by A. M. Wilson
“Are you fucking with me?” he roars, taking a carefully measured step into the darkening room. My hands fly up in surrender, and I lower myself to my heels in a position of submission.
“No, I—what are you talking about?” I stutter, completely baffled at his flip of demeanor.
“DON’T LIE TO ME!” he screams as he lunges another step forward. His spit splatters against my arms, but I make no move to wipe it off. I don’t make a move at all. My body freezes with terror.
“Travis, I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do, you’re fucking playing me. Last night was just a stupid fucking ploy to get out of here, wasn’t it?” His voice escalates with every second that passes.
I’m at a complete loss with how to placate him, so I sit unmoving, silent, hoping to get out of here unscathed.
“AARGGH!”
I double over in agony as his heavy boot connects with my ribcage.
“Answer. Me. Stupid. Whore.” He punctuates each word with a kick to my abdomen, over and over and over.
I can only grunt in response, any movement or sounds by me are purely involuntary. The searing pain in my gut steals my ability to speak.
I lose count at five, my head swimming with the need to shut down from the pain. I barely register when Travis reaches down, grasps a fistful of my hair and drags me across the floor. I’m vaguely aware of the symmetry between tonight and that night half a year ago. How I let myself wind up in a situation so similar, I don’t know.
“Why are you with him? Of all the people in this world, why did it have to be him?”
My head ricochets off the wall from the backhanded blow he delivers to the left side of my face, but I’m powerless to stop him.
“There’s no better payback than to take from them what they took from me. But why does it have to be you, Lena?”
My other cheek screams in pain. “Travis…please.”
To my absolute relief, he doesn’t strike me again. Instead, he begins to pace the floor in front of me, and through my swollen eyes, I watch him clench and unclench his hands at his sides.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. All I wanted was to hurt them. Hurt Preston for what he took from me, from my family. I’ve spent years waiting for the right moment to track him down. He wouldn’t hear it. My blackmail was useless against that motherfucker, so I had to come up with a new plan. Know what that plan was, Lena?” he pauses but continues without waiting for the answer I’m incapable of giving. “No, I bet you don’t, do you? If you did, you wouldn’t be here.
“Except you had to get in the fucking way. It wasn’t supposed to be you. When I found his son, it was supposed to be about hurting him. Somehow, you managed to find the one person in this whole state I fucking loathe. So then I thought, what a better way to hurt his son than to take the woman he loves?” The sickening sneer is back on his face as he squats down to eye level. He reaches out and runs his gritty fingers down the side of my bloody swollen face.
“You’ve always reminded me of her.”
I don’t attempt to ask whom. The words wouldn’t come out anyways.
“You made it too easy. Of course, you’d fall in love with a guy like that. The polar opposite of me. I watched you. I saw you do things you used to do with me. I listened to you tell him words I used to hear fall from your pretty mouth. It angered me. It was fucking disgusting. But like I said, you made it easy.”
Through the slits of my eyes, I watch as Travis steps out of the room, only to return seconds later. He carefully draws an object from the pocket of his jeans.
My eyes flit to his face as he draws nearer, the object grasped firmly in his fist.
His eyes roam me from head to toe; surveying my body like an artist studies a blank canvas, determining where to place the first stroke. A shiver ripples through his body. Cracking his neck, he rolls his head from side to side menacingly. “I’m so sorry it has to end like this Lena, but it truly is the only way. Unfortunately for you, blood is thicker than water.”
He lunges.
Faster than I can process he pins me against the wall with a long silver switchblade against my throat. I grapple with his tightening arms as the sharp blade pierces my skin. Gasping, tears sting my eyes as I try to ignore the white-hot wound and the warm blood trickling down my neck.
“Play nice, Lena, and I might let you live a little bit longer.”
The fight in my halts at his threat. I need to think about my next move instead of reacting impulsively out of fear. My chest heaves as I try to control the rapid breathing, and my body goes rigid.
Fear paralyzes me once more.
I plaster myself against the wall in that decrepit little shack as if I could blend in like a chameleon. Travis has me exactly where he’s wanted me this entire time, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.
My eyes slam shut when he approaches me with the blade once again. The cool metal slips beneath the hem of my shirt, resting uncomfortably and foreign against the soft, sensitive skin of my stomach. The muscles beneath contract violently. The blade thrusts upward and my shirt splits to just north of my belly button. The sound of tearing fabric makes me cringe like nails on a chalkboard and a shudder rolls through my body.
When my breathing quickens, I remind myself to not lose control. Stay in the moment. Because the second I lose it, I’m done for. My willpower is stronger than his is. It always has been.
From the moment he and I met, I’ve been able to exercise my willpower over him when I’ve truly wanted too. The revelation is startling and a bit depressing when I remember all the shit I let him get away with. I’ve been pushed around my entire life, and it was easy to not fight back, to let myself believe I deserved to be pushed around by him too.
Never again. This is my life I’m fighting for, and I won’t fall victim to him again. I promised myself that once. Now it’s time to live up to my promise.
The second cut tears through my shirt, splitting it to my breasts. I suck in a breath when his hands grip the serrated edges, peeling them to the sides to reveal the dingy bra beneath. He growls audibly as he stares as if mesmerized by the sight of my chest. His eyes take on a depth of longing I haven’t seen them reflect in years. His tongue swipes his lips and his teeth sink down into the lower one as his eyes rake down my torso. When his hand cups one breast, I close my eyes, forcing my teeth into the inside of my cheek until blood floods into my mouth.
I will not scream. I will not scream. I will not scream.
Travis is vile. He’s getting some sick satisfaction from watching me lie here against my will, completely vulnerable to him. Even though he’s laid his hands on me before, I have a hard time reconciling this Travis with the one I had once loved, the one who had once saved me. The one I had once trusted.
The thoughts fade abruptly when I feel the cool touch of metal between my breasts, and my eyes fly open. Travis yanks upwards, and the remainder of my soiled bra falls away, draping limply off my shoulders. A whimper escapes my mouth, and I blink back the tears that flood my eyes unbidden.
“Are you going to beg me, Lena?” he asks, the tip of his blade circling my left nipple, toying with me, making me a game.
I hang onto my silence with every ounce of strength I have.
“No? You don’t have anything to say to me? Hmm…” Travis brings the blade to the base of my throat. “Maybe I’ll just have to make you beg.”
Not when he brings his mouth to my throat.
Not when his mouth trails a path down my neck.
Not when he bites down on my breast.
Some might think there’s no point in dignity if there isn’t anybody to witness it; Give in and maybe your death will be a little less painful. But I won’t let my last moments be of me pleading with a sick bastard to let me free when he has no intention of doing so. I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing for the last moments of my life, he had me begging for mercy and he didn’t give it to me. I want him
to know that even in the direst situation he will not control me. He has no power over me.
Travis begins to lose himself in my body as I remain silent and still. He mutters to himself about worshipping my body one last time. His face buries in the crook of my neck, one hand holding the knife loosely to my throat. I can feel his sickly hot breath against my ear, and I shiver. Travis’s free hand snakes down between my legs. Violently and without preamble, he begins rubbing fiercely against the fabric between my thighs, his groans picking up in intensity. In a moment of misplaced passion, the hand grasping the blade slides around my neck to twine in my hair, and I seize my chance.
With as much strength as I can muster, I use my free leg to bury my knee into his gut. He grunts in pain as he pulls back from my neck. I rear back, smashing my right fist into the side of his head before he can fight back. His eyes look slightly dazed, and before he recovers, I kick my other leg into his face, knocking him on his back.
Something breaks inside of me.
A part of me, pent up rage and anger at my father; displaced abandonment from my brother; pain and sadness from losing my mother, is unleashed.
A blackness settles within my mind. All thought long forgotten as I throw myself on top of Travis’s howling frame where he lies on the dirty floor. One after another, my fists fly against the side of his face, and a pain I’ve never let myself feel has broken free, fueling each punch, each hit, and a raw broken scream tears from my throat.
Blood sprays from where my hands land, my knuckles sear but I can’t stop, can’t extinguish the ghosts that soar free.
I don’t know how long it goes on, but I feel fatigued quicker than I realize I would be.
As exhaustion sets in, Travis uses the opportunity to flip our positions. His hands tangle in my matted hair, bring my face off the floor and centimeters way from his. Those deep green eyes burn with angry fire as his gaze roams over my face. A sadistic smile twists his lips, and he says, “You’re going to fucking pay for that.” Using my hair for propulsion, Travis slams my head into the floorboards.
The pain is excruciating. My neck muscles turn limp, and my head hangs like a bobble head doll. He meets no resistance with each crack of my skull against the floor. My vision turns spotty, and his sneering face blurs. The edges of my sight begin to turn black. I prepare to welcome the darkness. I hope it can take away this pain.
Right as my eyes drift close and I embrace the blackness of my mind, I hear an ear splitting crash and then everything goes dark.
***
Darkness envelopes me when my eyes open again. The only thing telling me I was out for more than a few minutes is the lack of sunlight from the crack in my window. My head throbs violently, and my pulse beats in tempo behind my eyes. Moving is excruciating, but I force myself onto my stomach. My ears strain, trying to pick up the creak of a door or the heavy thud of a boot, but silence stretches around me. My mind spins with dizzying speed as I realize this could be my only chance.
I pull myself onto my hands and knees to test my body. Although everything creaks and ripples with pain, nothing feels broken.
I’m screaming at myself to get out as I crawl across the rough, wood floor to the door. Splinters prick my skin, but I keep going. I have to get out of here. Propping myself up against the wall, I twist the handle and smother a cry when it turns. The door gives off an eerie creak in the silent darkness. Where is Travis?
A strip of pale moonlight barely lights the main room through the open front door. Adrenaline pumps steadily through my limbs as I drag myself to my bare feet. I can do this. I can get out of here.
One step into the main room and my plan is shot to hell. Several feet from the front door lies a body, curled up and unmoving. My brain screams at me to turn around and go back into the room. But a match of hope has been ignited within me, and it flickers brightly with the gust of freedom beyond that door. One foot after the other, I carry my body further into that room. Each step bringing me closer to the man who’s attacked me.
“Travis?” I call hoarsely, my voice overworked from yelling and choking.
The body remains motionless on the floor. Somewhere, I register this could be a trap, but the taste of freedom is too tempting to ignore.
“Travis?” I question louder, but get no reply. My ears prick, but I realize I can’t even hear the telltale signs of sleeping. This is my only chance.
Adrenaline floods my system, and I bolt out of the room without so much as a backwards glance. I rip open the heavy wooden door that leads outside and greet my first breath of fresh air in days.
That darkness out here is vastly different from the night in the city, where neighboring suburbs lend brightness to the dark night sky. Out here, miles away from any real groups of citizens, the darkness is as black as Mother Nature intended with only the stars and the moon to light the way.
Fearing Travis more than I fear the night, I bolt down the three rickety stairs and into the forest.
Weak with thirst and hunger, my running reduces to a jog before slowing to a walk. The trees all look the same, dark and foreign, tall sentinels of the woods. An owl hoots nearby and fear begins to set in; fear of being lost, of never being found. I startle at the crackle of brush, the rustle of leaves. I keep on, heading away from the cabin and into…nowhere.
I’ve walked for what feels like hours before I find myself dropping to my knees from exhaustion. The rough twigs and dirt grind into my palms with each movement, each drag of my limbs to keep me in a forward motion. From down here, the scent of pure earth, dirty, dead leaves, and twigs assault my senses. Still, I drag on.
Sometime later, I’ve paused, resting my head against my forearms as I lay on the dirty forest floor. The wind gently blows, and on each gust, I feel as if I can hear the forest calling my name. “Marlena,” the wind whispers to me, telling me that she knows I’m here. I close my eyes when I hear her again, “Marlena.”
“Marlena!”
This time, it’s not the gentle wind calling my name, but a deep male voice, which can only belong to Travis. Fear rockets through me like a cannon ball, and I scramble to get on my hands and knees, to find purchase on the rough earth beneath me. I dig my fingernails into the dirt, trying to pull my torso along. Feet thunder towards me, the pounding echoing beneath my bruised, battered chest, and as they draw near, I whimper, pulling my knees into my chest to form a tight ball.
“I’ve found her!” someone yells, and I’m confused because it’s not Travis. He wouldn’t be telling someone else he found me; he’s the only one out here.
“Marlee, Jesus Christ,” he swears. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
Now that the panic is fading, I realize Elias has found me. However, something is nagging at me. Through the heavy fog in my head, a memory of a few days ago surfaces. Of running through these woods away from the dark cabin. Of running from Travis and into Elias. Of being afraid.
The pictures.
The whores.
Am I afraid?
“Baby, I’ve got you; I’ll get you home. God, I’ve missed you,” Elias says, as he strokes a warm hand against my battered skin.
Exhaling a sigh of relief, I have my answer. Just being in his presence again, I know without a single doubt in my body Elias would never hurt me. “I am home,” I breathe around the ache in my raw, dry throat.
Elias clears his throat audibly, and I wish I could see his face. Someone approaches from behind him, and I tense as terror rushes through my veins.
“A blanket. Wrap her up.” I recognize Sin’s voice. Elias takes the blanket from him, draping it lightly over my shoulders, and I wrap it tightly around my naked body. As the adrenaline dies down, I feel my brain detaching from the moment, surrounding itself in a protective bubble.
“Marlena, I’m going to lift you, okay?”
“Marlena?”
I turn my head to look at Elias, but I don’t respond.
“She’s in shock. Let’s get her out of here.”
; My body shifts with movement, and I allow him to carry me, settling my body into the rhythmic lullaby of Elias’s stride.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Blue and red flashing lights shine brightly up ahead, and I bury my face deeper into Elias’s strong, warm chest. I hear voices, both male and female, but I don’t try to decipher what they’re saying. Now that I’m out, I just want to be home. I don’t want to deal with the questions that I know are coming.
A white light shines above me and Elias stops. Peeking out of the soft, fleece blanket, I see overhead lighting stationed around several police cars, civilian cars, and an ambulance. Elias walks us over to the big vehicle where a stretcher is waiting next to the back bumper.
“I’m going to set you down for a minute, okay? I want to get you some water, and they’re going to make sure you don’t have any injuries that need immediate attention.”
“Don’t leave me,” I grip the sleeve of his jacket, halting him from getting the water I so desperately need. I need him to stay with me more. His face softens noticeably, and he wraps his hand gently around my frail one.
“I won’t.” He nods his head to Sin who takes off, probably in search of water. “I’ll be around you so much from now on you’re going to be sick of me,” he teases halfheartedly. Looking into his handsome face, I can see the weariness etched into his strong features. Oh, Elias.
“Marlena, my name is Mike. I’m a paramedic, and I’m going to take a look at your injuries. Are you comfortable with me placing this mask on your face? It’s only some oxygen to help you breathe.”
I nod, and when he slips the plastic mask over my mouth and nose, I’m relieved. Breathing wasn’t difficult besides the screaming pain in my side, but just knowing that precious air is being pumped directly into my lungs allows me to relax. A placebo effect I’m sure, but nonetheless, a welcome one.
An officer comes by next, but I don’t catch his name, my mind still trying to process everything that’s going on with me. Elias holds my hand while he asks me a few questions about my escape.