Chapter 15 Aerin
AERIN
“Take off your clothes.” The ragged, croaky voice escaping the man before me drags a claw-like shiver right down my spine, and my heart lurches beneath my chest.
This isn’t right.
I don’t want to be here.
But just like when he approached me in the bar and firmly told me to follow him, I can’t resist.
It’s like a compulsion that rises inside me like the swelling pressure of trapped air.
Clenching my hands into fists, I peer past him at the two other men lingering in this dark room.
One rests near the door, legs crossed at the ankle and picking at his teeth.
The other is a foot away with a phone in his hand pointed directly at me and a cold smirk stretching across his face.
“Take off your clothes!” the first man yells.
I don’t want to.
The compulsion grows so strong that I can’t stop myself no matter how loudly I scream in my mind about doing the opposite.
My hands rise and curl at my shirt, skimming quickly up and down the buttons.
Each one pops through the fabric with a little delay as my fingers tremble and the man before me leers forward.
Tears well in the corner of my eyes and the cold air of the room sweeps across my warm skin as my shirt falls open.
“Look at her,” says the man near the door with a scoff. “She’s gonna be so grateful when you fuck her. Fat ones always are.”
“She’ll suck your cock right off.” The one with the camera laughs. “Fucking hungry little slut, look at her. Those tits are massive.”
My cheeks burn hot and the tears pour as shame and fear collide in my chest.
As a sob bubbles up, I clutch at my blouse to keep it closed, but the ragged-voiced man before me surges forward and slaps me hard.
My head whips to the side and he grabs a fistful of my hair, dragging me close.
“I said take off your clothes!” he yells in my face, choking me with a breath of stale cigarettes and liquor. “I want a show! Take them off!”
I don’t want to.
The louder he yells, the stronger the compulsion becomes.
He shoves me back toward the single bed behind me and I can’t stop myself.
My blouse falls from my shoulders and I shed my skirt just as quickly, even as tears pour down my face and panic claws up my throat like acid.
I don’t understand.
I don’t want to be here. I tried to fight in the car, but they overpowered me.
I tried to fight on my way up the steps to this apartment, but, just like with my clothes, one yell and I followed like a puppy.
Now I stand in my underwear, shivering against the cold as all three of them leer at me with sickness in their eyes.
“Make her fight a little,” says the man with the camera, and he drops one hand to his crotch, adjusting his pants as he speaks. “It’s always hotter when they fight.”
“You want me to fuck you?” barks the ragged man as he advances. “Do you want me to fuck that sweet pussy of yours?”
“No!” I gasp through my tears. A tremble takes over my entire body as if I’m about to shake apart at my joints. “I don’t! I don’t want to be here, please I’ll do anything just let me go. I want to go home!”
“This is your new home,” he sneers. “Get on the fucking bed and tell me the truth! Tell me you want me to fuck you until you can’t walk, until my cum is dribbling out of you like a fucking faucet!
” With each step, he shoves me back toward the bed, and I try to resist. I try to fight each shove, but he’s so much stronger than me and everything Falco taught me flies out of my mind.
I hit the mattress and suddenly he’s on top of me, slapping me repeatedly while yelling in my face. “Tell me you want this! Tell me you want to fuck me so bad you’re going to be addicted!”
Through the tears and sobs that wrench out of me, I try to protect my face with my hands, but he catches my wrists and forces them onto the bed above my head.
His weight is crushing and he leans down, yelling so loud in my face.
I jerk my head to the side, trying to escape him as his demands pour past my lips like vomit.
“I want you to fuck me,” I sob. “I want you to fuck me so bad I’ll b-be addicted!”
Cheers rise up from behind the man. No matter how I kick my legs or twist my body, I’m unable to dislodge the man crushing me. He rises up and grabs my bra with one hand, wrenching the fabric aside until my breasts spill out.
I scream and he slaps me again, then he punches me hard enough to daze me.
“Spread your legs, whore,” he yells in my face. “He wants a close-up before I fuck you!”
His weight disappears from my body. Just like every other command, I do as instructed while sobbing into the pillow, sick with fear at what’s to come.
But it doesn’t come.
The touch I dread never makes contact with my skin.
There’s a loud crash, a flurry of yells and screams, then several short, sharp bangs that bring the room to silence.
Then, suddenly, Falco’s face floats over mine as a blanket covers my body.
“Aerin?”
“F-Falco?” Even through my tears, his handsome face is undeniably recognizable, and a fresh wave of heartbroken tears surges through me, clogging my throat as I try to speak. “O-Oh my g-god.”
“I’m here. I’m here. You’re okay. You’re okay. Sit up for me, Aerin, can you do that?”
Just like before, that same compulsion washes over me and I immediately sit up without much thought. Three dead bodies litter the floor around the bed, but the second I glance at them Falco’s body suddenly blocks my view.
“Don’t look.”
I look away and gaze up at him, struggling to wrap my head around how he’s even here. Shadows move in the dark behind him as he shrugs off his jacket and drapes it around my shoulders.
“Keep your eyes on me, Aerin, okay? Just on me. Can you walk?”
I don’t look away. Before I can answer, Falco’s already scooped me up into his arms.
“You want a route to a hospital?” asks a distantly familiar voice.
“No,” Falco replies as he holds me close in his thick, strong arms. “We need someplace safe.”
I don’t look away. Through the walk out of the apartment and into a waiting van, I keep my eyes locked firmly on Falco’s face.
I count the bristles of his facial hair, mixing between silver strands and dark ones.
I map out the wrinkles on his face, the curl of skin between his deeply frowning eyebrows, the sparkle in his eye that appears dull with the hard, determined look in his eyes.
This close, I can even map out a few faint scars that aren’t visible from far away.
Through it all, I can’t stop crying. The sobs tear their way out of me as violently as my trembling, and not once does Falco relax his grip on me.
He holds me as close as he can and I clutch at his shirt, weeping openly as my mind churns with fading thoughts and only one explicit instruction.
Keep my eyes on Falco.
Then I’m in my lap and he’s cradling me. Finally, after a few soft bangs, Falco looks down at me and there’s a very brief flicker of confusion. “Aerin. You’re safe now, do you hear me? Can you understand what I’m saying?”
“I’m safe,” I repeat, following the same compulsion that’s been dragging me along all night.
Falco’s brow dips faintly, and he tightens his grip on me, tucking me in against his neck and under his chin.
I breathe in, flooding my lungs with the comforting mix of leather, fabric softener, salt, and the familiar musk that drifts off Falco.
It’s a steadying, familiar scent. Using that as my grounding point, my tears slowly begin to fade.
It’s unclear how much time passes, but when the van stops Falco’s hand very gently touches my cheek and he tenderly sweeps away a few lingering tears.
I blink blearily up at him as the compulsion in my heart is gradually replaced by a deep exhaustion that weighs down my eyelids with every slow blink.
“You want me to check her over?” comes an unfamiliar voice as Falco lifts me from the van and keeps me tucked against him. There’s a rush of cold air as we exit the van and it kisses glimpses of my bare skin that escape the blanket and jacket still wrapped around me.
“No,” comes Falco’s reply. “Not yet.”
“You sure?” comes a second, unfamiliar voice. “Might be good while it’s fresh.”
“Look at her.” Falco’s voice grows distant. “She can’t keep her eyes open.”
“What takes this long to hit?” comes a third voice.
This one is familiar. I know this one. As I’m carried past a door frame and floral wallpaper that doesn’t strike any familiarity in my heart, I search my thoughts to place that name.
But each slow blink drags my body deeper and deeper into a sluggish state.
As much as I try to fight it, as much as I fight to stay away with Falco, something’s taking over.
The voices around me grow deep and incoherent as I seemingly float out of Falco’s arms and land on something soft. Falco’s face remains over me and I watch his lips move, but nothing he says reaches my ears.
Other faces mill about behind him, blurry and unfocused like mites dancing around a lightbulb.
I blink and Falco’s face is closer as if he’s trying harder to get his words to reach me.
He’s here. That’s all I need to know.
I blink again.
And don’t wake up.