She was doing good until her head bounced with a jolting nod, kicking her awake.
Fuck, she couldn’t risk falling asleep. Not until she better understood how to protect herself in this violent place.
She needed to find a friend in here if that were possible. Someone she could trust to watch her back. But she didn’t have the confidence or energy to leave her dark corner. Not yet.
As the night dragged on, her body worked against her. Consciousness abandoned her, and pain-drenched dreams pulled her down, down, down.
She woke to the sound of rustling. Metal clanked beside her, and a gust of hot breath washed over her face.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. She wasn’t alone.
Her pulse slammed into overdrive, and she scrambled backward in the dark.
A cruel hand caught her thigh. Another latched onto her hip and yanked down her jeans.
Her zipper was already open, her shirt shoved to her neck.
Fear found her, whispering to her in a deranged voice. It told her stomach to buckle, her chest to constrict, and her lungs to slam together.
It told her she was going to die.
A scream ripped from her throat as she shoved against the bulk of nude muscle and sticky flesh on top of her.
Whiskers scratched her cheek, and a hot wet mouth covered hers.
She jerked her head to the side and tried to buck him off, but he was too strong, too big.
Meaty fingers shoved her jeans and panties to her knees and wrenched her legs apart.
“No! Get off me!” She yelled louder, an ear-splitting cry for help as she tried to wrestle her thighs together.
His trousers gathered around his knees, his body twice her size, damp with sweat, and flush against the front of her, pinning her to the floor.
The hard jab of his erection pushed against her inner thigh, seeking the bare place between her legs. Her thrashing, frenzied movements wouldn’t hinder penetration for long.
She clawed and spat, screamed and tried to shove him off, her hands digging into hairy skin and flexed muscle.
When she felt the leather strap of his belt hanging free, she didn’t hesitate to grab hold and yank it from his pants.
He didn’t seem to notice, his movements focused on lining himself up to enter her body.
The belt swung free, and her hands moved on instinct as she looped it around his neck and twisted the ends into a noose.
She wasn’t a violent person. Never used her fists. Never picked fights. Except that one time when she woke with a scorpion in her bed.
She’d gone ballistic at the sight of it crawling beside her head and grabbed whatever she could use as a weapon—a lamp, a pillow, a shoe.
Once she’d started attacking it, she was committed. She’d turned into something savage and feral, beating the ever-loving hell out of it long after its guts smeared the floor, pieces of it scattered the room, and the carnage no longer twitched.
She channeled that murderous aggression now, operating outside of her body as every muscle burned to choke, maim, and destroy until he lay as dead as that fucking scorpion.
It was the hardest, most grueling thing she’d ever done. Her arms shook with the effort to cinch the belt as tightly as possible for as long as it took.
He fought with his weight, rolling across the floor in a breathless rage. Elbows landed against her ribs. His massive torso flopped and flailed, crushing her against the wall.
But she hung on, mindless in her need to survive, to follow through until the last trickle of life left his body.
“He’s dead.” A masculine voice drifted from the cell door.
She flinched, heart racing, and whipped her head toward the silhouette.
Dressed in a prison guard uniform, the man leaned against the metal frame, arms crossed over his chest as if he’d been there a while.
“Why didn’t you help me?” She released the belt and stumbled to her feet, yanking her jeans into place. “He tried to rape me!”
Oh, sweet Jesus, she killed a man. Were there consequences for that in Jaulaso?
Murderers probably murdered other murderers every day here. Did the prison guards look the other way? Or did they haul the offenders outside in front of a firing squad?
A tremor raced through her as she stared down at the lifeless body. She did that. One day behind bars, and she strangled a man until he stopped breathing.
“It was self-defense.” Gulping to catch her breath, she staggered to the farthest wall, away from the dead man and the prison guard who studied her too carefully. “Were you here the whole time?”
“You’re from the States.” He tilted his head, and a gray ponytail fell over his shoulder. “And you speak Spanish.”
“Yes.” She hadn’t heard or spoken an English word since her arrest. If she hadn’t known the local language, she would’ve been more lost than she already was.