Lennon nodded at me, her eyes round and large on her face.
“Second rule, don’t let them get you on the floor. Once you’re on the floor, you’re more vulnerable and at a disadvantage. It’s harder to get back up once you’re down. Not impossible, but harder.” I sighed. “Okay. One more thing, then we’re done. Lie down.” Lennon mopped some sweat off her forehead with the bottom of her tank, giving the room a peek at her belly. Lying on the floor, she looked up at me, waiting to see what I’d do. This was going to be a sensitive one, and I prayed to Bob that Lennon would be okay with it.
I kneeled over Lennon, settling my body between her thighs and letting the weight of my body pin her to the floor. Slowly, keeping eye contact with her, I encircled her wrists with my hands and pinned them to the floor on either side of her head. She nodded at me to show she was okay and understood what I was doing.
“Let’s say rules number one and two have gone right out the window. Some bad shit went down, and now you’re pinned to the floor with some asshole trying to take what isn’t his. What do you do?”
Lennon lifted her hips in response in an attempt to buck me off, but she couldn’t. She pulled on her wrists, squirmed, and threw her head forward in an attempt to headbutt me. None of her efforts got her free of my hold. By now, Lennon was breathing heavily, her eyes were glassy with unshed tears, and she jerked as if struck when a harsh voice ripped through the now silent gym.
“Enough, Girl!”
Lennon and I both looked over to a livid Bones, who was being held back by Priest and Cricket. All three men had stopped what they were doing and were watching this object lesson play out on the floor.
“Is it enough, Lennon? Say the word, and I’ll stop. I don’t want you to ever be in this situation for real, but Idowant you to know you’re strong and capable enough to handle it, if it does come.”
Lennon clenched and unclenched her fists. “Show me.” So I did.
Lennon and I swapped places, me prone on the mats, her above me holding me down. I closed my eyes, breathing through the old sense of panic and helplessness that tried to burst through my cracks and out of my chest.
“Rule three of not dying? Pockets. You should never leave home unarmed; I always have a blade on me. Always. Stash one in your boot, jeans pocket, hoodie pocket, whatever. Don’t rely on a purse because those are easy to lose. Fashion isn’t as important as survival, so always go for the option with pockets. For our demonstration, let’s say I don’t have pockets. No weapons. I’m on the floor and vulnerable.”
I swallowed down the bile that was doing its best to creep up my throat. “I’ve tried to move my arms, and I can’t. They’re being held down. I’ve bucked my hips and writhed to get him off me, and I can’t.” I moved, trying to dislodge Lennon, showing her my struggle. “He tells me to keep squirming, and he likes it when I fight. He fumbles with his zipper while his buddies hold my arms down. They’re talking about the disgusting things they want to do to me like I’m not even there. But I am! I’m a person, and I’m there, and I’m stuck. I manage to knee him when he pulls back to rip my shorts off, which earns me a slap to the face. What should I do?” Lennon looked down at me, shock and pity written all over her face. I heard the bang of the door against the wall.
I guess our audience wasn’t enjoying the show anymore. Bummer.
“Lennon, what do I do? Screaming, fighting, crying, pleading…none of it worked, and I’m stuck. No one is going to help me. I am unarmed, unable to run, so what do I do? How do I win?”
Lennon shook her head. “I…I don’t know…”
“I let go. I stop moving, stop struggling. I let them think I’ve given up. He’s panting on top of me, his disgusting breath in my face, thinking he’s broken me. In a way, he has. I know the hard truth. Sometimes, no matter how careful you are, no matter how cautious or prepared... sometimes there is no escape. There’s no stopping the bad thing. I don’t deserve it. I didn’t do anything to make it happen. I wasn’t asking for it,but I know there’s no escape for me now. He thinks I’ve given in and accepted my rape, but that’s not what I’ve realized is inevitable. I accepted that if there is no escape and I’m probably going to die…or wish that I had, then I’m taking him down with me.”
Lennon shifted a bit on top of me, but I continued in the hope that she’d learn from my experiences. “He leans down over me to line himself up, and that’s when I strike. I lunge at his neck and bite, taking as big of a mouthful as I can. I bite him as savagely as I can. He starts screaming, and his friends release my hands, trying to pull me off him and save their shitty excuse of a pal. Now I’m the one who won’t let go, who won’t listen to pleas to stop. I wrap my legs around his waist and clutch at him like a koala as my teeth sink even deeper and blood rushes into my mouth and all down my chest. I clench as hard as I can before ripping my face away and taking as much flesh from him as I can. He looks so shocked, so surprised, that I took from him instead of him taking from me. His expression makes me laugh. It’s sostupid, as he bleeds out. I spit a chunk of him onto the floor, not wanting a single bit of him inside me. I can tell his friends want to kill me, but they can’t. I can be hurt, tortured, battered, and bruised, but only one man is allowed to kill me, and he’s not present. They drag their friend out to get him help, leaving me alone in my cell again.”
Jerking her hands off of me, Lennon scrambled off me so I could sit up. “That actually happened to you? Oh my God, I’mso sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to train me if it was gonna bring up bad memories for you…”
“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “No, Lennon, I’m okay. I didn’t share that with you to make you sad. I told you so you’d see I’m still here. I survived, and if I can help someone else survive something like this, I want to. I need to. That night…let’s just say I’ve survived much worse. They thought they could scare me, but in the end, they were the scared ones. They learned that I wasn’t afraid of dying and that I’d gladly self-destruct if it meant taking them with me. So, Lennon, if you’re ever in a similar situation…if you’re ever trapped with no options, what do you do?”
Something dark flittered through her eyes, and her mouth became pinched as she studied me. She raised her chin a bit and said, “Whatever I have to.”
“Exactly.”
Done for the day and sensing I needed some space, Lennon left. I stayed on the mat for a few more minutes, breathing in the solitude and reminding myself that I wasn’t in the basement anymore. Taking a deep breath in through my nose, I rose from the mats and walked over to one of the full-length mirrors on the wall. Standing there, faced with my reflection and the scars I'd learned I’d never be able to erase, I exhaled and let the memories wash over me. All of the nightmares I kept locked in the crawlspace of my mind slithered and slunk and invaded my reality.
I felt them on my skin…all of it haunted me. My ghosts. When I let them out, the memories tainted what I saw in the mirror. I didn’t wantthatto be me. I didn’t want to see them,him, anymore. I wanted to see me, my face—who I was, but Icouldn’tbecause my ghosts twisted and blurred everything together. I looked lost and faceless now that the ghouls had come out and stolen the rest of what made me,me. I only had a precious little bit of me left, and they couldn’t fucking have it.
My fist flew forward, punching mirror-me and her cannibalistic phantoms right in the face. The glass spiderwebbed out, making my reflection distorted and fractured. I breathed a sigh of relief. Fractured…I could work with. Fractured was me. I looked at my hand, bloody knuckles dripping onto the floor. Eyeing my fist and broken reflection, I knew what it needed to turn my frown upside-down. Using the forefinger on my uninjured hand, I dipped the tip of my finger into my blood and painted a smile on the face in the mirror. There. That was better. I turned and walked out of the gym, never noticing the silent presence of Priest in the corner, keeping vigil as I fought my phantoms and won.
Chapter 9
The Girl
“Hey, Girl…you busy today?” Lennon asked, knowing full well I wasn’t doing anything. My routine and the club’s Netflix account sustained me right now, and my only trip into Sagebrush had been to check on Sheila. I had been a guest of Los Cuervos MC for weeks, and to my immense shock, I had started to settle in. As a rule, I didn’t settle. I stayed somewhere until the urge struck, and then I left. I wasn’t sure if the “urge” was instinct to keep me one step ahead of Uncle Roark or if I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I knew it wasn’t in the space I occupied. Every time I felt like it was time to move on, I did. The longest I probably stayed in one place since I ran from the Callahan family was in Chicago. Inevitably, the urge did strike, and I continued my nomadic journey westward. I reminded Duke at the weekly “family dinners” the MC hosted, and I nagged Bones daily that I had places to be, but if I was going to be honest, I didn’t feel an overwhelming need to leave anymore. I kind of liked it here. Weird.
“I’m free as a bird. Why?”
“I was hoping you’d help me with some homework?”
Quirking my eyebrow, I snarked, “What do you need me to do? I like you, but I don’t ‘help you with Algebra’ like you. We’d have to be married for me to do math for you.” I shuddered. I hated fucking math.
