Chapter 4 #2
I screamed at the top of my lungs for help, my dad’s high leaving him unresponsive and blissed out on the sofa as I watched Kush unzip his pants.
“Shut her up,” Kush snarled at Peter. “We don’t have much time.”
Peter rolled one of his knees onto the palm of my hand so that he could use one of his hands to undo his own zipper.
My screams were silenced, just as Kush had asked, by his sweat-and-piss-tainted dick.
My first instinct behind choking and gagging was to bite down on his disgusting penis, but he had experience.
His gun rose and he tsked. I tried to turn my head away from him to get his dick out of my mouth, only to be met by the lifeless brown orbs of my brother right beside me.
“I’ll put another bullet in his head if you bite me,” Peter grunted, shoving his cock so far down my throat I couldn’t breathe.
I gagged. My eyes watered and I squeezed them shut, praying to God that they didn’t swell. I slammed my heels against the floor as I tried to gain purchase to move away or buck Kush from my body. “That’s it, güerita, give me a reason to mutilate his corpse while I cum down your throat.”
Fuck! I stopped struggling and I tried to focus on something, anything else, but I couldn’t.
Someone’s hand, I didn’t know whose, was raising my shirt and I heard the fabric of my sports bra being torn open to reveal my chest. The sound of something clattering beside me made me open my eyes.
In my peripheral, I could just make out the hilt of a pocketknife.
Peter pulled back just enough to allow me to breathe, only to choke me with warm liquid that was forcing its way down my throat. I quickly turned my head to the side where my brother wasn’t lying and gagged. The pocketknife was just inches away from my head.
“Pinche puta, you’re supposed to swallow!” Peter yelled, spitting straight across my face.
Kush began thrusting so forcefully into me that Peter had to remove his knees from my hands to hold my shoulders to keep my body from sliding between his spread legs. I didn’t let the pain distract me and grabbed the knife. Without hesitation, I thrust it into the nearest body part.
Kush gasped, his eyes shooting open as he looked down at the knife sticking out of his body.
He gingerly gripped the knife and fell onto his forearm, rolling his upper half onto the floor while crushing my legs.
Kush was shouting but I didn’t process what as I shoved out from underneath his body, my hands slipping on the sticky blood.
I was turning to run to my room when my hair was grabbed so harshly that it snapped my neck and body backward and I landed on my butt.
Before I could stop him, Peter’s boot landed on the side of my face.
My ears were pounding with my erratic pulse and a high-pitched ringing as I tried to curl up into a ball to defend myself.
The kicking suddenly stopped, and I scrambled back to my feet, locking myself in my bedroom. I shuddered, gagging at the sight of my body covered in blood.
“Carlos is going to let me do the torturing when he finds out what you’ve done,” Peter shouted from the other side of my door. “Pinche perra loca!”
I didn’t have time to think. I wiped my hands haphazardly on my sheets before I grabbed my backpack, which had been emptied in the process of him destroying my room.
I shoved a handful of clothes inside. The adrenaline was the only thing that kept me moving as I threw my math textbook at my window.
It took several attempts before it shattered, and I pushed the remaining glass pieces out to climb through the hole.
I could hear Peter shouting my name from the front door, slinging more threats towards my life as I crossed the street.
I didn’t need to question whether or not they were real.
Los Siete would find me, and they would kill me.
Just as Javi had warned. It wasn’t a scare tactic, and I was very much afraid.
I didn’t look back as my feet pounded the pavement, and I didn’t stop running until the adrenaline began to wear off and the pain settled inside me. I could no longer breathe, my ribs aching, and I stopped, clutching my side as I tried to take some breaths to prevent myself from passing out.
Flashes of my brother’s dead body filled my vision, and I quickly blinked them away. I needed to focus.
“Fight like hell.”
No, focus, Shiloh.
“Te quie—”
I slammed the heel of my hands over my eyes painfully, trying to wipe the images away. My eyes were prickling as tears threatened to form, but I quickly pulled my hands away with a shriek when I realized they were still covered in blood.
Fuck, I can’t afford to cry. I can’t afford to deal with my ridiculous allergy to my own goddamn tears. I need to fucking focus and stop being so goddamn weak. Stop being fucking weak!
I dropped my hands by my sides and shifted the weight of my backpack on my shoulder, looking around me. I was standing in the middle of an empty parking lot of a small strip mall.
Focus. What do you need to do right now?
I forced myself to drag my feet forward, pretending that Javier was walking there beside me, telling me to fucking buck up and endure the pain like he usually did when he was testing me.
I didn’t even know what time it was, but I had finally calmed my brain down enough to realize that I needed to get somewhere to assess the damage. Somewhere with a lock.
I walked until I reached a gas station convenience store that was open.
I staggered inside, my body now shaking from a combination of being cold and the after-effects of the adrenaline that had been keeping me going until now.
The sound of an electronic doorbell rang above my head as I entered, alerting the clerk to my presence.
I was sure I didn’t look pretty, and I technically just stabbed someone who could very well be dead right now.
Fuck, was I a murderer? What if I actually killed Kush? I was never going to get out of this alive.
I slowly made my way to the counter where a middle-aged Latino man glared down at me.
“Bathroom,” I managed to say through chattering teeth.
He eyed me skeptically before sliding a key attached to a long piece of plastic through the hole in the glass barrier between us.
“You want me to call the cops?”
My heart hammered in my chest as I shook my head frantically. I’d learned my lesson. No cops. Ever. The man held up his hand, releasing his hold on the key.
I managed to make it to the bathroom without passing out and I locked the door behind me.
It was dirty and smelled like a sewer, but I couldn’t really breathe through my nose anyway since it felt like it was swollen shut.
When I reached the cracked mirror, I stared at my reflection and almost fell over at the hideous sight.
I turned the sink on, leaning awkwardly over it so that I could rinse my hair free of my brother’s blood.
I had to pause, gagging over the sink, before forcing myself to finish scrubbing my fingers until they were clean too.
Then I splashed the cold water on my face until the rest of the blood was washed off and swirling down the drain.
I grabbed a handful of paper napkins and began dabbing my face dry.
My hands were shaking and my teeth chattering so hard it was painful.
I stepped back and lifted up my shirt, revealing a smattering of red splotches that I was sure would become bruises across my abdomen and rib cage.
I gently pressed down on my sides, wincing as I grazed my fingers over each rib.
I couldn’t tell if they were cracked or just bruised, but it certainly hurt like hell with my whole body still involuntary trembling.
I stripped out of my clothes and whimpered at the sight of all the blood covering my back and legs. I turned to the toilet just in time to vomit. Everything fucking hurt a hundred times worse when I finished.
Focus, Shiloh.
I put on the clothes I had blindly shoved into my backpack.
Javier’s hoodie dwarfed me, the scent of him overwhelming.
After several deep breaths of his scent, I grabbed the bloody clothes from the ground and shoved them into the front pocket of my backpack.
Without all the blood on my face, the only major thing that stood out was my busted lip and nose.
I was startled by someone banging on the door and I hissed as it jolted my ribcage.
“Hurry up! I’ve gotta piss,” a man’s voice shouted.
When there was more banging on the door, I placed my backpack on my shoulders and exited, handing the angry customer the key.
I walked out into the parking lot of the gas station and realized I still didn’t know what time it was.
Or where I was going to go. It was probably after midnight, which made it sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning.
I had nowhere to go. And even if I did, I’d never endanger their lives.
I’d sooner go home than have to live with the guilt of someone else’s death.
I scoffed at that. Home. It was never really a home, was it? My mind was threatening to flood with memories, and I pushed them to the back, focusing on a destination. I lied to myself that this was all a fucked-up nightmare and that I’d wake up soon as I slowly headed towards the 24-hour drugstore.
???
The seven dollars that I had in my wallet were gone, as was my wallet and everything else that I had in my backpack last night. Well, minus two nickels that must’ve gotten stuck when it was being shaken empty by Peter.
After walking around the drugstore for an hour and a half, I was politely asked to leave unless I was planning on buying something.
I was tempted to five-finger discount some items, like a bottle of painkillers, but I never found the right moment since I was the only customer in the store.
It was almost five in the morning by then, the red letters on the sign outside the drugstore flashing the time and date.
The pain was getting to be almost unbearable, and I didn’t think I could walk around much longer. When the sun rose, I finally stopped, sitting down on a tree-covered park bench in one of the wealthier neighborhoods in town.
It was impossible to push out the memories of what happened and all I wanted was for Javier to tell me what to do.
I needed him there with me like he was a drug that would make everything feel better.
The urge to relieve the pain I felt was so debilitating that if I had access to hard drugs, I would have taken them.
I’d never once had the desire to take any of the drugs that were in my house growing up because I was terrified I would end up like my dad.
Or worse, afraid that I’d be taken advantage of during a vulnerable state.
Sure, I’d smoked weed on occasion, but that just relaxed me a little, and I always did it when Javier was there to protect me.
But right now, I needed something to numb the searing pain in my chest every time I took a breath, the burning ache in between my legs that made me want to vomit, the throbbing in my head…And I didn’t think alcohol or weed would cut it.
My eyes were too heavy to keep open, but the constant buzz of anxiety beating through my body was preventing me from fully relaxing as I tried to get into a comfortable position on the hard park bench.
Why didn’t Javi try and fight back?
Why didn’t I try harder to stop him from being murdered?
I didn’t even get to tell Javier that I loved him.
Did he know that I did? Did I show it enough? Did I tell him enough times?
How much longer was Carlos going to let me live before he came for me?
Would he make it quick like he did Javier’s death?
Cinco.
Fuck!
Five fucking seconds and I didn’t even tell him I loved him.
The thoughts were too much for me to cope with, my stomach churning and the back of my neck prickling with sweat. I hobbled to the grass behind the bench and retched. When it finally stopped, I returned to the bench, wiping the tears that had involuntarily formed.
The dam had broken, and I gave into the sob’s wracking my beaten body, crying so hard that I could hardly breathe. It’d been eight years since I’d cried and there was no shortage of tears.
I wasn’t even strong enough to defend myself. The second he was gone I was raped. All those hours training me went out the window when it really mattered. Javi was right. I was never going to be strong, and I was only glad he wasn’t here to witness it.
The thought of going after Carlos crossed my mind, but it was fleeting and a pointless fairytale to entertain the idea. The local police were in Carlos’s pocket. And, apparently, Los Siete controlled not only Texas but the whole of the Southwest.
They could be on their way to kill me now.
How long before someone from Los Siete came after me? Carlos, Peter, Vargas, or even Kush if he survived. Knowing my luck, he probably did.
I was a dead girl walking. I was homeless, currently worth two nickels, and not even a legal adult. What the fuck was I supposed to do now? Javier made it clear that when I got out of Granby, my safest option was the furthest place from Los Siete. How the fuck was I going to get to the East Coast?
Even if I managed to get out of town, I couldn’t get a job because I didn’t have any documents required to get a legal one.
I didn’t have any form of identification, my social security card…
anything that was necessary to prove my identity and used to report for proper wages.
And if I did, who was to say Carlos wouldn’t track me down and kill me to keep me quiet.
The guilt only worsened when I realized I was in the same exact shoes as Javier when he was forced into gang work as a means to an end.
But what the fuck was Carlos on about? Some life debt my dad owed him? Why the fuck was he calling Javier, Jack? And how the fucking hell did I not know my brother was a snitch?
My head was spinning with too many thoughts. It was making me dizzy and breathless.
Fuck, I need you, Javier. I need you to tell me what to do. I need you to tell me where to go, tell me that it’s going to be okay, and tell me that I’m going to survive. Tell me to get my sorry ass off this bench and fight like hell to get out of Texas.