Page 16 of Never Give Up

I fight that pain and move, lifting my leg and kicking him.

Not high enough as he curses but doesn’t recoil or bend in pain.

He sits down on top of me, pinning my body under his and eliminating my chance for escape, pressing his thighs together as he squeezes my body with his.

Those dark eyes stare at me as he breathes heavily, clearly enjoying the pain he’s causing me.

He punches me again, and there’s nothing I can do to offset the pain or protect my cheek from his fist.

It knocks the breath from me and my vision goes black for a moment. I shake that off, desperate to cling to awareness.

I look at him, searching for anything to help identify him when it’s over.

His skin is pale, almost translucent, and he has a black tattoo on his forearm, the same arm that he uses to punch me in the face.

He lifts his hand, clenched in a fist, and punches me again. Stars burst in the blackness as the pain swamps me. Blood starts to run down and onto the tape covering my mouth. It drips onto the bed underneath me. I can feel it. Wet, sticky, warm.

I still struggle against him, and he hits me again—this time in the eye. I can’t open it anymore, so I give up with my attempts to see him.

Instead, I listen. His breathing is shallow, and I feel spit land on my face. I clench my good eye closed but again try to struggle against him, my arms starting to tire.

Time stands still when he finally takes a break from the abuse he’s putting my body through.

He positions himself above me and forces a hand under my shirt while the other easily holds my hands above my head. My ears ring and the panic and pain mingles into something bordering on unbearable.

And he isn’t finished.

He grabs my breast in his hand, fingers digging into me, and I shake violently against him. He’s getting hard, and I know what he wants to do. Bile rises in my throat, choking me with the need to get away.

His knees force my legs open. I try holding them together with as much strength as I can muster and open my working eye.

I stare directly into a pair of matching pits of nothingness, gleaming with amusement, and I can tell he smiles underneath the mask. I fight against him, still trying to keep him from getting that part of me.

Needing him to lose. Inch by inch, against my will, they open until he is kneeling completely between them. When he grabs my neck and squeezes, tears begin to stream down my face.

“I could take you now, you know that, right? I could own you, body and soul.”

The only things between our two bodies are my underwear and his pants. As though he can read my thoughts, he takes his hand and roughly squeezes my skin, forging a path down my stomach and tears my underwear, leaving only his pants.

“There’s nothing you can do to keep me from taking what I want from you. You’re mine. Mine to own. Mine to take. Mine to do whatever I want with. And I plan on taking everything from you.”

I scream against the gag.

* * *

BRIAN

“Hello.” I run a hand over my face and sit up, ready to deal with whatever bullshit is coming.

“You need to get to Maya’s house. Neighbor just called 9-1-1 reporting she saw someone go into the house through the living room window, and then she heard a scream. Now there’s nothing. She hasn’t seen anyone exit the house. No signs of life.” Daniel doesn’t even bother with a greeting before he starts in.

It takes a second for me to fully understand what he said. And then the panic sets in, followed immediately by terror I’ve never felt before.

I toss the blankets off and leap from the bed in the dark, stumbling around to find my clothes before remembering to turn on the light.

“I’m going. Have you called LT yet?” I get fully dressed in under thirty seconds.

Everything is white noise, and I feel the world falling out from under me as I send Ashley a text asking her to stay with the boys in the morning, but honestly I don’t care if they stay home alone and eat all the cereal in the house at this point.

---