3. Chloe
Chloe
I don’t realize I’ve fallen asleep until the car jerks to a stop.
Next to me, Zack rolls his neck, the tension audibly clicking out of it.
His eyes are on me, and I get the feeling that they have been for a while.
I shift awkwardly in my seat, and mentally check my body over.
I’m stiff from sleeping at an awkward angle, but I don’t think he’s taken advantage and touched me. That’s a first.
Looking out the window, I see we’ve pulled up at a gas station. It doesn’t appear to be open.
How far did we travel?
I’ve never seen this place before. The few times I was lucky enough to be chosen for a group trip out of the convent it was only ever to the local town.
Although I wasn’t allowed to make eye contact or talk to anyone, those days were so exciting.
If one of the nicer chaperones were there, they’d take me and the other girls to a bookstore or a bakery.
I got to eat the sweetest cakes without having to earn them.
It truly was the best feeling, being away from it all.
Away from the thick musty air, the damp stone walls, and the man who watched my every move.
“I think you’re going to have to find someplace else if you need to fill up,” I say, my voice raspy from sleep.
“Looks like it, doesn’t it.” Zack frowns. “How about I fill the tank while you go check if it’s closed or not. If there’s no one here, I’ll just leave some bills by the pump.”
I could do with stretching my legs, so I agree and head to the building. Cupping my hands to the window, I see a faint light flickering on in a back room where someone’s watching television.
“There’s someone in there, but I still don’t think they’re open,” I call back to Zack.
When he doesn’t reply, I turn to see him staring at me, his hip resting against the side of the car as he pumps the gas in.
I can’t tell what he’s thinking from his blank expression, but it makes me nervous the way he watches me.
The intensity stirs up new sensations in me, ones that were never there under the others’ watchful eyes.
This man…Zack…he’s scary in a much different way. I shouldn’t let my guard down.
“Try the door.”
Pushing against the glass door, it opens easily, the little bell ringing above it.
I hear someone muttering from the room ahead. Before I step inside, I look back at Zack. There’s a small smile teasing his lips now. He tips his chin up, motioning for me to venture further in.
A chill runs over my skin as I step inside. The door noisily swings shut behind me.
“Hello? Sorry to disturb you, we just need to pay for some gas.”
There’s more muttering, and I hear someone moving around. A tall slim man wearing a pair of faded blue jeans, and a dirty green flannel shirt staggers from the backroom. The closer he gets, the taller he becomes. His long, lanky hair casts an eerie shadow over his gaunt face.
From the drool crusted on his chin, it seems that I woke him up.
“Thought I locked that,” he mumbles, running a hand through his hair, his fingers catching on the tangled ends. “What do you want?”
“Gas. My um, friend, is outside, he just needs to pay for it.” When I look out the window the car is there, but Zack is gone. Where the hell did he go?
The stench of body odor and stale beer suddenly overwhelms me. I stumble back as the man gets close enough to tug on my habit.
“What is this? You’re far too young and pretty to be a nun. Suppose times have changed. If they all look like you, I’ll have to pay a visit to that convent down the road.”
“If you can just let us pay then we’ll be out of here.”
He glances out the window and sees that I’m alone. The way his eyes light up makes me want to vomit. I step away from him, and my back hits the closed door, the bell jingling above me.
“I don’t see any friend out there. I think you’re playing games with me, little girl,” he croons, reaching for me again. I try to open the door, but he’s too close. He slams his hand onto it next to my head, keeping it shut while he slides the deadbolt closed with the other, locking me in with him.
My heart lodges in my throat, shutting off my air supply.
Is this really what my world will be like? Being at the mercy of men for the rest of my life?
I want to believe that there are people out here I can trust. That not everyone’s evil. My first taste of freedom isn’t living up to what I hoped it would be.
I turn my face away before his stale breath suffocates me.
“Tell you what. You don’t need to worry about paying for that gas if you come spend some time with me in the back. It’s nice and cozy. I’ll make sure you have a real good time.”
His words churn up a fire inside me. One that I kept dormant for far too long, and for the second time tonight I let it out.
“You have no right to touch me!” Bringing my knee up, I manage to hit him in the balls. It winds him enough to give me the chance to shove him hard and squeeze past.
There’s no sign of another way out other than through the room he came from, so I aim for there, and hope it leads to an exit.
“You little cunt! Get back here!” he groans.
I make it into the room and see a fire exit on the other side. His footsteps are right behind me as I push it open so hard that I tumble out.
“Zack!” I scream, sprinting as fast as I can around to the front of the building. His car is there, but he’s still missing. Did something happen to him?
“Come here!” The man from inside stumbles toward me, one hand cupping his balls, the other outstretched to grab me.
My options are extremely limited. The car’s no longer viable. Without Zack I can’t leave on the road. The woods it is then.
Picking up my skirt, I circle the building and aim for the trees. If I’m fast enough, I can find a hiding spot and figure out my next steps from there .
The blood rushing in my ears has me losing track of whether or not I’m still being pursued, but I don’t stop running. Not until I come to a sudden halt by smacking face-first into something solid.
“There you are.” Zack smiles down at me, and wraps his arms around my shoulders like he’s embracing a long-lost love.
I clutch at his shirt, panic clear in my voice as I whisper, “We have to leave, now!”
Zack keeps on smiling at me.
“Why the hell are you smiling? What are you even doing out here? The guy back there is a total creep! You left me alone with him, you asshole!”
He grabs my chin, and runs his thumb over my bottom lip. “I never knew nuns had such dirty mouths. Is the rest of you this filthy?”
A twisted feeling starts up deep in my belly, and I force myself to fight it. Now is not the time to get lured in by this guy.
“Get off me!” I twist in his grasp, and he uses the movement to his advantage to spin me around, and pin my back to his chest. Something cold and sharp presses to my throat.
“Calm down, little sinner. Wouldn’t want Daddy coming down to smite you now, would we? I quite like the sound of doing that myself,” he purrs in my ear, and all the air whooshes from my lungs as he grinds his hard length into my ass.
My skin goes cold from fear, but my insides are as hot as hell.
I’ve always been a sinner, never good enough for anyone to respect.
Not even myself. Any shred of dignity I was clinging to has been disintegrated by the shameful heat brought on in my body by his touch.
I didn’t think I was so bad that a tattooed stranger holding a knife to my throat could turn me on.
Yet, here I am, in his grasp and damp between my legs.
Pressing his nose to the back of my head, Zack inhales sharply and sighs. What the hell? Is he smelling me?
I feel his cock twitch against me.
“You’re a pervert like all the others!” I fight against him, attempting to kick him, but no matter what I do he doesn’t budge.
With one hand still pressing the knife to my throat, he moves the other up to my breast and squeezes.
“No bra?” he asks, flicking his thumb back and forth over my nipple. I’m not about to tell him that they’re not allowed as part of my garb. He’d only ask more questions.
My nipples are embarrassingly hard from the cold night air and his stimulations. He pinches one between his fingers, making me moan, and my eyes flutter shut as the pain has my clit pulsing.
“Oh, I like that. I like that a lot,” he chuckles. “Do it again. Moan like a dirty whore for me.”
“Screw you,” I gasp.
A branch snapping stops his assault on my breast, and I open my eyes to see the long-haired man from the gas station watching us from between the trees.
“Looks like your repentance will have to wait. We have company.”
“Please, help me!” I call out to the man.
I’m stuck between two evils, but I reckon I can take on the one in front of me if I can get away from this knife-wielding psycho on my back.
“I don’t want no trouble.” The man holds his hands up and takes a slow step toward us. “The girl’s mine. If you hand her over, I’ll make sure I never saw you.”
“Is that right?” Zack asks, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, making me shiver. “Are you his ?” He hisses the last word, and squeezes my nipple hard, teasing more whimpers from me like a musician fine-tuning his most prized instrument.
“Yes,” I quickly say. The stranger’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and he takes another step toward us.
“See? You can hand her over now and nobody needs to get hurt.”
I can feel the heavy rise and fall of Zack’s chest against my back. Is he angry or is this all a joke to him? I wish I could see his face.
Suddenly the knife is pulled away, and I’m shoved forward. The man grabs me by my arms too tightly and holds me against him. I try to wriggle away and create some space, but he’s very reluctant to let me go now he has his hands on me.
“Come on, let’s get you home,” he says loudly. Then he whispers low enough for only my ears, “Make a fuss, and I’ll finish what he started.”
I look back at Zack and wonder if I made the right choice.
The stranger starts dragging me away, and I watch as Zack’s cold dead eyes stare blankly at me. Does he not care at all what’s clearly about to happen to me?
His expression doesn’t change the further away I’m pulled, but suddenly his voice booms out, bouncing off the trees. “Wait!”
The man holding me makes a frustrated grunt as he stops and turns back to Zack who’s slowly walking toward us, the knife still in his hand.
“I should get a reward for finding her for you. Because she is yours after all, and surely you must be so grateful to have something so precious back. I mean just look at her.”
His smile is back now, and it blazes across my skin.
“What do you want?” The man’s disgustingly possessive grip on me tightens like his favorite toy is about to be ripped away from him.
“Only to watch. I’ve been imagining those lips wrapped around a cock since I first saw them.”
A hard rod presses into my back, and I cringe away from it, unlike I did Zack’s.
I’m not a stranger to a man’s anatomy. I lived in a convent, but even that doesn’t protect you from the weapon that men love to wield so freely.
“You’ll watch her suck me off and then you’ll leave?” the man asks in disbelief.
“Yes,” Zack replies far too calmly.
“He has a knife! Obviously, he’s going to kill us both!” I shout.
“Shut it, and get on your knees,” the man snarls in my ear. Moving his hands up to my shoulders, he pushes down. I stare at Zack as my knees buckle. I want him to see the hate in my eyes as I’m made to perform for him.
It was stupid of me to think there could be any slither of good in him. I should have known that he only let me into his car for his own benefit.
The long-haired man circles around to my front and unzips his jeans. I keep my eyes on Zack as I hear the man taking his cock out with heavy breaths. He grunts a few times as he pumps himself, and I swallow the bile in my throat.
Zack moves closer, his wild gaze fixated on me. I try to ignore both of them, to disappear into my head, but I’m trapped in Zack’s beautifully haunting eyes.
“Open wide,” he sing-songs as he stands next to the man and taps the tip of the knife against my lips.
I let out a shaky breath and recite a silent prayer in my head. My faith was tested for years, until finally it broke. Yet, I want to believe that there’s some meaning to all of this. That if I find a way to survive these challenges I’ll be rewarded with a good life.
If I have to do this, then I’m not going to be a sniveling weak wreck as I do it. I’ve been in this position so many times as wicked men used me. It’s second nature to me now. So I refuse to let these men see my fear. Tipping my head back, I open my mouth.
“Fuck yes,” the man says as he guides his tip to my tongue.
Everything happens in slow motion. Zack grabs the man by his hair, yanking his head back. Then, the knife slices along his throat, leaving a gaping red slit behind. Blood gushes out, and I barely have time to close my eyes and mouth before it rains down on me.