34. Athena
CHAPTER 34
Athena
FEbrUARY 20TH
Author Note: In case your copy opened after the content advisory page, please be aware that this chapter contains an on-page rape scene and may be triggering for some readers. Please protect your mental health and skip the next few chapters if you need to.
S avannah: Drinks and dancing?
It’s tempting. Soooooooo tempting. But if I don’t get this assignment finished tonight, I won’t be able to work on my business proposition for my boss. Okay, sure, he’s not my boss, he’s my investment portfolio manager, and I can overrule him if I feel like it. But when it comes to my finances, I like having an adultier adult on hand to make sure I’m not pissing my money away.
It's not quite hard-earned, but it’s hard kept.
Dancing and drinking sounds like fun, but this business proposition is important.
Athena: Library. Got to finish this assignment. Coffee tomorrow?
Savannah: All work, no play, makes Hen a dull… Hen.
I chuckle to myself in the library.
Savannah: They need to put your name on that desk when you graduate. “This desk is dedicated to our most nerdy book nerd, Athena de la Pena. She’s as much of an intellect as her namesake.”
Athena: That plaque would take up too much space. A bit wordy.
Savannah: Tomorrow. Or I’ll come and pull you out by your hair. I know where you live and the code to get inside.
Athena: You have a key to the front door too.
Savannah: Shit. So I do. My drug-addled self forgot that. Plus, the guy at the desk is hot for me.
Athena: LOL! What does Justin think about that?
Savannah: Keeps him on his toes, you know? So what if he’s an older man.
Athena: Bernard is pushing eighty, Vannah.
Savannah: So?
Savannah: Tomorrow. Or else.
Athena: Quaking in my Manolos.
Savannah: There’s no way you’re wearing those in the library.
I snap a picture of my beloved foot babies and send it to her.
Athena: Berrrrrp. Wrong answer.
Savannah: You’re crazy. One of these days someone’s going to steal those right off those weirdly perfect feet of yours.
Athena: Over my cold and dead body, Vannah. See you in the morning. Can’t have you needing to ask the boys for help burying my body.
I turn back to the project at hand, but before I know it, it’s almost midnight, and I have a sticky note stuck to my face. Seems someone took a nap in the library again.
The caretaker comes around to make sure I’m not drooling into my notes and won’t miss closing time. Though there are worse things I can think of that could happen than being locked in a library for the night.
I pack up. There’s nothing left in my tank tonight. I’ll grab a few hours of sleep, then get up a little earlier and get the job done.
Leaving the library, I’m dragging ass. I yawn as I trudge toward the front door. Somewhere, a window is open, and a gust of cold air sends a shudder through my heavy, tired body.
Thankfully, I always park right up front when I know I’m going to be here late, right under the lamppost to the left of the door outside. If anyone’s going to damage my beloved car, it’ll be under the harsh streetlight where there’s more chance of them being found.
In the short walk to the car, something shifts. Despite the cold, my hackles rise. The hair on my neck stands up, and I pick up my pace.
A throat clearing tells me that someone’s behind me. Before I can ready my bag, swing around to confront whoever’s on my six, or pull out my phone to call someone or record the encounter, a hand covers my mouth, jerking me backward at speed.
Dropping my car keys, I claw at the strong arm curled around me. I have no time for fear or feelings, survival instinct and adrenaline are the only things driving me, surging through my veins.
I thrash out with my fists, hoping to connect with whoever’s got me from behind, and kick out my feet. I can’t scream, but I can make myself tough to contain. Or at least I could until a second person picks up my feet.
Dread, utter dismay, and a deep sense of foreboding washes over me as I blink back tears. My body tenses. What do these men want? Money? They can have it. If they think my father will pay a ransom, they’re right. I may hate his living guts at the moment, but I’m still his little girl.
I open my mouth to try to scream but he grips my mouth tighter. When I try to bite down on his hand, a knee connects with my kidney, and stars blur my vision.
Fuck.
I’m helpless.
They don’t drop me onto the ground. I’m lowered to what feels like a patch of grass, but I’m disorientated and can’t figure out in the dim light where the fuck I am.
Have they been carrying me for seconds, minutes, or hours? I have no idea.
“Make it quick.” The man covering my mouth snarls at the other guy who is now spreading my legs.
No.
My blood runs cold. This isn’t a hostage situation; it’s not about money. These men are about to take something much more intimate from me.
The man at my feet pins one leg to the ground under his knee and picks the other one up. He tuts three times. “Such slutty little shoes. I bet she likes it rough.” There’s no accent other than a typical, accent-less Midwestern speech. I can’t tip my head back to get a look at the guy at my head, and the guy at my feet has a hood pulled up and a scarf over his chin.
When his knuckles curl around the band of my pants, I buck like a bronco at the fucking rodeo. I’m not going down without a fight. I’m not letting them take this from me.
Bile burns the back of my throat, tears sting my eyes, and no amount of screaming into the guy’s hand is helping. He lets go of my other hand, the unmistakable sound of a video being started on his phone has me throwing my fist around, but he’s out of reach.
My thrashing makes both of my attackers laugh. Laugh. Assholes. A flash of anger rattles through my body but it’s quickly replaced by terror as he pulls down my pants.
“See?” He tugs on my thong. “Red, lacy, thong.” He leans over me, the only thing I can see are his cruel, soulless eyes. “Filthy little sluts.” He snorts. “Her body, my choice, am I right?” He asks into the camera, or at least I assume so, because no one replies.
No amount of attempting to break free is helping the situation. And as much as I want to be problematic right now, rationally speaking, I might need to acquiesce somewhat, to let them think I’m subdued, resigned, and then strike.
No matter what I do, I bet they’ll say I wanted it, asked for it, consented to it.
I gag against attacker number one’s hand as the bile surges from my stomach. I fucking hate these incel assholes who think a woman is nothing more than their plaything. And now I’m seconds away from becoming another statistic.
Attacker number two yanks my underwear so hard I scream, there’s definitely a friction burn in my crack, but after a number of pulls, the fabric comes free, and he shoves the panties under his nose. “You smell so good babydoll.”
“Hurry the fuck up.” The guy holding the camera checks over his shoulder.
I give a couple more hard shakes, jolts, and wriggles before he shoves my legs apart. His fingers dig into my skin, and some part of my brain hopes he leaves his fucking fingerprints all over my thighs so I can throw his ass behind bars for what he’s doing to me.
The asshole holding my mouth still has me in an iron grip.
Attacker number two runs his hand through my pussy, and the tears I’ve been blinking back start to leak out.
“Fucking love it when they cry.” As his hand violates me, he leans over and laps up my tears. “She’s so wet too.”
“All the best sluts are,” attacker number one chimes in.
It’s clearly not their first time. The biting weight on my ankle tells me if I try to move again, there’s every chance I’ll do myself more damage. This is going to happen. Resignation seizes my entire body as attacker two unzips his fly.
All I can think about is what comes next. Report it to the campus police, the police, and have a rape kit done.
He leans over me and lines up his cock to my entrance.
To get the rape kit done, I’ll need evidence. To get evidence, I’ll need to mark them. DNA, hair, clothing fibers.
He thrusts into me on a heavy grunt, keeping my thighs pushed apart so I can’t fight back against him.
I’m at their mercy, and we all know it.
My body convulses as tears fall from my eyes, but my brain churns harder.
I have long nails, if I could scratch one of them and get their skin under my nails that’s not something they can clean away if they decide to try to clean me up after.
Fuck. He didn’t put on a condom. I almost laugh. Of course he didn’t, this isn’t about me in the slightest. He’s getting his rocks off at having someone held down by his friend and filming the whole thing.
True terror courses through my body. What STDs or STIs do these fuckers have?
I have Plan B in the apartment, just in case, even though I’m on birth control, but whatever these fuckers might be carrying… shit. I swallow hard and add testing to my mental list.
My body sags. “See,” he nods down at me, his hood slipping down off his head as he pounds into me. “She likes it.”
I know him. At least, I’ve seen his picture. This guy is a jock at my university. Is he on the football team? He’s not a hockey player, but I’ve seen his face somewhere. My resolve to destroy these fuckers strengthens.
Someone's mistaking resignation, strategy, regaining my strength, for pleasure.
Attacker number one’s hand is removed from my mouth, and I can finally lick my dry lips. It’s not for any good reason; he whips his cock out next to my head and starts fisting it while his friend has sex with me.
Rape.
He’s not having sex, he’s raping me.
My vision blurs as a new wave of tears fills my eyes. I’ve decided what I need to do, it’s going to hurt. I’m going to be punished, but if I want them to get arrested for what they’re putting me through, it’s the only answer.
When attacker number one instructs me to suck his dick, I shake my head, so he presses is cock against my mouth and holds my head, so I have no choice but to take it into my mouth.
I lull them into a false sense of security. I don’t fight him as he fucks my mouth, nor fight his friend as he still ploughs into my pussy. My body is limp, and if I’m honest with myself, with every thrust of their cocks a piece of my soul splinters.
I don’t have time to think about how they’re breaking me, how they’re going to react to what I’m about to do. I just need to get free, to start screaming and hope someone nearby hears, or that it’s enough to make them run.
As long as I can breathe, I can fight. And while they might think I’m compliant, they clearly don’t know who they’re fucking with.
I suck in a few steadying breaths in a bid to stop the tears from pouring down my face. It’s almost as though I’m having an outer body experience, like what I’m experiencing isn’t happening to me, it’s happening to someone else. And I have to save her.
At the same time, I bite down on attacker one’s cock, I reach out and scratch the shit out of attacker two’s neck. DNA in my teeth and under my fingernails. Mission accomplished. But the retribution starts immediately.
Someone punches my jaw, the stars from getting kneed in the kidney have got nothing on this new wave of blinding agony. My mouth falls open, and he extracts his cock, giving me the space to scream and scream and scream some more.
Attacker number two throws his weight onto my ankle and the strain alone makes my stomach lurch. If he doesn’t snap my foot in two it’ll be a miracle. He rains punches down on me, each harder than the last. The pain is too much, vomit rises in my throat and spews out of my mouth.
“Shit. Fuck. Brock, we need to leave.” Attacker number one’s voice is meek, charged with panic. Guess that’s what happens when someone takes a nice chunk out of your dick. I make another mental note to collect my puke. I bet there’ll be flakes of his penis skin in there along with my candy from the library.
Brock isn’t as easily swayed at his friend. “Not till I teach this whore a lesson, Jonah. She needs to learn, they all fucking do.” He backhands me, making my teeth rattle. Every strike on my body hurts more than the last, but part of me, somewhere dark and twisted wants to fist pump that they’re leaving all the evidence I need to throw them in a dark cell and throw away the fucking key.
Jonah and Brock. Another detail I tuck away for the debrief at the police station later.
I don’t know how many more hits he gets to unleash on me, or how my body manages to curl into the fetal position, but at some point, Jonah pulls his friend from me, and they scurry away back to where they came from.
With trembling hands and the last remaining strength I have left in my body, I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my phone. Apollo is the first brother alphabetically on my phone, so I hit the call button, smearing blood all over my screen and try to remain conscious as the ringing and ringing threatens to drag me under into unconsciousness.