20. Rae
20
RAE
I'm so fed up with being the victim. So tired of feeling that if I disappeared into a black hole, it would do the world a favor. Tired of the same old shit every month. Tired of being born this way. Of there being no answers.
At least, none that I’ve found.
Gentle exercise. Take a walk daily. Keep your water intake up. Meditate, sleep, eat clean… the list goes on and on.
None of that shit helps when you’re bound beside your best friend, wondering if you should have just let your ex take you to his father and saved everyone the hassle. What’s the cure for that, huh? Wave some incense around? Acupuncture? Fucking bullshit. It’s all a bunch of well-meaning people selling what worked for them to make their own suffering profitable.
What works for me is different, and it's taken me most of my life to understand that.
Urgency.
Put me in a situation where I don’t have the luxury of overthinking, where I can’t wallow in my feelings for a day or two, and hey presto—look at me go.
“What’s the plan, then?” I ask as I assess the zip ties used to bind Maddie’s hands.
“I’ll tackle the bitch to the ground. You get your phone and then run like a motherfucker.” She smiles, peering over her shoulder at me. “Simple, but hopefully effective.”
Except the way her hands were restrained was different from mine. "We've got a problem."
She cranes her neck to try and see behind her, shoulder curling forward. “What?”
"Whoever put these on you used something different." I tug the locking enclosures between her hands. "They're zip cuffs—and thick ones at that."
“What does that mean?”
I gesture to my destroyed tie on the floor. “Sweetie used a thinner plastic on me. One band. It’s easy to break. But these…” I need something sharp. “Hold up. Let me check the kitchen.”
“Third drawer across,” Maddie supplies. “The first two are empty.”
I give her a nod and then dart around the cracked Formica-topped island. My breath seems loud in my ears, pulse throbbing in my hands and fingers as I jerk the slim metal handle and reveal a steel ruler wedged in the seam of the drawer's construction. No matter how I grip the end of the fucking thing, it won't budge. Likely thrown in here a while ago; the wood has swollen or warped to pinch the end of the ruler in place.
The fucking house refuses to let us go.
"Rae," Maddie whisper-yells. "Rae!"
“What?” I hiss in return, spurred on by the slightest shift of the ruler.
“She’s moving.”
Shit. Sure enough, when I stop scrabbling like a fucking rat on cheese in a trap, I catch the dull thuds of her footfalls on the porch. The front door opens, latch clicking as she disengages the lock.
She doesn’t shut it.
Instead, Sweetie appears in the doorway, looking down at the phone in her hand. My phone. Fucking bitch.
"What's the passcode, Rae?" Her head lifts, eyes widening at our state of mid-escape. "Oh-ho-ho," she sing-songs. "What the fuck is this?"
Maddie gives me a firm glance and then barrels toward the woman, a warrior’s cry wailing past her lips. She drops a shoulder like a goddamn footballer and charges into the older woman’s gut. Yet Sweetie has time to figure out what’s happening. To pre-empt the move.
She steps aside, Maddie’s shoulder collecting her hip hard enough that it makes Sweetie grunt, yet the force of Maddie’s body slams into the doorframe. In a whirl of sun-streaked auburn hair, my best and only friend goes crashing to the floor, screaming out at the pain of the collision.
“You stupid fucking bitches,” Sweetie hollers, charging across the room toward me.
I duck farther into the L-shaped room, avoiding her swinging arm as she tries to grab me. A quick glance across the room confirms there's nothing else in here that'll help me—no weapons, makeshift or otherwise—only the gun holstered at her hip.
“Don’t you fucking touch her!" Maddie hollers, the scraping sounds telling me she gets to her feet, as awkward as it'll be with her hands behind her back.
“Come here, girl.” Sweetie blocks my escape, arms held at her sides as though cornering a wild dog.
I feel every part a panicked animal in the moment, gaze seeking, searching the scene before me for a way out.
For a hope to die in my old age, not before the age of thirty, in some madwoman's dilapidated kitchen.
Sweetie reaches to her side, elbow bent as she raises her hand to feel for the gun. It’s now or never, Rae. My best hope is to get her disorientated enough not to use the fucking thing, which is why I kick out at her, my boot connecting with the junction of her thighs.
I kick the bitch in the cunt as hard as I can and internally cheer when she folds like a fucking wet paper towel.
Maddie's halfway to her feet, shoulder jammed against the wall to keep herself upright, when I dart back into the first half of the kitchen. My short-lived bravado evaporates in a poof of shredded hopes and dreams as I realize I have no other plan.
Nothing other than running.
“Go!” I holler at Mads. “Get the fuck out!”
She opens her mouth to protest, yet a surprised gasp cuts off her words as I go crashing to the floor.
Hand wrapped around my ankle, Sweetie kneels, a manic grin on her face as she crawls over top of me, restraining me with her weight. I punch out with my free foot, yet the woman’s too close. I can’t get any decent power in the kick, and my foot ends up tangled in her arm.
“You ain’t goin’ anywhere, honey,” she drawls. “I’ve waited too long for an opportunity like this.”
“You can keep waiting.” Thumbs to her eyes, I anchor my fingers against the side of her head—pinky slipping into her right ear—and push.
She howls, bucking her head left and right to shake me off, but the damage is done. By the time the older woman breaks free, her left eye swells, blood pooling into the white. I can’t tell how much damage I’ve done to the right since she keeps it squinted shut. Not that it matters. She snags me around the knee as I backpedal from beneath her, hauling me along the timber floor toward her with a feral growl.
I shove at her shoulders, keep her gnashing teeth at bay, and work my knee between us. Please, let me get out of this. All bets are off. Panic kicks in; the adrenalin a welcome surge through my veins. I rip at her hair, punch her face and neck, and thrash against the floor to upset her balance on top of me.
What probably last seconds feels like a lifetime as I manage to roll to my stomach and prepare to launch myself away from her.
Until the cool steel of the gun hits my temple. “You done yet?”
"Fuck you." If I die, I won't die a coward. "You can kill me, but that won't change a thing." I press on when she stays quiet, curious about what I have to say. "I'll be gone, but you'll still be angry. You'll still be mad at a dead girl for having the one thing you couldn't." I huff a bitter laugh. "Killing me won't change the fact that Tyke will never want you." I close my eyes.
Wait for it.
Pray for it to be quick. For there to be peace on the other side.
And choke when the warm spray hits the back of my neck.