My sisters’ blood.
“Please, please don’t,” I begged.
“Shut up and get on the mattress.”
I sat down.
He set the lantern in the corner, stroked the gun barrel as he stared at me. Would it be better to fight or just go along? Talking, that’s what Dani would do, she’d try to talk to him.
“Please, I’m just a kid—you heard my sisters. We just want to go home. We won’t tell anyone. I thought you were a nice guy.”
Brian rocked back on his feet, giving me a calculating look. “You think I’m not smart enough to figure out that you’re playing me?”
It wasn’t working. I thought desperately, remembered the way the girls had looked at him down by the river, how angry he’d been.
“If you let me go, I could be your girlfriend.”
“You don’t think I can get a girlfriend?” He stiffened, his face flushed.
“I think you’d be a good boyfriend.”
“Yeah?” He smiled. He rested the rifle against the wall, still within his reach but just outside of mine, then sat on the mattress. He put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me toward him. “Then act like my girlfriend.”
“That’s not how it works. You treat me like a real girlfriend, then we do that—like how it’s supposed to be.” I brushed his arm away.
His face was angry now. “You want to be my girlfriend, then fucking act like one.” He stood, stared down at me. “Take off your clothes.”
“Please … I’m a virgin.”
He smiled. “That’s why I wanted you.” The smile disappeared. He lowered his head, looked directly into my eyes. “Take your fucking clothes off.”
My fingers shaking, I took off the dress, sat there in my underwear.
“Take it all off,” he said.
I pulled the rest off, trying to make myself small on the mattress. I wondered how much it was going to hurt. He was taking off his own clothes now. I squeezed my eyes shut, heard his belt buckle hit the floor.
“Get on your back,” he said.
I lay down, my arm still across my chest and my other hand over my crotch. My body had started shaking violently.
He climbed on top of me, his hands rough as they mauled my breasts, pinching. Tears dripped down the sides of my face. I cried out.
“I thought you wanted to be my girlfriend,” he said.
I shook my head back and forth. “No, please.”
He pushed my legs apart with his knees.
“You’re going to like this,” he said.
* * *
He had to help me walk back to the main room. I was dizzy, the pain between my legs agonizing. I tried to close my eyes to the memory of what had just happened, but I couldn’t stop seeing him grunting, the glazed look in his eyes.
He brought me back to Dani—Courtney and Gavin were gone.
Dani’s eyes roamed my face, her expression anxious. I wanted to cry, but I held my face still, didn’t want her to see how scared I was, how much it hurt. Brian pushed me down beside her.
“Little sister was telling me how she wants to be my girlfriend.” Dani’s face didn’t change but her gaze flicked to me again, just for a second.
He knelt close to me, grabbed my face, and shoved his tongue in my mouth, grinding my lip against my teeth.
“Don’t worry, baby. I’ll let you be my girlfriend.”
He rolled a joint, finished off a beer. Down the hall we heard Courtney shriek. The sound echoed through the building. Dani stood up and I let out a sob.
“Sit the fuck back down,” Brian said. Dani hesitated, staring at the door and then at him, like she was wondering if she could get through it in time.
He casually picked up the gun beside him, pointed it at her with one arm, then swung his arm around until it pointed to me.
Dani sat back down.
He took a long inhale of the joint, let it out with a coughing laugh. The room filled with the skunky smell of marijuana.
“Gavin’s a freak—he likes it rough.” He gave Dani a look. “Guess you’re getting off easy tonight, sweetheart. We’ll make it up to you tomorrow.”
“When are you going to let us go?” she said.
He shrugged. “This weekend? Tomorrow? Never? Maybe we’ll just keep you around for a while.”
“We’ll starve to death,” I said. “We can’t live on one sandwich a day.”
He nodded, thinking. “You did good tonight. Maybe we’ll bring you some more food tomorrow.”
Another scream down the hall, the sound digging into my bones.
“Please stop him. Please,” I said. “He’s hurting her.” She’d never screamed that loud before. The thought of what he might be doing terrified me.
“Sorry, can’t do that. Gavin, once he sets his mind on something, he’s like a bulldog. And he does like that girl a whole lot.”
“If he kills her, you’ll go to prison,” Dani said. “You’ll be murderers.”
“Maybe we’ll kill all of you,” he said with a cold smile. “That’ll make things real simple. Hitchhikers are always coming through. We didn’t see the possibilities before, but now?” He laughed. “Our eyes are wide open.”
“It would be easier to keep us than start over with anyone else,” Dani said.
“You don’t think we can do this again?” The look he gave her made it clear she was treading on thin ground.
“Why go through the effort when you already have us?” Dani said. “That’s all I’m saying. But you need to keep us healthy.”
Brian’s face was thoughtful. He took another drag, walked over and offered the joint to Dani. She took a long inhale. When he offered me a hit I glanced at her. She nodded, telling me to play along. I took a drag.
He sat back down. “So you think we should keep you?”
It seemed like Gavin had been gone with Courtney for a really long time. There’d been no more screams, which was almost worse. I tried not to think about what was happening to her, just about buying us time.
“Why not?” I said. “You’ve got nothing to lose.”
“It ain’t easy coming here every day,” he said.
“You don’t have to come every day,” I said. It would be a relief if they didn’t. “You could just leave us food and water and come when you want.”
“Like you’re our pets,” he said, his voice high-pitched from the weed. Then he laughed. I hated his laugh. Hated Gavin’s even more.
“Yeah, like we’re your pets,” Dani said. I could hear the undercurrent of anger in her voice, knew she was close to snapping.
Keep it together, Dani.
He leaned closer. “We’ve already got everything we want out of you.” He sat back with a lazy smile. “I’ll think about it.”
A few minutes later, Gavin finally brought Courtney back. She could barely walk, and I saw bite marks on her collarbone. There was no expression on her face, just tears and snot leaking down, mixed with dust and blood. Gavin pushed her to the floor. She moaned, brought her knees up to her body.
He grabbed a beer, opened it, and took a long slug. He wiped his sweaty face on his arms as he looked over at us. He lingered on me for a while.
“I’ll try you out tomorrow.” He gave Courtney a look. “Bitch is starting to bore me.” He spit on her. She didn’t even flinch as it ran down her face.
Brian laughed. “You messed her up good.” He walked over and offered her a hit from the joint.
She wouldn’t look at him. He gave her a kick with his boot. “Take it.” She turned to face him and he held the joint to her lips, looking at her almost tenderly as he said, “There you go.” He gave her a few more tokes, then stood up, turned to Gavin. “Let’s go.”
* * *
We crawled over to Courtney, leaned against her thin frame. I could hear her breath, the sound comforting. She’s alive. We’re all still alive. I tried not to think about the pain between my legs, Gavin saying he wanted me next. I wished we had turned ourselves in. Jail would
have been better than this.
“Are you okay?” Courtney whispered after a few minutes.
“I’m all right. Are you?”
“I can’t do it again. I can’t.” She started crying hard.
“You won’t have to,” I said fiercely. “If they untie us again, we rush them and try to grab the guns and … and—”
“They’re too strong,” Dani said.
“So what are we going to do?” I said.
“They only … they only untie us when they’re raping us,” Courtney said, the words hiccupping out of her. “Gavin, he likes … he likes to make you do stuff, but he still holds a knife. Brian, sometimes he sets the gun down.”
“Gavin’s taking me next time.” I couldn’t breathe, struggled to push the words past the lump in my throat.
“I can try to get the gun from Brian,” Dani said. “Shoot him, then go after Gavin. If Brian takes you, Courtney, you have to try for the gun.”
“Okay.” Her tears had calmed. Her body shuddered as she took a few ragged breaths.
“What if Brian takes me?” I said. “I don’t know where Gavin’s room is.”
“It’s another storage room, like this one, but it’s at the front of the warehouse. Shoot him right away.”
“What if Gavin hears the shot?”
“Even if we only kill one of them, I’ll be happy,” Dani said.
We didn’t talk about what might happen if our plan failed.
CHAPTER TEN
They’d brought Kentucky Fried Chicken and fries and coleslaw, untied our wrists so we could eat. We tore into the chicken, gnawing off greasy bite after bite, almost gagging, our mouths were so full, but none of us were able to slow down or stop our moans of relief. I hadn’t eaten meat in years but I didn’t even think about that now, didn’t care. We sucked back the coleslaw, eating it straight from the container, shoved french fries in our mouths.
Brian was leaning against the wall, tapping his gun barrel against his cowboy boots, smiling at me. “Think I’ll take my girlfriend again tonight.” I was shocked—I thought for sure I was going with Gavin.
“Screw you—it’s my turn,” Gavin said.
Brian’s face was cold. “You can have her when I say you can have her.” He pointed the gun at Dani and Courtney. “Take one of them.”
“Fine.” Gavin jerked Courtney up from the floor and dragged her away.
Brian took a step toward me.
“Please,” Dani said. “She’s really sore. I’ll do whatever you want.”
He smiled. “So will she.”
He grabbed me and pulled me up. I didn’t look at Dani, scared I’d reveal something and Brian would sense we had a plan, but I could feel her panic.
In the other room, he started to turn me around. If I was facedown I wouldn’t be able to reach the gun, and my hands were still tied. I thought quickly.
“What if … what if I give you a blow job instead?”
I was terrified, my throat tight. I tried not to think about it, tried to just focus on the plan.
He was quiet for a second. I braced for his rage.
“Yeah, all right.” He spun me around and pushed me down on my knees in front of him, started to unbuckle his pants with one hand.
“Can you sit on the bed?” I said. “I can reach easier. And I need my hands.” I was sick at the thought of touching him, touching it.
“Whatever makes it better for you, sweetheart.” He united my hands, stood to unzip his pants, then sat on the edge of the bed, propping himself up on his elbows and closing his eyes.
I knelt in front of him, took a breath, and put my mouth around him, just the top part. I almost gagged, squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to think about anything, his fleshy taste, his man smell. He gripped the back of my head, pushed my head closer to him, forcing me to swallow more. I gagged again, dry-heaved.
His eyes shot open and he held the rifle to my temple, the cold metal pressing hard. Then he slid the safety off.
“You bite me and I’ll blow your brains out.”
I nodded. He kept his eyes open, watching me. Finally he closed them, his hand hard on the back of my head. I tried to focus on breathing through my nose. He was moaning, his hand tight in my hair. His other hand was getting relaxed on the gun. I reached out slowly, touched the barrel, and pulled it from him, moving my mouth away and stumbling to my feet in one quick rush.
His hand whipped out, knocking the rifle away before I could pull the trigger. I scrambled after it. He kicked my legs out from under me and I hit the floor hard. His hands were on my legs, yanking me back.
I grabbed at a broken bit of crate on the floor, turned, and thrust it at his eye. At the last second he batted my hand away and instead of the stake going through his eyeball, it gouged his cheek. He let out a yell.
I pulled my legs free, crawled forward a foot, and grabbed the stock of the gun. He was gripping my ankles, trying to drag me backward. I couldn’t get enough space to shoot him, couldn’t spin the rifle around. I flipped on my side and with both hands on the gun hit him hard in the temple with the butt. He faltered. I hit him again. A thud.
He collapsed on the back of my legs and was still. I didn’t know how far away the other room was but hoped Gavin hadn’t heard Brian yell.
I squirmed out from underneath Brian and stood over him, pointing the gun at the back of his head. It was a .22 semiautomatic. I hoped there were a few bullets in the clip. My finger hovered on the trigger, my breath tight. I pulled hard—nothing happened. I turned the gun over and spotted the crushed brass bullet casing jammed in the chamber. Shit, shit, shit. I tried to work it free with my fingers, fumbling and slippery with sweat. How much time did I have before Gavin busted through the door? My heart was beating fast, the moment stretching out. It wasn’t coming free. I squeezed my eyes shut in despair, then opened them and glared down at Brian.
“You fucker,” I whispered at his back. “I hate you.”
* * *
I used Brian’s belt and tied his wrists together, my fingers struggling with the leather as I tried to pull it tight and buckle it, terrified he might wake.
The rifle gripped in one hand, I inched my way out of the room, through the warehouse, skirting around stacks of crates. The lantern hung down by my knees, creating a small circle of light a few feet in front of me. Dani had told me to shoot Gavin, but I still couldn’t get the bullet out of the chamber.
I went back to the other room, trying not to knock into anything as I moved around in the dark, and slid Brian’s keys out of his back pocket, holding my breath when they jingled, but he was still out cold. I’d felt something else hard in his pocket and slowly slid my hand back in, pulled out a pocketknife.
I wondered if I should get Dani first, but when I left the room I noticed another door off the hallway. It was bigger, more like an outside entrance. I pushed it open. I seemed to be on the side of the building. I pushed my way through bushes around to the front. Brian’s truck was parked facing the building.
I started up the truck, turned the radio on—loud blast of music. Then I got out and ran to the front of building where there was a door. I tucked myself around the corner, switched the lantern off. In the last of the evening’s light I could see that the warehouse was in a clearing surrounded by trees. It looked like the driveway went around the side of the building. I couldn’t see any houses or lights through the trees. The only noise was Garth Brooks wailing out from Brian’s truck.
Gavin came out, holding his rifle. He snuck up on the truck.
“Brian? That you? The fuck you doing?”
He was standing still, looking around, about twelve feet away. I tried again to pry the bullet out of the chamber but my fingers were too slippery.
He opened the truck door and reached in.
I moved slowly, my feet light on the ground, trying not to clang the lantern, creeping back to the door. I had to get to Dani, then we could get Courtney. One foot was over the entrance, the second coming in beh
ind. A noise, the edge of the lantern brushing the doorjamb. I looked over my shoulder.
Gavin spun around, aimed at me through the open truck window, took a shot. The wood broke in front of my face. I dropped the lantern, dove back into the building, yelling Dani’s name. I heard her call out from behind a door on my right. Another shot went off behind me. I pushed open the door.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said into the dark.
She was beside me, her hands touching me. I grabbed her arm. We ran down the hall, pushed open the door into the warehouse. We kept to the side of the room, following the wall, keeping crates between us and the door.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Gavin’s voice echoed down the hall.
We stopped with our backs against the wall, crouched into a corner. I used the knife and cut Dani’s hands free. She rubbed at her wrists. I rested my mouth against her ear. “The gun is jammed, assholes never cleaned it.”
She took it from me, fiddled with the bullet stuck in the chamber. I held my breath, and finally I heard the soft ping as the casing fell onto the concrete.
“We have to find Courtney,” she whispered, passing the gun back.
I gave her the knife. “I took his keys too. They’re in the truck.”
We crab-walked against the wall as cobwebs tangled in our hair and across our faces, trying not to catch our clothes on the crates. Every sound was magnified, every scrape of our feet loud. I heard Gavin’s steps at the doorway, the creak of it being pushed open. I could hear his ragged breaths, knew he was also listening for us. We moved slower. I couldn’t see any other exit, the room almost dark now. We had to get back through the same door somehow.
Dani grabbed my hand, pointed to the left in a frantic movement.
I pointed the gun in that direction, could just make out Gavin’s shadow as he crept closer. I aimed, but he let off a shot first.
I ducked, pulling Dani down with me, then realized he’d shot toward the other end of the warehouse. How many bullets did he have left?
He cursed, then yelled out, “Brian, where the fuck are you?”
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