Chapter 1 #3
He wrapped his arms around me, either to comfort me or to still my nervous writhing. “I won’t. If I can stop them, I will.”
The voices were even louder now. Right outside the door. I buried my face in his shirt and tried to drown them out.
Something banged into the door, and I smothered a squeal in his chest.
Then Gideon was moving my head, raising my face to look up at him. His voice was low and rough and urgent. “Diana, try not to panic. You need to listen to me.”
I was shaking so helplessly I couldn’t see, I couldn’t think.
He held my shoulders and said, still roughly but with clearer authority. “Diana, look at me. Listen to me right now.”
I managed to control myself enough to meet his eyes. There was no way I could say anything.
“They’re not allowed to kill either one of us yet, and that can help us. There are some things they won’t be able to do.”
I gave a jerky nod, mostly to prove that I’d heard the words.
“If they come in here, you stay behind me. No matter what happens, you stay behind me.” He was holding my eyes with an intensity I’d never seen before, I’d never felt before. “Tell me you understand that.”
“I… I do.”
He lifted his hands from my shoulders to my face.
It wasn’t a caress. It was more like a desperate attempt to force his words into my head.
“If something happens…” he murmured urgently, his eyes searching my face.
“If something happens, and I can’t stop it, don’t try to fight them.
Your instinct will be to struggle, but try not to do it.
There are way too many of them. There’s no way you’ll be able to get away.
And a couple of them out there will want you to fight.
They’ll want it so they can hurt you more.
You can’t give them what they want. Tell me you understand. ”
Just a little while ago, the world had been cold and scary but still with some sense of purpose and hope. Now it had turned into a dark, bottomless pit of horrors, of demons. I just stared, blinded by the shock of it.
“Diana, tell me you understand.”
“I do,” I choked. The voices were still loud, and there was another bang on the door.
“Send your mind somewhere safe, somewhere different. That’s who you really are, and they can’t touch that.”
I was whimpering helplessly, and it would have been embarrassing, but I really think any woman in my situation—knowing what might be coming—would be in similar shape.
“Do you hear me?” he said, a little louder and rougher since the voices had shifted to shouts outside the door.
“Being strong doesn’t always mean fighting.
We’ll fight to keep them from taking you.
But if they do…” He was grabbing me now by the upper arms, squeezing so tightly it almost hurt.
“If they do, then just get through it and don’t give them what they really want.
Remember, the FBI and the police are looking for me right now, and they could get here any minute.
Think about that. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is just survive. ”
I was shaking and crying and nodding all at the same time, but he must have realized I’d heard and understood what he was telling me. He used his thumbs to wipe a few tears off my face and said, more gently, “Let’s stand up.”
He had to help me to my feet, and then he moved us into the corner farthest from the door. The argument continued, but after another minute the voices seemed to move away. They faded, got softer.
I was still clutching his shirt with sweaty palms, but my panicked gasps slowed slightly as the voices moved away. “What’s happening?”
“Shh.” He was obviously trying to listen. He was still tense, primed, acutely alert. I could feel it in his body as well as see it on his face.
I could hear a vague murmur of voices through the wall or the door, but they didn’t sound angry anymore.
Maybe the better side of the argument won. Maybe they weren’t going to come in here after all. I wasn’t supposed to be hurt. Surely anyone—even a ruthless, mindless thug—would realize that raping a woman meant hurting her. They’d been ordered not to hurt me.
Maybe it would be okay after all.
See, I still believed in certain things—that human beings would make reasonable decisions, that salvation would come, even at the very last moment.
Then the door to the room banged open, and three of them came in. They carried guns and smelled like aftershave and alcohol and had the nastiest faces I’d ever seen.
Gideon eased me behind him so I was in the corner and his body blocked mine.
One of them said something, harsh and slurred.
Gideon responded in the same language, his voice unwavering.
They said some more things. I knew what they were saying. They were telling Gideon to get out of the way. They were threatening him with their guns.
But they weren’t allowed to kill him, and he wasn’t going to move.
They came closer, and I had to fight to keep from grabbing at Gideon in instinctive fear so I wouldn’t distract him or get in his way.
I couldn’t see clearly since his body was blocking mine, but I could tell that one of them got close enough to aim and thrust the butt of his gun at Gideon’s head.
Gideon blocked the blow with his forearm and then swung back with his fist. I heard the impact.
Then the other two came at him too, and I don’t really know exactly what happened after that. Gideon was fighting all three of them off. I felt helpless and bewildered in the corner of the room, so I took one of my boots off so I could have a little bit of a weapon with the heel.
Then one of the Albanians was on the ground, and Gideon had a choke hold on a second one. The third one aimed the butt of his gun at Gideon’s head, and I reacted without thinking.
I jabbed the heel of my boot as hard as I could into the back of the man’s neck. The man howled with pain and whirled around, swinging the gun as he did. It struck me in the shoulder, knocking me back into the wall, jarring me so much I couldn’t see for a moment.
I was aware enough to know that Gideon went after the guy with a sound of guttural rage and actually managed to wrest the gun away from him.
It should have been good. Gideon had fought all three of them off, and now he had a gun.
But there weren’t just three Albanians in this house. A fourth man came from behind Gideon, coming into the room before I even realized he was there, and hit him hard on the head with the butt of another gun.
Gideon grunted and went down. He hadn’t even had the chance to turn the gun around and use it.
He wasn’t knocked unconscious though, and the third man—the one I’d hit with the heel of my boot—grabbed Gideon’s arm and twisted it around his back.
I heard the sound of bone cracking. It was the most sickening thing I ever heard in my life. My stomach almost heaved as Gideon roared from the pain.
A man from outside the door snapped out a terse comment. Maybe a reminder that he wasn’t supposed to be killed. It got a reaction because the third man let Gideon’s arm go.
Gideon wasn’t done yet. He was trying to straighten himself up when the fourth man kicked him hard in the gut.
He released a choked huff and went down to the floor.
The man kicked him again. On the third kick I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I threw myself at him in a mindless attempt to tackle him.
Or something. Anything to keep him from kicking Gideon anymore.
I’m in decent shape but not very tall, and there was no way my physical strength could accomplish anything. The third one grabbed me from behind and held me helpless.
I struggled futilely for a minute, but all it did was make the man holding me laugh.
He laughed.
Gideon wasn’t getting up.
And it was happening. The nightmare was happening. The thing I was supposed to be saved from. The thing so many stories taught me would be stopped at the very last second.
There was nothing to stop it now. I looked back at Gideon as the man dragged me out of the room. He wasn’t moving.
It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t the way I’d always understood the world to work.
There was something brutally wrong with it.
That this good, strong man couldn’t protect me.
That he’d given everything he had. There was blood all over his face.
I’d heard his bone crack. And it hadn’t been enough.
Somehow it made it even worse.
Despite what Gideon told me, I fought at first. I couldn’t help it. When they tear off your clothes, when they bend you over a table, every bone-deep instinct in your body will tell you to resist.
It started with the third man. The one who I’d jabbed with my heel. He was angry, and he took it out on me. But Gideon was right. I could tell he got off on my resistance, so I made myself go limp.