I caught sight of Sammy, eyes huge with panic, body slack, forgetting how to fight, to resist, or simply seeing it was a fruitless endeavor as she watched me writhe, kick, drag my feet, slam fists backward into the man holding me.
It got me nowhere.
It would get her nowhere either.
Her arm did lift, her hand reaching out.
Toward me.
Trying to grab my mine, to hold on.
"Come on, bring that bitch over here," one of the guys said, waving toward the direction on the other side of the air conditioning units.
And talking about Sammy.
Panic gripped me, my heart hammering, my stomach plummeting.
I screamed then against my attacker as she was pulled away, legs flailing at being pulled from me, pulled to an uncertain fate.
The arm around my midsection became punishing as my fight was renewed, desperation giving me strength I wouldn't normally possess.
And I wrangled myself free, turning on my heel to face him, hands already rising, striking out, fingers curling into the white bandana half-covering his face.
My heart froze in my chest then, shock and confusion overtaking my entire system.
"Monty?" my voice hissed out of me.
"It's better this way," he told me.
I didn't understand his meaning.
But then his arm cocked back, shot forward, and I felt the blinding pain for the shortest of seconds before the world went black.
I never knew - not even years later - how long I had been out.
I just remembered waking up, the crippling pain in my temples and behind my eyes, the scrape of gravel against my cheek, cutting into the sensitive flesh, the ache in my shoulder from the awkward way I had been laying. With my arms behind my back, something biting into my wrists.
I could feel the tickle of the end of the binding, something small, rounded, covered in a slippery plastic.
Like a shoestring.
My brother had knocked me unconscious, and bound me with a shoestring.
My fingers curled upward, snagging the end, yanking until I felt the wraps loosen, my fingers tingling even as I pulled them to the front.
I planted my forearms, pushing my weight up until my knees could take over, letting me finally get to my feet in what felt like slow motion.
I found myself wedged between the air conditioners, several feet from where I had last been conscious. It was almost as though he had tried to hide me.
But why?
Why hide me and let them take...
Oh, God.
Sammy.
I turned in the direction I remembered them moving off toward, my vision spinning as I did so, my stomach sloshing, making bile rise up my throat.
But I fought it back, forcing my feet to carry me forward even if the headache was making my sight a hazy thing.
I had to find Sammy.
I had to.
And while a part of me new that it couldn't be good, I don't think my young brain had been prepared.
I wasn't sure any brain could ever be prepared.
For the sight I saw that night.
Of my sister.
Thrown up on top of some raised cement structure, her dress yanked up, the buttons ripped open, her breasts spilling out.
And one of the men between her legs.
One of my brother's fellow gang members raping her while another held a hand over her mouth.
The man moved suddenly away, slapping a hand on the shoulder of the man standing at his side.
A man who used to be a boy I used to build blanket and pillow forts with.
The man who used to be a boy who used to sit across from me at the dining room table every night.
The man who used to be a boy that once helped me with my math homework when I was at risk of failing.
The man who used to be a boy that I had looked up to my entire life.
Surely not.
There was wicked, and there was sick.
But there was no denying it as he moved into the space his friend had occupied, his body moving the same way.
I stood frozen in horror, a look my sister must have shared, times a million, a billion.
Fucking horror.
And she couldn't even scream.
But I could.
As soon as the thought formed, my mouth opened.
The sound that came out of me was one I couldn't name, was sure the likes of which I had never heard in my life.
Blood-curdling.
Shrieking.
Like a banshee luring men to their death.
The sound made all their heads swivel in my direction.
Monty's included.
The second his gaze fell on my face, he yanked away from our sister; he moved to take a step toward me, everyone seeming to forget about Sammy as the inhuman scream kept erupting from this bottomless well of shock and disgust.
"Shut that bastard up," the one who must have been the leader demanded, making two of them move toward me.
I was focusing on that.
Bastard.
Not bitch.
Bastard.
They thought I was a boy.
And why shouldn't they in my boys clothes with my hair tucked under a cap, my breasts bound, my makeup-free face half in shadow from the brim of my hat.