Chapter 9 #2
Leah tried to scramble to her feet, but the grip on her hair was too strong.
She tried to scream, but the sound was drowned against the rough palm of a hand slapping across her mouth.
The hand yanked on her mouth, the other clutched her jacket, and now she was on her back being dragged deeper into the depths of the bridge, her skin being flayed by the pavement.
Her scalp felt like it was being ripped off her head.
She grappled for his hand, trying to pull it free.
She kicked and only struck air. Shadows moved around her.
Hands yanked at her jeans and pulled them down.
She stopped fighting abruptly, her fear overwhelmed by defeat.
She had learned long ago that fighting only made it worse.
Her body numbed. Her mind numbed. She turned her head to the side, staring at the wolf on the brick wall.
Don’t cry, she repeated to herself over and over, only babies cry, and if you cry, he’ll give you something more to cry about.
Pain shot like a knife’s blade through her as the first one slammed into her.
Her ears were slapped with panting and grunting.
A sob caught in her throat and fell out of her mouth, but she was glad when the sound was lost in the whining of the wind.
It only took a few minutes. The second guy grunted, and his warm seed spilled inside her.
He sat up above her, his knees pressed to her waist, panting.
They would let her go now because she didn’t see their faces, because she was just another drugged-up whore.
The police wouldn’t care about it even if she told them.
She could feel his eyes burning through her, but she kept her head to the side, staring at the wolf. Don’t look and he will leave. Don’t look and he might not want more. She heard a rustle of fabric; out of the corner of her eye, she caught the glint of a silvery blade.
Her head twisted back. “No,” she rasped. “Please, I won’t tell, I won’t tell.”
“Do it,” the other one said, his eyes darting around, making sure no one could see them.
“Please, no. I have children I have to look after. I won’t tell, I won’t tell.”
The boy had a shaved head, a square jaw, and a blood-red tear on his cheek. “Oh, sweetheart.” He ran his calloused knuckles down her cheek gently, sending a bolt of terror through her. “I know you won’t.”
Fight, the voice whispered.
Leah slammed her knee up into his groin. He grunted and folded as she shuffled frantically backwards, but her head slammed into a pole so hard, her vision spun and it disorientated her.
“You fucking bitch.” The boy advanced, and Leah turned and tried to run, but her jeans tangled around her ankles and she barely made it to her knees when she felt an explosion of white-hot pain through her back.
She screamed as she collapsed to her stomach, the warm spread of blood rushing over her back and down her side.
She tried to crawl away, but she screamed again as the blade struck somewhere higher, and she collapsed back down again.
In the distance, a siren wailed. Maybe someone had called the cops.
Don’t move, the voice breathed.
Leah stayed motionless, didn’t even risk a breath.
“Let’s go, man.” He sounded panicked.
“I have to finish her off,” the other argued.
“She’s fucking dead. We have to go.”
She heard their footsteps running away until they too were drowned out with the wind.
She took a wheezing breath, and the agony that exploded through her body was brutal and burning.
Her fingers grated against the ground, shredding skin as she tried to pull herself toward the light, toward the sound of the siren coming closer.
The pain was like a strike of lightning through her, building and building with every jerky movement.
She was exhausted beyond any exhaustion she had ever known.
The earth seemed to resist her effort to crawl, almost as if she thought, distressingly, that hell was reaching up and pulling her back down.
She thought of her kids, she saw their faces, their huge smiles, the way their eyes lit up when they were happy.
She remembered the scent of their freshly washed hair.
They still used baby shampoo when she could steal it; she loved breathing them in when she read to them sometimes at night.
She never read to them enough. She made a silent vow, if she survived, she’d read to them every night.
The open street was only a few meters away when Leah’s body lost power and she couldn’t drag herself any further.
Her head spun, and she couldn’t draw enough air.
The pain in her back and stomach was raw and ugly.
The siren began to fade away. Leah realized that she was dying and she’d never see her kids again.
A pair of black boots appeared from seemingly nowhere, soft leather ones, expensive, not cheap like hers.
Relief flooded through her, filling her body slowly, blending with the pain.
Someone had come to help. Tears prickled.
Leah blinked and lifted her gaze. Darkness looked down at her.
The relief froze in her veins. The face was cloaked by a hooded jacket, but the eyes were black and glittery, as if darkness dwelled within—as if the devil itself had come to claim her.
“Help me,” Leah rasped.
“Do you want to live?” The voice was as sweet as candy and music. She’d never heard a voice so beautiful. And yet, Leah’s body grew colder.
“Please,” Leah whimpered. “Help.”
“If I let you live, you must do what I ask. Is that understood?”
No, the voice urged.
Black crowded the edges of her vision. She felt the life ebb from her body like an hourglass draining of sand. Leah knew she was taking her last breaths.
She closed her eyes and pictured her children.
“I will ask again, do you want to live?”
Don’t, the voice warned.
Leah’s eyes fluttered open. She didn’t know what she had to do to survive, but instinctively she knew it wouldn’t be anything pleasant.
But finally, someone had come to save her.
“Yes,” Leah whispered.
The thing smiled.
The wolf was back now, its fangs dripping with blood as it roared toward her neck.