I was already in too much pain to feel any new strikes. Numb from the inside out. My mind played tricks on me that I thought I was in one of my nightmares, and it would be over as soon as I woke up.
But it was real. Ashley’s death was real.
Rush, tearing my pants from behind now, was real.
“I’d knock you out, but I need you broken over this.” He flipped me over, and I heard the jingling of a belt buckle. My eyes were too swollen to see it for sure.
He ripped off my panties. “For the record, I wasn’t planning on killing anyone tonight. If you’d come with me after school like I told you, she would’ve still been alive.”
My gut feeling was right to walk away from him when he offered me a ride. He was planning to kidnap me all along. I wished I hadn’t listened and let him kidnap me. At least, Ashley would have still been alive. And now this…
My eyes twitched and throbbed as I felt his weight on top of me and his hand around my throat. As he was about to mount me.
Two choices flashed in my head.
One: drift in the darkness threatening to swallow me and let him do what he came here to do.
Two: do everything in my power to stop the son of a bitch. No matter what.
Something flared in me, a strength I didn’t know I still had left or the colossal hate I had for the Night fucking Skulls. All I knew was that if I was going down, letting those fuckers win again wasn’t an option. The second choice seemed so much more appealing.
I crashed my forehead against his chest as hard as I could. Once. Twice. Three times. He backed off a little, struggling to breathe. Then my knee shot up, hitting his hanging nuts with a crack.
“Not again, you bitch!” He plopped on his back with a loud thud, cupping his crotch, growling.
I jumped to my feet. Well, I tried. His hand reached for my ankle, bringing me back down. I kicked, freeing myself but stumbling into the couch. I crept away from him on the cold floor, glass splinters spearing me, going inside of me, my hands desperate for anything I could use as a weapon.
“Damn, you’re feisty.” The glass clinked under his weight as he went after me from behind. “No wonder he fell hard for you. I like feisty brunettes, too.”
In a swift move, my shirt, the last piece of clothing covering me, tore with a loud ripping sound under his hands. He held my wrists and pressed them to the floor as he flipped me on my back. “Like father like son.”
“What?” I gasped through the gag.
“You haven’t figured it out yet? Dusty was never Roar’s. He’s always been mine.”
Nauseated and shocked, I strained my eyes to stare at his. They looked exactly like Dusty’s I’d mistaken Rush for him earlier. Except they were menacing and brutal and cold, and now they were filled with predatory rage and lust.
The sick revelation dawned on me sending a stronger wave of nausea down my core. A man raping his kid’s girlfriend was a new level of sick shit only the Night Skulls were capable of hitting.
“Not that I want you for myself, but I have to do this.” He placed my wrists on top of each other above my head and held them with one grip, the other securing his gun behind him and then lowering his jeans. “I know your type. You can’t be with him after I have my way with you, and he wouldn’t touch you again knowing he couldn’t protect you.” He pulled out his penis. “Nothing personal. It’s the only way you’d leave him the fuck alone so he remains President.”
What the fuck? That was all they cared about? Killing Ashley, raping me, breaking and fucking their own president’s life just to protect their business? I squirmed, lying beneath him, hope slipping out of me. “He’ll kill you.”
“What? Kill me like he killed Roar for you? Is that what you said?” He chuckled. The fucking bastard chuckled. “He can’t. There’s a lot you don’t know, but I’ll tell you this. He won’t make the same mistake twice. I made sure of it.”
What the fuck did that mean? My mind raced to find an answer but then stopped to a halt when the horrors of the time I’d spent in Rosewood while Roar tried to rape me assaulted me as hard as Rush was doing to me now. The tip of his penis penetrated me, and I was so tense I couldn’t even piss myself to stop him. I spat, aiming for his face, forgetting I was gagged, and drool streamed down my chin instead of his face. He watched me, his eyes oozing with evil joy.
Choice one seemed appropriate now. I’d fought and fought but was overpowered by the Night Skulls. I lost. In fact, I’d lost the battle against them from the day they took Annie. Everything I did was for nothing. I lost my sister and my family. I lost Dusty. I lost Ashley. I was about to lose my life too. I closed the little crack of my eyes that was still open and surrendered to the blackness about to engulf me.
The world stopped for a moment. No noises. No pain.
Stillness.
Surrender.
Peace.
Then, right before the last shred of resistance left my body, Annie’s image flashed in the back of my head.