Gemma rips the shorts out of his mouth so viciously that he gags. “Beg,” she says to him
He groans, his head hitting the console. “The hell did you do to me?” he asks. “I can’t feel my fucking legs—”
“Neither could I,” I say.
Gemma’s head twists my way as if she didn’t expect me. Trevor’s lips snap shut, his chest heaving, nostrils flaring.
The words were barely audible for the dryness in my mouth. I clear my throat and sniff back my tears, heartache accelerating as I take a couple of steps forward.
“I couldn’t feel my legs either,” I go on. “I couldn’t feel my arms. I couldn’t feel my hands.”
Trevor doesn’t speak.
“Do you know what I did feel?” I ask him.
He doesn’t answer, and I raise the gun.
My entire body begins to tremble. “Do you know what it’s like to scream, yet no one hears you?” I ask deliberately. “Do you know how it feels to tell someone to stop, and they don’t? No…. Stop… Wait…” I stare at him, my head tilting. I’m in a trance, fixated on every breath he struggles to take.
“Did you think you’d walk in here and finish me?” I ask. “Did you think I’d beg you to stop, or were you hoping for a fight to get off to when you left?”
He spits blood from his mouth onto the floor. “You’re just the bait,” he says, eyes drifting to Gemma. “She’s the one we want.”
“Cute,” Gemma says. She squats in front of him. “And now the bait gets to decide how she wants you to die.”
I shift from foot to foot, eyes fluttering at Gemma’s words, as distant as they seem.
“Whatever made you think you deserved my voice?” I ask him. “What made you think it was okay to hurt me?”
Trevor grinds his teeth, obviously choosing his words. “You’re insignificant,” he says. “A whore who needed to learn her place—”
Gemma fist collides with his cheek.
“Ow—fuck—you bitch!” he exclaims. “What does it matter what I call her? I’ll be dead soon anyway, right?”
What does it matter if I hurt her?
What does it matter—
The same words I said to my mother rip through me.
“It fucking matters,” I spit, tear trickling down my cheek. “It matters because I’m not insignificant. I wassomeone. I didn’t deserve to be assaulted just becauseyouthought no one would care about me after. I didn’t deserve to be raped by the four of you just because I knew how to play drums.Hewas the one who overdosed on that kit. He lost that job through no one’s fault but his own. He thought he deserved women’s bodies just because he was a musician. No one owes anyone their body. You don’t get to just take something that isn’t yours. And you took… you tookme. You snatched my safety away. I shouldn’t have to look over my shoulder to go to the fucking bathroom like I do now.”
Trevor stares blankly. I’d rather him look angry or sad—anythingexcept indifferent.
“Tell me you regret it,” I demand.
His jaw tenses again, gaze moving to the window. I watch his throat bob, and when he looks at me again, there’s a glassiness in his eyes.
“Yeah,” he says, voice sticking. “I regret that I didn’t finish this the other night, so I’d have my money. I regret letting my friends get their dicks inside of you first. I wish I’d come more over your tits than I did. I wish I’d choked you. I wish I’d videoed how much of a fucking pathetic slut you—”
Crack.
Trevor’s words die mid-sentence, his life evaporating with it.
Gemma is standing halfway behind him. She’s taking her hands off of his now drooping head—his neck snapped.
It’s over within a blink.
