She’s been the strongest out of all of us. Telling us to keep going. Making sure we eat the pig piss they give us. Reminding us that one meal at a time is what we need to do to get through this. I should question this. Should be worried that she seems almost at home in this place. Like nothing fazes her when she was such a shy, jumpy type at home. But I don’t. And you want to know why? ’Cause I don’t care. I don’t care if she had issues before like this or is just a better person than me. I don’t care what she had in her past to give her the strength now. I’m just grateful for it.
If I were taken without Nat, things would be different. And I don’t know if I would be here, wherever here is, or for how long I’ve been here if it weren’t for her.
“Hey.” Ava’s voice is weak. Weaker than usual. I hear her sniff, and then she’s crying. “He called me Duch… Duchess.” She stumbles over her words as she cries harder. I can only imagine what Nat is seeing. I’ve looked over before and seen her cry. She gets to the corner where we can see her more times than not. It’s her way of making sure she’s always in view when we look over.
She’ll be clutching her knees, crying into them as she holds herself as close together as possible. They took her clothes a while ago. She doesn’t have any to cover herself with. Once in a while, they come in and pour water on her. Freezing water, from the sound of it. But I guess they’d rather keep her clean that way than provide her with a stitch of clothing.
Easier to fuck her if nothing’s in the way.
I swallow the vomit that rises at the thought. Not that I have much in my stomach to come up. It’s been a few days since we last ate, I think.
I hear the door open on the other side of the wall and freeze, holding Nat so she doesn’t move an inch to draw their eye.
I scream with Nat at the sound of a shot and wobble, forcing her to tumble down. She falls hard, and I look at her, but she’s shaking her head.
“They killed her. They shot her.”
Oh my God.
I start to hyperventilate. They just killed Ava. For nothing. Nothing!
When our door starts to open, I panic. I shift back to the far corner of the room, just like Nat. Two guys come in, one moving toward each of us.
I scream. I kick. I hit. I cry. I do everything. My fingers try to grip the concrete as I’m dragged from the room. I feel my skin tear at the nail as I go, but the pain is nothing compared to what I think will happen to me.
Nat is screaming too. Fighting. I see her kick the other guy in the head so hard he stumbles. She stands and runs for the door. I don’t give a fuck that she’s leaving me. I just want her out. I want someone to get out. To get help. To get freedom. Anything but this.
I see more than hear when she gets punched in the face with a gunand falls back into the room as a third person steps in.
I still.
No one has brought a gun close to us before. Was he the one who shot Ava? Will he shoot us next?
He looks around, and I’m so transfixed on his gun that I’m compliant enough for the guy who was dragging me to grab my hands behind my back and lift me till I’m standing.
Gun guy looks at Nat on the ground, me, then his other man, who’s moaning and groaning and holding his head. He shakes his own before he shoots him in the forehead. I squeak at the brutality of it, and fear racks my core.
He just shot his own man. His own man! We’re nothing to them, and he shot his own guy.
I want to go home. I want this all to be a dream. I don’t want to be brave anymore. I want to be free. I want Kooper.
I’m shaking from crying, but I keep my mouth closed to keep the sobs out of the predators’ ears and hopefully draw less attention.
I’m broken. They broke me. They didn’t even have to do anything, and I’m broken.
God, I’m so pathetic. All this talk about me being tough. About being able to be good enough like a man to take on the club, and I crumble at this. Being kidnapped. Taken hostage. Treated worse than any animal and forced to listen to someone I’ve come to know as a friend get raped repeatedly. To hear and watch people die.
If a man can handle this and not be affected, then he can have it. He can keep his boy clubs and exclusive shit. I’m done with wanting to be in thein crowd. I just want to be out of here.
The guy with the gun backs up and out the doorway. Another appears, and any hope that we might be dealing with just a few assholes is very slim from the number of people who seem to be down here.
The new guy picks up Nat, who still hasn’t moved since she got hit in the face with the gun and fell back on her head, hitting it hard enough that it bounced. I hope she’s alive, but if she isn’t, maybe she got lucky.
Because as they take us down the hall, her one way, me another, I know that whatever luck I had has run its course. It’s just me now. On my own.
I swallow my fear. I have to. I have no one left. And I’m not going to meet my mom with tears in my eyes. If I go out, I’m going out like the warrior woman she taught me to be.
I steel my nerves and remember what Nat said about surviving and needing to just get through one meal at a time. One deed at a time. If I die, I die or… well. But I’ll do it without letting these bastards see me cry. They’ve seen it enough already. The only tears I’ll cry from now on are tears of joy. Of finding peace. Of coming home.
