Prologue
PROLOGUE
Phoenyx
S cream so they kill you there, because it’s better to be killed than to be dragged away and raped, right?
That’s what people teach little girls. If someone tries to kidnap you, scream and make a scene so that they kill you on the spot.
If they drag you away, you’ll be raped and then someone will find your rotting body God knows how long after.
That’s all well and good until you are in their neighborhood, where no one is going to come to your rescue.
They don’t care if you scream. Hell, they want you to scream and fight.
What did I do wrong? Did I lead them to believe I was interested?
Was my dress too short? Maybe I was showing too much cleavage.
No… That’s not it. I never spoke to them.
I had loose fitted jogging shorts and an oversized shirt on.
I was trying to get some milk so I could make some bread for my brother.
A loaf of fucking bread. That’s it. That’s all I wanted to do.
Why did I have to live on this awful street in this run-down apartment?
Cade has tried for years to get me to use my inheritance, but none of it matters now.
I was walking back with my jug of milk when they came out of nowhere.
I had a bad feeling about passing by that dark alleyway, but I didn’t listen to my gut.
Now look at me… naked and terrified. They ripped my clothing off before tying my arms behind my back with rope.
I am laying so that I am looking up at the sky with my arms under me.
They circle me like I am prey, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.
I have screamed so much at this point that my voice is broken and hardly any sound comes out.
“Please,” I choke out. “Please let me go.”
“ Please let me go,” One of the men mocks before his belt slaps across my belly again.
I whimper in pain, but I am past the point of screaming.
They have hit me with that belt so many times that my body no longer reacts to the pain.
The man forces my legs apart as he kneels and puts his knees on my thighs to keep me from moving my legs.
“Please don’t do this,” I beg as my voice shakes with desperation.
“Such a dirty fucking whore… Ready to take us?” he sneers. “Is that what you want, Birdy? You want us to fuck this tight little body?”
The fuckers keep calling me ‘Birdy’ since they saw my license and noticed that my name is Phoenyx. Idiots. “No. Please don’t… please,” I beg.
“Say it,” he growls before slapping me across the face.
“No,” I whimper.
He pulls a knife out of his pocket and flips it open.
I fucking refuse to say it. I won’t. I don’t care if he stabs me.
Only he doesn’t. He digs the blade into my chest and slowly drags it through my flesh and down my sternum.
My scream is suddenly shrill as the warmth of my blood spills across my chest. He doesn’t stop cutting, and I keep screaming.
He slices down to the top of my pubic bone before stopping.
“Say it, whore. Tell me you want it,” he demands.
“No,” I sob. “I don’t.”
“Stupid bitch,” another man laughs.
The man on top of me presses the knife in on the top of my thigh and cuts down to my knee before switching to the other leg.
I scream and try to thrash under him but the other two lean down and keep me pinned.
The pain is unbearable. His cuts move to my belly as he slices in various spots.
I can feel my blood dripping from my body as the cuts are deep, but not so deep that they’ll kill me.
When he moves the knife to my breast, I cave immediately.
“Stop!” I yell, my voice breaking. “Okay. I’ll say it. Please stop. Please.”
“Say it, Birdy,” the man on top of me snickers. “Tell me how much you want us to fuck you.”
“Please fuck me,” I cry.
“Aww, you can do better than that,” another man laughs.
“Please fuck me,” I say louder. “I want it. Please.”
My words do not match what I actually want. I don’t want this. I want to go home. I want to bake that fucking bread for my brother. Now, all he is getting for his birthday is to plan my funeral.
The man tosses the knife down before leaning into me.
“Such pretty tears, Birdy,” he says before licking a fallen tear from my cheek.
His breath smells rancid, like an asshole with gingivitis.
He puts more of his weight on my body before forcing his dick inside of me with one painful thrust. “Fuck… This tight little cunt,” he growls and groans as he starts to violently thrust into me as I sob.
The friction is painful, and my belly feels like molten lava.
His hands are all over my body, smearing blood and dirt across my skin.
I scream out in pain when he leans down and sinks his teeth into the top of my breast as he pushes deep to come.
As soon as he moves away, another man flips me to my belly and slams into my ass.
I can feel my body tearing open as he pounds me into the broken asphalt.
Jagged rocks dig into my flesh, filling my cuts with more dirt and grime.
The other man kneels in front of me and pulls my head up to hold between his hands.
“Open wide, bitch,” he commands as the man aggressively fucking my ass repositions my body so the man in front of me can pry my mouth open and shove his dick down my throat.
He keeps my mouth wide open as he thrusts so when something slaps across my back, I don’t bite down.
Both men groan as my gurgled screams fill the alleyway.
They both shove in at the same time over and over again.
Each time the belt comes down on my back, I tense up and scream.
Soon, both men are moaning like wild animals as they come.
The man in my throat forces himself deep and pinches my nose closed as he comes, giving me no choice but to swallow.
They move away, and I am left discarded on the ground, sobbing and bleeding.
My body is trembling from all of the pain, and I am certain that I am bleeding from my ass now.
The first man steps over me before grabbing me by the hair and pulling my head back.
“It was nice to meet you, Birdy. Time to fly away,” he croons as he presses his blade against my throat.
“No!” I scream. “Plea?—”
My words are cut off when he rapidly slashes across my neck and drops my head to the ground.
My body is convulsing but quickly weakens.
I can feel the life drain out of me as their blurry figures disappear into the dark.
My soul is floating now, waiting for my body to succumb to the blood loss.
Eventually, my eyes are too heavy to keep open, and I welcome my death.
The pain fades away, and I am separate from my body now.
I thought I would be scared to die, but this is peaceful.
After all the pain that was inflicted on my body, I am finally at peace.
Flashes of my vision abruptly pull me out of my catatonic state, and everything is blindingly bright. Why is everything so damn bright? Everything hurts again, and it makes me mad. I was at peace. The suffering had stopped, and I was finally at fucking peace. Why am I here? Why didn’t I die?
Everything is silent around me, but a warm hand on my face makes me groan. I blink away the blur to find Cade. He has tears in his eyes, but he is forcing a smile. “Nyx,” he says gently. “Can you hear me?”
“Cade,” I say but wince as sharp pain rips across my neck.
“Shhh. Try not to talk,” he says. “Just whisper. I can hear you.”
“W-What happened?” I ask quietly. Whispering is much easier.
“You were attacked, Nyx,” he says. “Do you want me to be blunt?”
“Please,” I whisper.
“You were raped. The cops think there were three of them. They sliced you up pretty badly but also cut your throat. You lost a lot of blood, but a homeless woman got you out onto the road so she could flag down a car,” he explains.
“When?”
“They put you in a medically induced coma so you could rest and heal some. That was a week ago,” he says. “You have been breathing on your own, so they took you off sedation about an hour ago.”
“Can I sit up?” I ask. I am trying to be as quiet as I can to keep the pain at a minimum.
“Yeah. I’ll help you,” he says. Cade helps me sit up, and that’s when I see the bandages. “You got hundreds of stitches. One of the fuckers bit you, so they had to give you a lot of antibiotics to get the infection to go away.”
“They… no condom,” I whisper.
“I signed on emergency contraceptive. You’re already getting so many antibiotics, so I only had you tested for things that it won’t get rid of. All of them came back negative,” he explains as he sits beside me.
“I just wanted to make you bread,” I whisper tearfully.
“You remember?” he asks, and I nod. “Faces too?”
“It was dark, but yeah,” I answer quietly. “How bad… my throat.”
“They didn’t cut deep enough to do any significant damage. The doctor will have you eat after a while to see how your swallowing is. They resuscitated you twice on the ride to the hospital, so they weren’t sure if you had brain damage or memory loss.”
“I remember all of it,” I say with a sigh. “Happy birthday, I guess.”
“You’re alive, Nyx. That is the only birthday present I need,” he smiles. “Plus, now you have no choice but to let me take care of you.”
“I don’t want to live there anymore,” I admit. “I was a block from home.”
“Callum already got your things and brought them to my place,” he says. Callum is his best friend and is also like my brother. I’ve known him for my entire life. When our parents died, Callum’s parents took me in so Cade could finish college.
“Thank you, Cade.”
“You’re welcome,” he says sweetly. The door swings open, and Callum walks in.
“Hey, kid!” Callum says as he comes over and kisses the top of my head. “Heard you went for milk and came back with mass blood loss?”
“You’re an idiot,” I say softly with a smile. “Thank you for being here.”
“Mom and Dad are downstairs talking to the detective,” he says. “They called when they took you off the sedation.”
“Ah,” I say softly.
“She remembers everything,” Cade says.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Nyx,” Callum says with a frown. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t remember.”
“I wish I didn’t,” I reply. The door opens, but I keep talking.
If I don’t say it now, I won’t say it at all.
“I kept screaming, but they wouldn’t stop.
No one helped me. They were so much stronger and…
I was happy when I thought I was going to die.
All the pain went away, and it was peaceful.
Now it’s all back. I get to keep suffering while they’re out there hurting people. ”
“The physical pain will fade,” Cade says. “The memories won’t always weigh this much, and you will get stronger. I promise you will be okay.”
“I just want them to get what they deserve,” I respond. “I want all the ones like them to get what they deserve.”
“Me too, hun,” Cade says, squeezing my hand.
I focus my attention on the detective, and he has me go through everything I remember from beginning until I passed out.
He audio records everything so that I am not forced to tell it over and over again.
The longer I am awake, the easier it is to talk.
I go over the description of each man to the best of my ability.
After, he tells me he will get my description to a sketch artist to show me some sketches so we can make adjustments if need be.
He seems to be taking this seriously, but something tells me those men knew what they were doing.
I know they won’t go to jail for this, but I will be the last thing they will see before their lives fade away.