Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Both of my parents were lawyers. My mother taught a Criminal Law class at the University of Miami’s law school.
The lectures about Right vs. Wrong in our house were on a whole other level because of this.
Dad was a state attorney serving the Miami-Dade district.
When Morgan and I were little, he used to describe that as, “Putting away the bad guys,” so that we’d understand.
All my life, the professions of my parents have given me some inexplicable sense of security.
Perhaps I felt like this because my parents were so well-versed in cracking down on wrongdoing, no one would dare do me wrong.
With a father who worked high up at the county courthouse, and a mother whose job was to understand the criminal mind well enough to teach classes about it, I suppose I felt like I was untouchable.
Who would dare mess with this, right?
Except I wasn’t untouchable.
I could barely scream, much less explain to Victor how royally fucked he was if he followed through with what he was trying to do.
Victor’s hands were up my dress, his hand moving up and down my privates as he kissed on my neck, sucking and biting down hard.
I was trying my best to twist my neck in various directions, trying to squirm out from under his touch, from under his lips.
Victor shoved my squirming body roughly, slamming the back of my head into the headboard of the bed he had me pinned against. I froze.
My vision blurred with tears and I squeezed them out, at the same time doing everything I could to keep myself conscious.
Even with the threat of him hitting me again, I continued to squirm and scoot from under his touch, prolonging the inevitable.
It felt like ninety percent of my brain and muscle power was going toward trying to keep myself from passing out. The other ten percent was all I had left to fight him off.
After dragging the back zipper of my dress down, Victor reached for the waist band of his pants.
With a swift tug, the lower half of Victor’s body was completely naked.
Eyes wide, I tried once more to scream, knowing that even if I could, it would unlikely be heard over the loud music downstairs.
All that came out of me was a pathetic squeak.
Behind the bed was a window with the blinds opened, allowing for streams of moonlight to light the room. The alarm clock on the night stand beside my head blinked with bright, angry red numbers, giving the dark bedroom a hellish red glow. My breathing quickened and I decided I would try to beg.
“Please don’t...” I struggled to finished my sentence. “No.”
My words fell on deaf ears and Victor reached for the hem of my dress, spitting on his hand to lubricate my privates.
I arduously pushed the hem of my dress down, attempting to push Victor’s hand away.
He effortlessly pried my hands out of his way, and licked his lips before trying to lift my dress up again.
The door creaked open, startling us both.
Victor quickly moved his hand from the hem of my dress and his eyes flashed around, looking for something to cover himself with. The door was on the far side of the very large bedroom, so whoever was passing through would have to fully enter to get a view of the bed.
My dress was pulled up to my upper thigh, but my most intimate area was covered.
The sleeves of my red dress drooped, exposing the skin of my left shoulder, displaying the black strap of my bra.
My limbs were too lethargic for me to successfully shield myself.
Although I was mostly covered the way I was, I felt hopelessly naked.
“Help...me.” My words were barely audible, nothing but mere mumbles in the dark. Victor shot me a look, but he didn’t dare say anything to shut me up. He didn’t want to call attention to us. The less we made our presence known, the lower the likelihood of someone coming to investigate.
Still, the door opened a little wider and a man stepped in.
At the far, unlit side of the room, I could only make out his shadow.
All I could see was that he was tall—a little taller than Victor—and that he was male.
His head bounced from Victor to me, and for a short horrifying second it crossed my mind that this stranger could mean to harm me as well.
“Get out of my room,” he said simply, stepping forward and into the dim moonlight coming in from outside. “Y’all are gonna have to find someplace else to fuck. As in, outta this house,” he said to Victor who was beginning to search the surrounding area for his clothes.
Relief blanketed my chest.
I recognized my savior’s voice before he stepped further into the light. And once his face was revealed under the light of the moon streaming into the bedroom, I recognized that, too.
Shot Guy.
Recognition flashed in his eyes, just the same, as he took in my face, and his brow furrowed with unspoken questions. He looked over both Victor and I once more. Victor was scrambling and rushing to get his clothes back on, but I stayed still.
Shot Guy’s gaze found me again, his eyes putting together the pieces. My shoes were still on. My body was limp and uncomfortably positioned, yet I hadn’t adjusted myself. My breathing was quick and afraid. My mascara had run from tears.
“What the hell…” he said quietly to himself, thinking out loud. “Yooo, what the fuck is this?”
His voice was louder and directed at a now fully dressed Victor who wasn’t making eye contact with him.
Victor kept his head down and continued to string his belt into the loops of his jeans, pretending as if he couldn’t hear the booming question. I watched Shot Guy’s neutral expression turn into one of irritation, of anger.
“Answer me when I’m talkin’ to you,” he barked, and in a moment—way too fast for my brain to process in its current state—Shot Guy had Victor pinned against the wall. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Victor looked like he was struggling to find a way to word it. He couldn’t say it was consensual because it clearly wasn’t, but he was unwilling to admit to being an attempted rapist.
“She’s really drunk. And I’m… really drunk, too, man,” Victor finally said as Shot Guy kept a firm grip on the collar of his shirt. “This... this was a mistake. Bad decisions... Too much alcohol… An accident…”
“That.” Shot Guy looked at me briefly, slamming Victor’s back in to the wall so hard I was sure he might’ve dented it. “That’s not alcohol. How’d you drug her accidentally?”
Victor shook his head quickly. Now he was the scared one, I observed. “No, man,” he said. “No, no, no, man... I didn’t drug... No drugs. She’s just drunk.”
Victor was the one squirming now, trying desperately to get out of Shot Guy’s grip.
For a moment, it crossed my mind that it was a bit strange for Victor to be this afraid.
Yes, the man in front of him was clearly outraged, but watching Victor shake, I felt as though he wasn’t just scared. He was scared to death.
Shot Guy reached behind, his hand moving to the back waistband of his jeans under his shirt.
No way, I thought as a handgun came into view. I was all for Victor getting hit with some karma, but not like this. Still, I made no moves or sounds to stop the man from brandishing his gun.
“Do you know who I am?” Shot Guy asked him. Who is he?
Victor nodded at the question, eyes glued to the rising gun.
Victor was no longer squirming under Shot Guy’s grip, choosing to remain almost frozen in place.
Shot Guy casually let go of Victor’s shirt, gun now pointed in his direction.
Victor didn’t dare move an inch, staring down the barrel of that weapon. Shot Guy asked another question.
“You know what we do to people who lie to us?” Who is we?
“Please,” Victor begged shakily. “A mistake… Please,” he said.
Victor clearly believed the stranger behind that gun was one-hundred percent capable of pulling the trigger.
He was truly begging for mercy. His eyes darted in my direction, meeting my horrified eyes in the dark.
“Please!” he begged me to do something. “I’m sorry! ”
“Don’t look at her.” Shot Guy’s voice was low and uncharacteristically relaxed for the situation at hand.
Because of the drugs in my system, my body so desperately wanted to go to sleep, but my head was swimming with adrenaline.
I didn’t want to see anyone get shot. I didn’t want to be the reason someone got shot. However, I couldn’t seem to look away.
Victor’s eyes were wild and afraid, but he remained frozen in place as the barrel of the metal gun pressed up against his chest. I shut my eyes, but I said nothing. I was scared, too. My shut eyes did nothing to quiet the sound of Victor’s crying.
“It really do be the most ain’t-shit niggas that rape,” Shot Guy marveled. When I didn’t hear the sound of a gunshot, I opened one eye. Shot Guy had pulled the gun away from Victor’s chest and was eying him with disgust. “I wouldn’t waste the bullet,” he sneered. “Get out.”
Victor’s breathing slowed and he tried to wiggle out of the tight space between him and the gun. Shot Guy stepped back to allow Victor some room to leave, but he stopped briefly, stepping on something which made him look down. Victor and I followed his gaze and I realized what he was seeing.
My panties on the floor.
Shot Guy’s expression was now one of fresh indignation, like a whole new wave of anger had washed over him.
For a moment, I thought he changed his mind and decided that he would shoot Victor after all.
Instead, he flipped the gun at the trigger and slammed the gun’s handle into the side of Victor’s face—pistol-whipping him.