Chapter 2 #3
“Please.” My voice was nothing but a whisper, fear squeezing the air out of my lungs. I wanted to beg and plead. I wanted to promise these men the world if they would only fucking let me go.
My hands shook behind my back as I tried to feel around me, to see if I could find the trunk release. But I couldn’t find it. This had to be some old junker with a souped-up engine.
Another sharp swerve, and I slammed headfirst into the corner of the small, confined space. Light exploded through the darkness, and a high-pitched ringing cut out every other sound around me. The loud sound of more gunshots forced its way into my throbbing head.
“We’re running out of options here, man. These fuckers have us surrounded.”
“Shoot them!”
More gunshots, screeching tires, and a loud crash as my body jerked in every direction. Fear. Adrenaline. It all ran amok inside me. Every bone in my body erupted with pain, my mind still scattered. After only a few seconds, I realized there was no sound. Nothing. Just an eerie silence.
The car wasn’t moving. The men weren’t shouting, and the familiar sound of roaring motorcycles was gone.
I remained still. But the sudden silence turned my rapid breaths into a deafening sound in the dark.
Oh, God. What’s happening?
Tears slipped down my cheeks, and I tasted the saltiness with the metallic tang of blood.
My mind was a whirlpool of the most horrifying thoughts any girl could have.
Was this my last night on Earth? Would I die while being beaten and raped?
Would pain be the last thing I experienced while my heart still had a beat?
Please, God, no.
The smell of gasoline mixed with burnt rubber was pungent, singeing my nostrils before settling in the pit of my stomach. Nausea was starting to fight its way up my throat as I lay completely still, too scared to move.
The sound of footsteps on the outside of the car made me hold my breath. Dried leaves and tree branches cracked in the distance.
I refused to let out a breath, praying whoever was on the outside of this car wasn’t the last person whose eyes I’d stare into before I died.
There was a loud thump as the lid was popped, and the flashlight burned my eyes.
“Let’s get the girl out of here.”
“Please—” I still tried to plead, to beg. But as I was lifted out, there was a hard jerk, the man falling to the ground, and I was about to fall as well when two arms grabbed me.
“Not so fast, fuckers,” a man snarled beside my face, pulling my back against his chest while cold steel pressed against my temple. It was a gun. The man was holding a gun against my head, and I started to sob uncontrollably.
“Please, God. Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”
“Put the gun down, man.”
I managed to open my eyes, seeing a tall, well-built man standing across from us. But it was dark. I couldn’t see his face. Yet in that moment, something seemed familiar about him.
“Let the girl go.” The warning was there in his voice, low and menacing.
The man holding me pressed the muzzle deeper into my temple, and I whimpered, pinching my eyes closed. I didn’t want to die. Not like this.
“You have no fucking business here, man. This ain’t got nothing to do with you.” His spit coated my cheeks, his nasty breath filling my nostrils.
“That’s where you’re wrong, prospect. It has everything to do with us.”
“Fuck off!” he yelled over my shoulder. “I swear to fucking God, I will put a bullet in this pretty little head of hers. So back the fuck up.”
“Please,” I started to beg, but he only pressed the gun harder against my head.
“Shut up! Shut the fuck up, bitch!”
I cried. Like a little girl, I sobbed and felt the overwhelming urge to relieve myself. Coming face to face with death was horrifying—especially at the prospect of death taking you so violently and unexpectedly.
“Give me the girl!” the man in the darkness shouted, his voice breaking the eerie silence of night. “If you hurt her, I will feed you to the sharks, piece by fucking piece.”
My captor laughed manically behind me. “Are you sure you want to toss fucking threats around when I’m the one pressing steel against this whore’s head? A whore you seem to really want unhurt.”
Branches cracked in the distance, alerting the man to movement on our right. He jerked in that direction, taking me with him, pulling me harder against his chest. “Who’s there?”
Another guy holding a gun pointed at us emerged from the shadows. “So, here’s the deal. You kill the girl, and I’ll have a bullet inside your skull before you can turn that gun on me or my brother over there.” He gestured to the other man whose face I couldn’t see.
“Onyx, back the fuck up,” the man in the shadows warned.
“I got this, brother.”
“You’ll kill her. Back the fuck up!”
“Nah, you know I never miss a shot.” He moved forward slowly. Carefully. Gun still aimed straight at us.
The man who held me tightened his arm around my throat, and instinctively I grabbed at his forearm. “Both of you fuckers back off, or I’ll kill her. I swear to God.”
“Not happening. We’re not leaving without the girl.”
“Last warning, prospect.” The one with the gun moved closer.
“Onyx, don’t!”
There were so many voices, so many unfamiliar people around me, my mind could no longer distinguish between who was who.
I glanced from the man in the dark, to the one holding the gun pointed at us. His fingers moved, tightening his grip on the trigger. Our eyes met, and he winked. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I never miss.”
“Onyx, don’t!”
I closed my eyes the instant I heard the loud crack of a gunshot. My body went rigid, bracing itself for impact. Within a split second, my life flashed before my eyes.
My mom.
My dad.
Red.
The tattoo.
Each and every recital I’d ever danced in.
My mom’s face of disapproval.
The fights.
The tears.
The pain.
My pink ballet slippers hanging behind my bedroom door.
It felt like I was drifting from one memory to the other, then got pulled back to reality as my body slammed into the ground.
Blurry. Hazy. My ears ringing and body aching, I pushed myself up on all fours.
I heard men scream in the background, but I only looked down at the dry, brown leaves beneath my hands.
Unable to comprehend what had just happened, I closed my fist around a handful of leaves, crunching and breaking them in my palm.
When I opened my fist, everything around me faded to gray…
everything but the crimson red covering my hand.
A sudden coldness hit me in my core. Shocked. Disorientated. Breathless.
I turned my head to the side and looked right into the eyes of…a dead man. Blood oozed out of his head, his wide-open eyes glazed over and mouth gaping. It was the man who had the gun against my head only three seconds ago.
The bloody scene in front of me was grotesque—surreal and distorted in a way I couldn’t explain.
I couldn’t move. No matter how much I told myself to look away, to get up and run…I couldn’t. A man was dead, and I was staring at the corpse.
Two strong hands grabbed me and hoisted me up. If I had any fight left in me, I would have squirmed to get free. But my mind just didn’t allow me to look away from the dead man, and I didn’t care that I was being carried away by a strange man.
It was like a movie, and this was the part where they carried the woman away from a bloody scene on mute and in slow motion.
I was slid off the broad shoulder that carried me, and for a second, I managed to tear my gaze away from the bloody body. As I looked up at the man who carried me, I sucked in a breath. “You.”
Intense green eyes with specks of strength stared at me, and I lost myself.
“It’s you,” I whispered. “You came for me.”
“It’s time, ballerina girl.”
A wet cloth pressed against my face, the sharp scent of chloroform taking over all my senses…right before it went dark.