desperately. I had my eyes clamped closed, not wanting to look at the monster over me. Then suddenly he did stop and his weight was gone from me.
“FUCKING BASTARD!” I opened my eyes at the sound of a voice I knew, just in time to see Dio dragging the clean cut guy off of me and throwing him to the ground.
Dio leaned in and pressed a hand to the fucker’s shoulder, then he just started hitting him, again and again and again. I had never seen Dio like that. I’d never even seen him slightly angry, but now he looked lethal, his wild hair falling into his face, and getting covered with the blood that was flying up from the mincemeat that used to be a man’s face. His teeth were clenched and bared like he was a feral wild animal and he just kept on hitting the guy, who hadn’t even had a chance to try and fight back. He stood no chance against Dio’s rampage.
“CARA!” The sound of my name had me coming back to the world in shock. My ears cleared like they did after you went on aplane and they popped. The sound of grunting and flesh hitting flesh surrounded me and I sat up, pulling my legs to my chest to hide my nakedness. Behind me one of Rafe’s guys, who had tried to stop me earlier, was fighting with the biggest attacker, and to the left side Rafe was fighting with the other one.
Rafe kicked the guy hard in the chest, knocking him to the floor, and when he glanced to me, I saw the same look of bloody vengeance on his face as I had seen on Dio’s. He too had blood splattered on his hands and on his face, his once crisp shirt torn and bloody too. “Cara, you have to move!” he called to me, but I just sat there, staring at him. I was pretty sure I really was in shock this time.
“DARIO!” Rafe barked after a moment, when I didn’t move. The guy who he had been fighting with had gotten back to his feet and was coming at Rafe with a knife this time. I was about to scream in fear, but Rafe just threw his arm up to block the stabbing motion, then smashed his other fist into the guys arm so he dropped the blade. He kicked him again, getting some distance between them, then he pulled a gun from the back of his trousers and shot one single bullet. It landed right between the eyes of the guy he’d been fighting and he fell down dead with a loud thud.
I knew I should have reacted to that. Screamed, recoiled, something. But I didn’t. I just stared at the body on the ground, relieved that he hadn’t been able to stab my brother.
“Cara, it’s just me, sweetheart,” Rafe said as he dropped to his knees beside me. He must have pulled off the coat he’d been wearing because he draped it over my shoulders and wrapped it around me.
“Rafe?” I whispered.
“I’m here. I’m right here,” he soothed as he very softly took my hand into his and just held it.
“Boss?” I jumped when the guy who worked for Rafe appeared behind me. I glanced around to see the guy he had been fighting was also on the ground, likely dead now too. “We have to get out of here. Someone will have heard that shot and called the police.”
“Get Dario!” Rafe barked, startling me again.
I lifted my head and looked to where Dio had been before. He was still there, but he had moved on from pummelling the man’s face, mainly because the man, who had attacked me, no longerhada face. It was a bloody mess of blood and tissue. Dio was kicking him now, that feral look still on his face, which was also covered with blood like he had painted it there. His hair was soaked with red too, and his fists were clenched and held at his sides. He looked as though he had bathed in blood in his clothes, he was so covered, and I had to look away from him and the mutilated mess he had made, before I threw up. Don’t get me wrong. I was relieved and glad the sonofabitch who hurt me was dead, but it was too much gore for me to process.
“Don’t!” Dio yelled and I quickly turned back to him. He was holding back the guy Rafe had sent to get him with a hand between them. “I’m fine. I’m fucking fine!” he growled. He used his bloody hands to push his wild hair back from his face and it slicked backwards, held there by blood and who knew what else had come from the face he had annihilated.
“Cara? We have to go. Do you know if there are camera out here? Security cameras?” Rafe asked me.
“Yeah,” I nodded as I tried to find my voice. My throat was raw from screaming and I was shaking so hard the words would barely come out, but I forced them. “B-but I think that they…the other men….they s-said they disabled them.”
“Brax, check the cameras. Cara says they’re disabled, but make sure, then cover up your bloodied shirt, and bring the car around here,” Rafe ordered, in a tone so calm and collected it rattled me. How could anyone be that calm after what we just went through?
“He’s dead, Cara. He’s fucking dead,” Dio told me breathlessly as he approached us. Again, I was glad the monster who had violated me was dead, but seeing Dio that way, it had unnerved me to say the least. I found myself turning from him and pressing my face against Rafe’s arm. He lifted his arm up and instead gave me room to hide against his side.
“Clean up, for God’s sake, Dar. You’re scaring her,” Rafe hissed as he held me against him.
“Shit. Sorry. Fuck!” I listened as Dio seemed to move away from us, then there was silence.
“How badly are you hurt, Cara? Do I need to get you to a hospital?” Rafe asked me softly.
“No hospital,” I whispered, not even moving my head to look at him. I didn’t want to see him, or anything to make me feel that what had just happened was actually real. I didn’t want to believe it could be.
I heard the car pull up close to us, then Rafe was asking me if he could pick me up. I simply nodded. He had saved me, and I doubted he’d have done that if he meant me harm, but even if he did, what was the worst that he could do to me? Nothingcould be worse than what I had been through in the last few days, let alone the rest of my life. Right then I didn’t even care if he carried me off to kill me. Surely I could find some peace and safety in death? I had definitely given up on trying to find any in life, that was for sure. This – the attack – it was the final straw. I couldn’t take any more, and I didn’t want to keep trying, always hoping for things that never came.
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