Gun Shy(65)

Back and forth.

I lie still. Beer burns lines of fire inside my sinuses, in my chest. Rope burns at my wrists, around my ankles, biting tighter into my skin every time Ray pushes deeper, everywhere is fire.

I surrender to the pain. I let it take me, like a wave, like a tsunami. Drowning isn’t peaceful, but it is easier once you stop resisting it.

I’ve left my body, taken it off like a dirty dress and left it puddled on the floor while I float on the ceiling and watch. And wait. Please hurry. Hurry what, I’m not sure. For him to finish. For him to kill me. Or for somebody to open the front door. Brother, you’d best get home. Ray’s words, when he called Damon. How long ago was that call? Ten minutes? An hour? I have no sense of time. I don’t know how long I was blacked out on the table while Ray tied my limbs and watched me sleep. I don’t know how long he’s been on top of me. All I know is Damon should have been home long ago.

Never thought I’d be wishing for my worst nightmare to turn up and rescue me.

Then again, I never thought I’d be tied to my own kitchen table, the one where I sit and eat cereal that tastes like sour milk and lies every single morning, while my not-uncle rapes me to death.

Some things you just can’t imagine until they’re happening.

And then he’s… there. Here. Standing in the kitchen, his blue eyes wide and bright, hand on his gun holster.

“Ray.”

You would think that Ray would stop.

He doesn’t.

“Ray!”

Ray. Doesn’t. Stop.

I want to scream out to him, but I can’t.

Help me. Please help me. Save me from this man.

But he doesn’t. He just fucking stands there, looking like he might cry.

Ray stops his rutting long enough to address his brother, to take a slug of beer. What a multi-tasker, our Ray. I moan through the cloth stuffed into my mouth, vying for the attention of a seriously fucked-up police sheriff who should be shooting Ray right now, if he had any moral compass.

“I caught her sneaking in the front door,” Ray says, panting from exertion. “Stinking like a dirty cum bucket, weren’t you, darlin?” He jabs a finger into my stomach hard enough that I scream. “She came straight from that little shit’s trailer down there. No panties and a nice little cream pie to remember him by.”

Ray glances down at me. “What, you think I didn’t check you out before I started to fuck you?”

Pleasemakehimstop.Damon!Youhavetohelpme.Please.PLEASE.

My words are one long unintelligible tangle, muffled through my gag. I beg with my eyes. But Damon doesn’t hear.

“Pull up a pew, brother,” Ray says, rearing back and driving into me so hard I scream. “Grab a brew. We’re gonna use this bitch up before we bury her.”

Ray takes the paramedic shears and cuts through my shirt and bra, throwing scraps of material on the floor, everything gone now. My nipples tighten in protest against the cold, my body shivering even more violently without any cover.

I am as naked as the day I was born, and probably just as bloody.

I stare at Damon in disbelief. My fear blossoms, it becomes anger, it becomes rage, warm and thick in my veins as my heart beats vicious and fast. I watch as he takes a seat. As he scrubs his hand across his stubble, his anxiety palpable. As he looks at the spot where Ray is violating me, over and over, and does nothing.

He finally looks at my face again, and that’s when I understand: this is my punishment. This is my lesson. I broke the rules. I went to Leo. And now, I’m going to wear the consequences.

Damon looks sick. I wonder what I look like. I’m covered in blood and beer, and the side of my face is swelling rapidly from Ray’s fists.

“Remember, Danny?” Ray says, panting heavily as he continues to thrust into me. “Remember how good we used to be together? I bet we could both take this one at the same time. Just like old times.”

He called him Danny.

“Shut up, Ray,” Damon snaps.

Ray doesn’t let up. “We haven’t shared a girl since that junkie Creek bitch,” he says, wrapping his hands around my throat and squeezing tighter. The part of me that’s left in my body — that tiny sliver of Cassie — looks at Damon, pleading with her eyes as she starts to smother. “Remember?”

We haven’t shared a girl since that junkie Creek bitch. Something about that statement hits me, and I mentally catalog it so I can study it later. Assuming there is a later for me.

I see Damon reach behind him for something. I’m on the ceiling again. Floating. I can’t hear and I can’t feel. All I can do is float, and wait until it’s over. Suddenly, I miss my snowflakes. Miss having something to count. Ray has stamina, that’s for sure. I thought for sure he wouldn’t be able to last more than a minute or two. But he just keeps going and going, relentless, back and forth, his fingers around my throat stealing my breath, stealing my life.

And then, just like that, I am brutally thrust back into my abused, naked body, as the whole room explodes.

At least, that’s how it looks. Something makes a dull bang-hiss beside my ear. Ray’s head explodes like a watermelon under a jackhammer, bits of blood and slush splattering a 360 around where he was standing just a second ago. I feel him pulled from inside me, and then a crash as what’s left hits the hardwood below.