Chapter 5 Willow
WILLOW
My heart feels like it’s about to explode out of my chest.
I make it out of the brothel in one piece, even though the whole time I’m worried one of them is going to change their minds and come kill me. But I escape onto the dimly lit street, gasping at the night air as soon as I leave the building.
I can’t take a cab or the bus home, not barefoot and covered in someone else’s blood, so I throw on my coat and start on foot, running hard and keeping to the side streets, trying not to be seen.
I don’t know how I’d explain what happened tonight if someone saw me, and I keep hearing that guy named Malice’s threat in my head.
If you tell anyone what you saw, we’ll fucking kill you.
Just thinking about it makes me sick to my stomach, and I clutch my waist with one arm as a painful stitch forms in my side.
I feel so exposed running down the street like this—in more ways than one. I still only have on the ripped nightie that I wore to the brothel, and I attempt to keep my coat wrapped tightly around myself as I run, breathing hard and trying not to trip over exposed stones and bricks.
At one point, I pass a dive bar with music pumping from the inside, and a group of guys hanging out at the front catch sight of me.
“Well, well,” one of them calls. “Where you going, girlie?”
“Yeah, you need a ride, baby?” another one adds. “I got something for you right here!”
He grabs the front of his crotch and mimes humping into me while the others laugh. I keep moving, skirting past them and praying that they won’t decide to come after me.
One of them shakes his head and spits off to the side. “Leave her alone. She looks strung out as hell,” he says. “Or off her meds. Don’t stick your dick in crazy.”
They either don’t see the patches of blood beneath my coat, or they don’t realize what it is. Either way, I duck into the shadows before they can change their minds about leaving me alone, and I keep running.
My body feels like it’s about to give out as I keep pushing myself.
My chest hurts, lungs begging for more air than I can suck in, and my heart is going crazy.
My feet burn, and my legs are shaky, and each step I take feels like it’s going to be the one that makes me collapse.
But I can’t stop. I keep stumbling forward, knowing I have to make it home.
Finally, after running for miles, I see my building come into view up ahead. I almost sob with relief, bolting inside and up the stairs faster than I ever have before. I’m panting and shivering, and I let myself in with trembling fingers, shutting the door behind me and locking the deadbolt.
Then I go to every single window and make sure those are locked too.
My hands shake badly when I try to fill a glass with water from the sink, and I end up dropping it when my stomach heaves. I throw up right in the sink, gasping for air and clutching the counter for dear life.
Usually, I feel better after throwing up, but this time it just makes me feel worse. It’s like everything from tonight is hitting me in a horrible rush, filling my guts with a sour feeling that won’t go away.
My skin feels clammy, and I push myself away from the counter, ripping my coat and nightie off as I do.
They’re both covered with drying blood, and I grab my keys and cellphone out of the coat pockets before stuffing the clothes into a garbage bag, never wanting to see them again.
My hands are covered in blood too, and when I glance down at my body, so is the rest of me.
A little whimper bubbles up in my throat, and I practically race to the bathroom, turning the shower on and letting the water get as hot as I can stand. The ancient pipes clang and complain, but soon steam fills the bathroom, and I get in the shower.
The hot water on my skin feels good, and the blood starts coming off as I scrub at it, swirling down the drain with the dirt and grime on my feet from running home with no shoes on. The soles of my feet are sore, but at least I didn’t step on any glass or anything.
I try to make myself calm down while I stand beneath the pouring water, closing my eyes and breathing in the hot, soap-scented air.
“It’s okay, Willow,” I whisper to myself. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
It’s something I’ve done for years now, soothing myself in lieu of having anyone else to do it. Usually, it works out okay, but it doesn’t matter how many times I say it now. I can’t get the images from tonight out of my head.
They flash through my mind on a loop, from the moment the Russian guy collapsed on top of me and the sticky, warm feeling of his blood pouring out over me.
I was so sure he was dead from the gunshots that sent him sprawling on top of me, but then three men burst in and made sure to finish the job…
in the most brutal way possible. Judging from what they said, they had a serious grudge against the Russian, and I remember being frozen on the bed watching as they took turns hurting him, making him suffer.
The three of them were so vicious, so determined, and they didn’t let up.
They were in pain from what he did, so they made sure to put him in as much pain as possible.
And the Russian didn’t show any kind of remorse, so I guess that makes sense, but…
The images keep flashing through my head, stained with red from the blood, the sounds of the Russian man’s bones crunching and that final sickening crack when Malice, the angry one, smashed his head in.
My knees threaten to buckle as I replay it all, and I end up bent over in the shower, holding on to the wall and breathing hard through my nose.
It’s all so much, too much, and the humid air from the shower suddenly seems so thick that I can barely breathe.
I scrub myself down as fast as I can, making sure not to leave any traces of blood, and then I get out, throwing on a long-sleeved shirt and sweat pants. It feels so good to be covered up again, after being leered at by the Russian guy and those men outside the dive bar.
My heart is still racing, and I press my hand over it, counting the beats, trying to calm myself down.
“It’s okay, Willow,” I whisper again, but the mantra still doesn’t work.
My phone chimes in the distance with a notification, and the sudden sound makes me jump, a small scream bursting out of me. When I go to grab my phone from the kitchen, I find the screen lit up with a text from April, the head bitch at school who loves to torment me in her spare time.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.
I scan the text, reading it several times but barely processing it at all. It’s about a group project we have in one of our classes, and it feels so fucking surreal to be thinking about school right now. It seems so mundane, so normal, compared to everything that just happened to me.
The two things don’t match up, and it makes me feel even more untethered, like I’m floating in a haze.
It just feels… wrong.
Like none of it can be real.
The phone feels heavy in my hands, and I’m almost in a daze as I type out a reply, promising to email her my part for the project so that she can add it to the PowerPoint.
Then I put the phone down and let out a sigh.
It’s late now, and my whole body feels heavy and sore. It feels like this night has been a whole week. A whole year, even. I’m exhausted.
Moving sluggishly, I crawl up onto the bed and burrow under the blankets.
I left the lights on, thinking that would make me feel safer. It’s what I used to do as a kid when I needed to be sure there was nothing in the closet or under the bed.
Dark things hate the light.
But as I lie in my small bed, listening to the thump, thump, thump of my heartbeat, the light makes me feel vulnerable in a different way.
I imagine it shining through my apartment windows like a beacon, calling for those three men to come kill me, and I scramble out of bed and flip off the light switch.
Usually, there’s nothing I want more at the end of a long, exhausting day, than to curl up in bed and drift off. Between work and school and worrying about money, I don’t get enough rest as it is.
But tonight, it takes hours for sleep to come.