I got the feeling that I should have been vaguely offended at this, but it was basically what I had told them would have to happen if they wanted to date me.
"A little competition never hurt anybody," I said.
"Bravo," Selene said. I didn't respond to her.
Thyme and I continued to indulge in small talk. Every so often I would find myself stroking up and down the back of his hand. Memorising the feel of his skin. I would get flashes of stroking other things.
When it came time for him to leave he gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and my body reacted as if it were more.
"Ooh," Selene cooed. If she had still had a body I would have slapped her.
"Stop that," I told her when Thyme was out of the room.
"It's not my fault I can only get my thrills vicariously."
I was prevented from saying anything back to her by Frost's arrival. He had a balloon bouquet in his hand and a beaming smile on his face. Where Thyme had been all perfectly smart Frost was his usual slightly dishevelled self.
"Hey there sleepy."
"Hey yourself," I said returning his smile and accepting the balloons from him.
Frost managed to keep me distracted with small talk for a few minutes but he couldn't keep deflecting me for long.
"We got a half a dozen zombies, including those who had been posing as guards. You should have seen Stern's face when I told him where the information came from."
Frost was trying to be jovial but there was something tense about him.
"What about Smith?"
Frost turned his eyes to the floor. "He got away." Frost looked back at me. "We have people looking for him now. Stern agreed to give you protection so there will always be two police officers right outside the room, not to mention all of the hospital security.
"You know, I felt a lot safer before you started saying how protected I should feel?"
I smiled so that he got that I was joking. The way Frost's face remained the same let me know he wasn't there with me in the happy place.
"It's serious, Faith. This is a very bad guy you put us on to. Even when you get out of here you need to be careful"
I assured him that I would be careful. I was feeling pretty confident for somebody who had been put in a hospital bed.
When Frost kissed me goodbye it was on the lips but still only a peck. I resisted the urge to shove my tongue into his mouth but it was a closerun thing. I was just realising what I had been missing out on all these years, I didn't really want to wait any longer. But there was another part of me that thought it was right to wait.
I fell asleep amidst very pleasant thoughts of Frost and Thyme, nothing explicit but just what I wanted right then.
I was awakened by the knowledge that somebody was standing over me. I opened my eyes and was looking at the chest of a police uniform.
"Well well, what do we have here?" The police officer I knew as Thick said.
CHAPTER FORTY
I was instantly alert, again, it's amazing what terror can do for you. Fair enough, this probably wasn't as life threatening a situation as my stay in the chupacabra pen, but I couldn't imagine it being pleasant.
It is a shame that sheer terror can't always get your body working. I tried to push myself up, but my weakness and the fatigue in my muscles conspired to make my efforts useless when Thin put his hand high on my chest and pushed me back down.
Thick moved away from me and pulled the curtain closed across the window at the upper part of the door to my room. He locked the door and left the key in the lock. When he returned to my bedside the thick cop started turning off the equipment and machinery surrounding me. He pulled sensors and tubes off and out of my body. I felt about as much pain when the pads were ripped off my skin as when the pipes and tubes were torn out of it.
"Can you believe our luck?" Thick appeared to be talking to Thin now. "We draw bodyguard duty," he whipped the pale-blue sheet off of me exposing me in just the thin hospital gown. Thick gave me a pointed once over. "And just look at the body we get to guard."
Thick leaned his face down to mine. "I told you that you would pay for what you did. Well, we aren't going to be interrupted here. Time to pay what you owe."
His hot breathe washed over my face and I got the impression that I would be lucky if that was the most revolting thing to happen to me.
I was paralysed through what I would like to put down to a combination of pain, my injuries, fatigue and medication. If I'm being honest fear should be added to the top of that list in big bold letters. It was primarily the fear that had me lying as stiff as a board on that hospital bed.
Thick started by removing his belt and with it his gun, baton and anything else I might have been able to grab and use against him. That would have required me still possessing the ability to move, of course.
Thick dumped his gear on the visitors chair. Thin was obviously going to play later because he kept his equipment on, his hand hovering just above the butt of his weapon.
I couldn't move, even my brain felt numb. I couldn't move when Thick placed the palm of a coarse hand on the side of my face. I couldn't move when he stroked that hand around my face and down my neck. He stopped at the neckline of the gown and trailed his hand down my bare arm instead.
Thick walked to the bottom of the bed and stared at my mostly nude legs. I still couldn't move, even when he put his large hands on one of my feet. Even when he pushed them up the smooth skin of my leg. He reached my knee and continued past it. He was halfway up my thigh before he reached the lower edge of the gown. He didn't let that stop him but just carried on until his hands were almost touching . . . and then.
Thick drew his hands away. "Not yet. This isn't about pleasuring you."
He said it like there was some way that I could possibly derive pleasure from what he was doing.
Thick came back up around the side of the bed. Now he set his hands on the top of the gown on top of my chest. He was far from gentle when he began kneeding the ample flesh of my breasts.
"Time for a look at these."
Thick pulled me into a sitting position. The gown opened at the back and Thick pulled it forwards off my arms and away from my chest. He dropped me back down. The gown rested on my stomach leaving my upper body fully exposed to the perverted police officers.
Thick wasted no time in resuming what he had been doing, this time without even the thin material of the gown to separate my flesh from his groping hands.
He kept feeling me up with one hand and with the other he unbuttoned his trousers. He stopped playing with my breasts so that he could use his hands to grab one of my own. I tried to resist but my arm wasn't working. I squeezed my eyes shut but it didn't stop him. He must have freed himself from inside his trousers because the next thing I knew he was in my hand. Thick used his own hands to fold my fingers closed around him.
If I had had any food inside me I would have thrown it up. I could feel how excited Thick was, but how could doing this excite anyone.
With his hands holding mine around his manhood he started to stroke it back and forth. I could feel him getting even more excited as my hand involuntarily worked him. All of a sudden I managed to pull my hand off him and away.
I opened my eyes to see thick glaring at me and then he smiled. "Quite right, why settle for a hand job when I can get access to the real jackpot."
Thick used his rough hands to jerk me around so that I was laying on my front on the bed. The fact that my breasts were now hidden from view, pressed between my body and the mattress as they were, was no consolation for what was about to happen.
Thick tugged the lower part of my gown up to the small of my back. Somebody had seen fit to put me some underwear on. So even now I wasn't fully exposed. It helped that I had regained enough control over my body to have my legs clamped shut from my ankles to my buttocks.
Thick gripped the underwear at the waist band and attempted to draw it down. He got them partway over my rear before my clenching prev
ented him moving them further. He tried to simultaneously part my legs and remove my panties but he didn't have enough leverage or enough hands for the tasks.
"Fine, bitch."
Thick gave up trying to spread my legs for the moment and concentrated his efforts on my underwear. He gripped the waistband with both hands on my left side. With a grunt he snapped the elastic and tore the material. He did the same at the other side.
Under different circumstances the way the material of the panties rubbed against me as Thick drew them off behind me might have been erotic. Under these circumstances it was just another defence being stripped away. Now the only thing keeping me from suffering the ultimate violation was the strength in my legs.
Thick went to the bottom of the bed and removed the rail from the end. He set the guard rail at the side of the bed and then grabbed my legs just below my calves. I was dragged down the bed until my legs were fully off the bed and only my stomach and upper body remained supported by it. Thick had moved his hands to my hips and now held me firmly there. In being dragged half off the bed I had lost my hold on keeping my legs together and thick had insinuated himself between them. I was still too emotionally numb to feel any more fear at having him there.
Off to the side there was a rhythmic slapping of flesh and flesh. I opened my eyes to see Thin with his hands on a different weapon and steadily pleasuring himself.
Thick rubbed his hands over my bare buttocks and shoved me into a slightly more accessible position.
"Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop," I was intoning the words like a desperate plea or a chant. Thick paid no attention.
I felt something else join his hands on my cheeks. He dragged it down one side until it was pressed into the back of my right thigh. From there it made it's slow movement towards his goal.
I realised there was wetness on my face. I was silently crying. This could not be happening. Surely somebody would come and help me put a stop to this.
Thick pulled back, preparing to plunge himself into me and steal my virginity.
"Somebody help," I sobbed.
Thick pushed forwards.
Without conscious orders from me my body reacted. Before he could make contact I pushed myself up from the bed. It's good that I am tall because it meant when I whipped my head back it impacted with the middle of Thick's face. He went falling backwards without finishing the job.
I had the moved guard rail in my hand before I knew it and struck out to catch Thin with one end square on the jaw. Everything was happening so fast that he hadn't yet stopped playing with himself. He dropped to the floor and started going limp. I threw the rail on top of him to keep him busy and not shooting at me.
Thick may not have been a good cop but he was still a cop so he knew how to react to a physical assault. He was back on me faster than I would have expected. One arm came across my front from behind the other pinned one of mine up my back just the right side of breaking.
"Now you're going to get it rough, bitch." I could feel that his body was still ready to carry out his threat.
"Now I'm getting it rough? What was it going to be before?"
"Let's teach these pricks what it means to take it rough."
I was surprised that it had taken Selene this long to get involved but now wasn't the time to be discussing it. With Selene's help I fought back against my two would-be rapists.
Selene showed me how to break Thick's hold on my arm. I twisted around, delivering an elbow to Thick's stomach as I did so, and pushed Thick away. My eyes flicked to the officer's delicate region which was still exposed and I delivered a swift kick which took him down to the floor.
"Just a pity those trousers have buttons instead of a zip."
An image came to mind with Selene's words, yanking the zipper up an relieving him of his-, I couldn't stop the smile that came to my face.
"Don't forget about the other one."
I whirled around in a fighters crouch to see Thin coming up. He had gotten free of the bed rail and was pulling his weapon from the holster on his hip. I knew what Selene would do in this situation and let my body act as if it were hers. Flipping over, my legs came down on Thin's shoulder and arm. He dropped the gun from numb fingers. Lying on the floor my legs flashed out, one to kick the gun out of reach under the bed the second caught Thin behind the knees. He tumbled back over my legs and I delivered another kick with my heel to his sternum.
That done I brought my knees up to my chest, kicked out and flipped back to my feet in one motion. Thick had recovered from my blow to his manhood and had crawled over to where he had placed his weapons. I leapt headfirst at him placing a hand on the bed as a pivot and swinging my feet around at his face. At another time I might have been worried about such a move exposing me, given my practically naked state, but I just wanted to slam my feet into that bastards face.
He wasn't fast enough to draw his gun but he brought the baton up and cracked me in the shins deflecting my kick. I landed on the floor and as quickly as he could strike out again I had my arms up to defend myself. I took each swing on my forearms waiting for an opportunity to fight back. It came when Thick put extra effort into one blow trying to force through my guard with sheer brute strength. I stepped backwards and the baton passed through free air a hairs breadth from my face.
Thick was momentarily off balance and I moved forwards to press the advantage. I pushed at the arm with the weapon and his opposite shoulder to turn him away from me. Then I came up behind him and took hold of each side of the baton. I struck out with a foot to the inside of his knee and it went with a wet crack, bending at an angle that that joint was never intended to go.
Thick collapsed and I tucked the baton under his chin and pulled back on his throat. Thick may have been stronger than me, although with the combined strength of mine and Selene's wills behind the assault I couldn't be sure. Regardless of that this wasn't down to strength it was down to leverage and I had it.
Thick choked and struggled but I kept pulling on the baton as though I was going to use it to pop his head clean off.
Thick gasped and kicked out.
I snarled and pulled harder.
Thick's hands were flapping about aimlessly slapping at the baton, me, the floor. Still I didn’t give up.
I kept my hold after Thick went still. I kept choking and choking him. I didn't let go even when Selene told me: "He's dead."
I didn't relent until my arms simply couldn't keep up the pressure anymore.
And then I released his limp form and let the baton clatter to the floor.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Intellectually I know that it takes a fair amount of time to choke a man to death. It doesn't happen in a mater of seconds the way it does in films. I knew that I had to have held Thick for quite a while but it didn't seem to have taken that long.
Intellectually I also knew that there were any number of emotions I ought to be feeling right at that moment; guilt, relief, self-loathing, anger, joy. Any of those or a combination would have been understandable. But I was back to being trapped in that numb place that I had been for most of the attack. Standing there in that moment of calm I could understand how I had built up my shields so thickly that I didn't feel anything.
When I looked down on Thick's body I managed to keep my own feelings locked tightly away where they couldn't bother me. At least for the moment. But it wasn't just my feelings that I had to worry about feeling. Looking through my eyes Selene saw what I had wrought, with some assistance from her. And Selene felt pleasure. She felt it as a physical thing and since she inhabited at least some part of my body I felt a shadow of what she would have felt. I have to admit that I was starting to grow more used to having certain feelings in parts of my body that I hadn't given much thought to before. So, while it wasn't exactly the shock it once would have been, this was still quite unexpected. And enjoyable.
"Was that an . . ?
"Hardly," Selene said laughing inside my head. "That was just a taster. When it happens
for real you'll not need to ask."
It seemed whichever out of Frost and Thyme I ended up getting serious with there were going to be some very enjoyable times ahead. No wonder the elders didn't like any of us staying down here long enough so that we got the urges to sample such delights. Or maybe if the elders loosened up and came down to partake themselves they wouldn't be so uptight and going on about interference in mortal affairs.
"You killed him."
I jumped. I had forgotten entirely about Thin. He had put himself away and now he was walking around past me looking down at the body of his partner. He was still armed with his own baton and a bottle of some sort of incapacitating spray. But the weapons remained on his belt forgotten about.
I stepped away from the body and leaned on the wall for support. I realised I was still basically naked and pulled the gown back up to cover me. It took several attempts for me to tie the gown closed behind my back with shaking fingers.
"Fucking hell. You really killed him. You're supposed to be an angel. You aren't supposed to kill people."
He was right.
"He shouldn't have pissed me off."
That sounded more likely to be Selene's response than mine but it came out of my mouth and it felt like the right thing to say.
Thin stared at me with wide, scared, eyes. He backed up to the door to my private room. I was used to people looking at me with fear in there eyes when they realised I was something other than human, that's one of the places where discrimination against non-humans comes from. I wasn't used to seeing terror in somebody's eyes that was at least partially justified. Yes I had killed Thick in self-defence. But that didn't change the fact that I had killed him.
Thin didn't want to turn away from me to unlock the door but he also couldn't manage the lock without looking. I could see him debating whether he would dare take his eyes off me to make his escape. The cold practical part of me that Selene seemed to have made her own urged me to teach this guy a lesson as well. No doubt he deserved it. But the Selene part of me wasn't a part of me. I wasn't into revenge and all that. It might have been soft-hearted and short-sighted of me but I was past caring.
Heaven can Wait Page 28