16. Cori - Age 16 #2
Chi-chi turned the phone screen to me.
DECK: You need to text me back! Please baby. I’m so worried.
DECK: *heart emoji*
Baby? A fucking heart emoji? After all this time and Chi-chi sees it first? Jesus Christ.
Chi-chi tossed the phone across the room. “Are you…Deck’s girl?”
“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “Just friends. He’s like a brother to me.”
The air grew heavy. The clanking of metal filled the room like a cannon shot as Chi-chi loosened his belt buckle. “This time, I don’t believe you, chica .”
I scurried up to sit against the headboard. “Well, you should.”
Chi-chi tsked. “Of all your friends, Deck is the one I’m the most disappointed in. I picked him out myself, personal-like, but he never really appreciated it. Maybe if I fuck his woman, he’ll get the message of who he owes.”
Only in Chi-chi’s fucked-up mind did that possibly make any sense. I registered his eyes again. He was definitely on something.
“I’m only sixteen.” I was grasping at straws here, and I knew it.
He laughed. “I don’t care.”
Chi-chi popped the button on his pants and pulled the zipper down. He put one knee on the bed and used his hands to grab my ankles, pulling me toward him. The underwear came off my foot, staining the bedspread bright red.
“This is rape,” I tried. A rush of adrenaline kicked in. I thought of my mom, battered and shaky in the other room. Chi-chi might win, but I wasn’t going to make it easy.
He laughed even louder this time. “Still don’t care.”
He swung his leg over to straddle my thighs.
Unbuttoning and shrugging off his flannel, he tossed it aside to reveal a flabby chest covered in cheap gold chains and shitty tattoos.
Crucially, the move allowed me to assess that, unless he had the world’s tiniest gun in his back pocket, he wasn’t carrying.
I let him manhandle me, pushing his hands away half-heartedly to convince him that this was all the fight I had in me.
My plan was to wait for him to get his dick as exposed as possible and then kick him in the nuts.
If I could grab his balls instead, that would be even better.
I’d read somewhere that yanking down on the ball sac and twisting hard would incapacitate any man for a minute or two at least. That would give me the time I needed to run.
I didn’t want to leave my mom with Aaron, but there was no choice. We needed real help.
I hadn’t anticipated how repulsive Chi-chi’s hands on my body would feel. I wanted to wait until his dick was unclothed, but as he ran his palms up and down my hips and placed spit-soaked kisses on my neck, I decided it would be fine to hurt him through the thin material of his boxers.
Chi-chi didn’t bother trying to remove my polo, seeming determined to get inside me as soon as possible. Revolting. He grasped the bottom of my shorts, and I allowed him to remove them since I knew I’d put on enormous granny panties that morning.
I still didn’t have a clear shot at his groin when I felt his hands tugging at my underwear. Instinctively, I pushed him away.
He slapped me across the face. Hard. The metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth as my vision blurred. I was pretty sure he’d cut my lip on one of his stupid rings.
Chi-chi yanked his jeans and boxers to his knees, still lying on top of me.
I stretched out my arm from my side, seeing if I could reach his exposed privates.
He clocked the movement and caught my wrist, gripping it so hard I cried out in pain.
“Uh, uh, uh.” He shook his head as he ground his dick against my hips. “You can’t stop this, so maybe just lie back and relax. You can tell your boyfriend Deck how good I was to you.”
Sure, asshole.
With the hand that wasn’t holding my wrist, he reached below himself to again pull down on my underwear.
A surge of power, fueled by a mix of determination and desperation, coursed through my body as I surprised him by flipping us over.
I slammed my elbow down hard on his groin.
His face crumpled in pain, but before he could react further, I followed up the elbow jab with a hard twist of his nuts.
It was absolutely disgusting to have to touch those nasty, hairy things, but the look of pure agony that crossed his face was satisfying.
I took a second to pick my phone up off the floor, but didn’t bother with my shorts. I swung open the bedroom door with a mind to escape before Aaron realized what had happened.
Deck stood on the other side. Shirtless.
His eyes took in the scene. As I straightened in front of him, panting, I saw him take in my polo shirt and underwear combo, the bruises I could already feel forming on my neck, arms, and legs, and my split lip. Chi-chi lay shirtless on the bed, gripping his dick and breathing hard.
I wanted to fling myself into Deck’s arms, wanted him to hold me and wipe away the feel of Chi-chi’s hands on my body. He was here. It would be okay.
Baby.
Heart emoji.
But he didn’t take me in his arms. His nostrils flared, and I heard the breaths coming out of them.
That was when I noticed the direction of his eyes.
He was looking at the bloody panties that had come off my foot, now visible on the side of the bed, along with the smears of blood across my bedspread and the floor.
I put my hand on his chin and tried to tilt his face to mine. “Deck, baby, it’s okay. It’s okay. He didn’t hurt me. The blood is from a cut I got hours ago.”
He didn’t meet my eyes. Didn’t seem to notice that I still had my massive underwear on.
That was when I saw the bat in his hand.
“How many rapists do I have to beat down tonight?” he asked nobody.
Chi-chi looked up at him, still breathing raggedly but able to ground out, “Ah…what’s the matter, baby Decker? Mad I fucked your girl?”
Deck’s face went red as he inched toward the bed. I reached out a hand. “No, Deck. He’s lying. It never got that far.”
Chi-chi turned to me. “Why do you say that, chica ? Didn’t I just give it to you so good?”
“Shut up, you fucking liar!”
Deck took another step forward.
“You better not be thinking about doing anything with that bat, bróder . If shit happens to me, your boy Cruz is going down.”
Deck held himself like a statue. Even if I could convince him that Chi-chi hadn’t technically raped me, there was no doubt he’d tried to, and that he’d gotten in a good hit before I’d beaten him up.
“Get up!” Deck shouted.
Although clearly still in pain, Chi-chi managed to swing his legs over the edge of the mattress.
“What you gonna do?” he asked, lifting his ass just high enough to pull his pants over his hips, buttoning them with swagger.
Deck’s answer was to grab Chi-chi’s arm, forcing him past me and out of the room.
Chi-chi struggled to move, but Deck held him up, perp-walking him through the main room with one hand as he held the bat with his other.
At the door to the trailer, he threw Chi-chi down the three entry steps onto the ground.
I attempted to follow, but my foot screamed at me.
Deck caught me limping, and his eyes narrowed.
My mom’s bedroom door flew open, and she came out, somehow clothed in jeans and a long-sleeved tee. Aaron followed.
Deck leaped over the steps and onto the ground, spitting on the brown grass next to Chi-chi. “Get up! Get up and fight me like a man!”
I grabbed some flip-flops and hobbled to the doorway. Mom and Aaron stood next to me. Eliazar emerged from the passenger seat of Deck’s car, yelling, “What the fuck is going on?”
Chi-chi maneuvered into a hands-and-knees position on the ground. “Oh hey, little guy,” he said to Eliazar. “Did you have fun with Bash?”
Eliazar froze.
“Shut your fuckin’ mouth!” Deck hissed.
“Chi-chi?” Aaron called out, looking stunned.
Chi-chi raised his eyebrows at Aaron, followed by a subtle tilt of his head.
I caught the gesture, instantly on alert.
Aaron hesitated before reaching behind himself, enough time for me to stick my hand in the back of his pants and grab the gun hidden there.
I leaned back onto my good foot and pointed it at him.
I’d never held a gun, but I’d seen enough of them on TV and around the neighborhood to make my stance look convincing.
Aaron raised his hands as Chi-chi shook his head and mumbled, “ Useless gringo .”
Deck spared me an approving glance before turning to Eliazar. “Check his car.”
Eliazar went to Chi-chi’s car and found a gun lying on the passenger seat. Chi-chi really didn’t think much of my brother to have left it in his car.
“Give me the gun, Cori,” Deck said.
I stumbled down the stairs and gave it to him. He handed it to Eliazar, who still held the one from Chi-chi’s car.
“Take these and toss them somewhere, okay?” Deck said sternly to Eliazar. He looked back down at Chi-chi. “We’re going to do this without guns.”
“I’ll handle it,” Eliazar said solemnly. He shoved both guns into the back of his pants and walked away, heading toward the main road.
Aaron made a motion like he was going to come out of the trailer. Deck extended the bat to him. “This isn’t your battle. Stay up there or you’re going to feel this across your back.” He turned his murderous eyes to Chi-chi. “Just like Bash did.”
Chi-chi’s cocky facade faltered. He dragged himself to his feet.
“Alright, baby Decker, I’ll play. You wanna fight me? ’Cuz you’re mad I fucked your girl? Showed her what a real man feels like?”
“Deck, he didn’t—”
“It’s okay, Cori. I saw the blood. I’m going to make this right.”
Stupid, frustrating man. I loved him for wanting to avenge me, or whatever, but I needed him to listen.
Except I knew him. He’d already been manic and single-minded when I ran into him earlier today, when he’d asked me to find Johnny. Something had clearly happened with Eliazar and that Bash person. Now this.
“Get up and fight me!” Deck screamed at Chi-chi. He tossed the bat to the dirt.