I hear their laughter, cruel and taunting, and my body’s pleasure disappears like I’ve been plunged back in the frigid swamp. The sound of skin slapping skin as they high-five rocks through me as if they slapped my face. Humiliation crashes over me in waves, dousing the heat in my body like cold, grey, used dishwater. I shiver, fighting to pull myself free, to pull my arms and legs in, to cover my body in all its exposure and vulnerability. But there’s no escape, no hiding.
“I’m bored,” Royal drawls, sounding like he is genuinely unaffected by the scene he just witnessed. Like he’s seen it a million times, and it no longer even registers. “Let’s go.”
I squeeze my eyes closed behind the hood and burn at his cold, heartless words. He’s bored of watching his brothers take turns with me.
He’s done, I think, clinging to the sense of relief that thought brings. It’s almost over.
But when I hear his feet sloshing away through the water, my mind cries out with panic. No, no, no. They can’t leave me here. They can’t leave me tied up. No one ever comes out here. I can’t even scream to alert anyone who might work in the fields. I’ll die before I’m found.
“You know, I heard this story about a snake that crawled up inside a girl to keep warm in winter,” Baron says. His fingers brush along my thigh, and I quake with terror. I don’t know which is worse. Being left here to die, or them staying to torture me more.
“Dude, I can’t believe Royal’s leaving us,” Duke says. “The fun was just starting.”
I hear a flicking sound, and a minute later, something sears into my skin on the back of my hip. I yelp in shock at the pain, the sound muffled behind the gag. Duke laughs maniacally. He presses harder, and I can smell the stink of burnt skin even through the hood.
“Let’s drop off Royal and come back,” Baron says, lowering his voice. “He’s done with her. He said to leave her here. No reason we can’t have some fun with her before she dies.”
“Fuck yeah,” Duke crows, pulling away whatever he was burning me with. “Let’s call the guys. We can bring friends. You know Cotton’s always up for a little rape and pillage sesh.”
“Everything they tried to do to our sister, we succeed in doing to them,” Baron says. “It’s the rules. Royal knows that.”
“Colin says she took the whole team as a freshman at Faulkner,” Duke says. “Seems only right she does it at Willow Heights if she’s going to go there.”
“I don’t think she’ll be going anywhere after this.”
I jerk at the ropes, listening to them giggle at their plot as they zip up their bags. And then they’re wading through the water, leaving me tied and gagged in the damp swamp. I cry out, hoping they’ll hear the muffled sounds and take pity on me. I just need them to untie me, so I can get home. I’d do it. I’d walk barefoot along the side of the road, every mile back to Faulkner, as if it’s worth returning to. What does it matter if I have clothes? If someone picks me up and kidnaps me, so what? I’ve endured the worst, and I’m still breathing.
If they hear me, though, they don’t stop. There’s no mercy in these boys for a girl who betrayed their darkest secrets to the enemy.
When they’re gone, there’s silence except for the drone of mosquitos and an occasional splash that makes my heart stop. I dread hearing them return. I dread a night out here alone. It might only get down to fifty degrees, but I’m naked and wet, with only my head covered. Will that be enough to kill me? Would a snake really crawl inside me?
No, that’s ridiculous. I’m panicking. I need to focus on my hands. They’ve always saved me. They’re the only things that can save me now.
I try to work the ropes free, but my right hand is mangled, the bones broken and the swelling so big my fingers feel like clumsy sausages. I work with my left hand, even though it’s numb from being above my head so long. If I get it free, I can free my right hand. The ropes are so tight, though, and I can’t even see what kind of knot they tied. Bending my wrist at an awkward angle, I fumble with it, trying to get my fingers around to the knots that feel like they’ve been soldered together.
Over and over again, I tell myself none of it matters. What they just did doesn’t matter. They don’t matter. Royal doesn’t matter. Mr. D is a faded memory. What I told him, it doesn’t matter, either. All that matters is right here, right now. Freeing myself. Me. My life. I matter. That’s all.
I work until my fingers are raw, my nails torn and bleeding, too stiff from cold and numb from being raised above my shoulders. The burn on my hip throbs with each heartbeat, my hands are a blaze of pain, and between my thighs is raw and torn. It must be the middle of the night by now, and I’m not free. I can’t free myself. The helplessness is the worst of all of it.
I sag against the tree and try to breathe through the wet hood. I want to scream, to pour my fiery rage over the land and leave nothing but a burnt crater of my fury. I am supposed to take care of myself. I’m the one person who does that. And I failed. I fucking failed.
While I rest, I try to think my way out.
No one will come for me. It could take days for Mom to sober up enough to realize I haven’t come home. She’ll assume I’m off with a guy, proving that I’m just like her. It’ll be too late by the time anyone starts looking, if they even do. More likely, they’ll assume I ran away. I’m a poor kid, after all. We do that shit, so why waste resources looking?
No one else would help me even if they could. I have no friends. No father. Not even Mr. D. I cut him off. I pushed everyone away. If I never let them close, they could never leave. I told myself it was enough, that I was enough. And now I’m not, and I will pay for that mistake with my life. My only hope is the enemy, the very people who left me here to die.
I have no one else. Only me. So, I have to try. One more time.
My last fight night, the fight for my life.
I work with my numb hands until I feel blood running down my arms from the ropes. When my fingers lose all feeling, I yank at my arms, growing more and more desperate. I throw myself one way and another, hoping I can saw through my own wrists with the rope. If I had to walk out with no hands, at least I’d be alive. I cry out silently, my voice gone, choking on the gag, my shoulders wrenching until the pain overwhelms me, and I can’t pull at the bonds anymore.
I don’t know how long I’m there. Every truck that roars by on the highway makes me jump, every creak of the trees sends my panic spiraling. Frogs and insects drown out any other sound. When I hear voices again, a horrible relief swells in my chest.
They’re coming back for me.
Whispering drifts across the standing water, and then soft rippling laps at the ground near my feet. I can’t tell where they are. Is it the twins—just the twins? Everything echoes strangely in the watery swamp. A shiver runs up my spine, prickling the hair on the back of my neck. Their last words replay in my mind. When I hear the sloshing coming closer, terror replaces the relief, and the blood in my veins turns to ice crystals.
They’re coming back for me…
*