“Knock it off,” he chided, having seen something stormy in the gaze that I kept locked on Xavier. I inhaled and exhaled through my nose and continued to stare at Xavier, undaunted.
“Jesus, you should see your face right now; it’s legendary,” Xavier sneered, pulling his phone out of his pants pocket. “Smile, man.”
As he aimed it at me, the memories came flooding back.
It was cold, so cold, and I was shivering.
The blinding flash of a camera hit my face. I raised an arm to protect my eyes, but it was too bright.
All around me, however, there was total darkness. Kimberly sat on a wooden chair and watched me with a characteristically wicked grin on her angelic face.
Yeah, she had the look of an angel, and she used it to hide the cruel demon underneath.
“Stop blocking your face,” she scolded me irritably. I was too ashamed to obey her and instead tried to cover the place between my legs with my other hand.
I was completely nude.
“Neil!” she snapped in annoyance, but I couldn’t listen to her. I was in a state of complete shock. The only thing I could feel was the rapid beating of my heart. The only thing I could see was the pallor of my hands and the way my fingers trembled.
We weren’t alone, though. Someone else was there with us.
The sobs of the little girl beside me rebounded off the walls. She was naked as well, and she kept trying to cover her bare, undeveloped chest with one slender forearm. Her intensely black hair fell in soft waves over her shoulders.
Ignoring our misery, Kimberly ordered me to listen to her, to do to that little girl everything she’d taught me. The little girl was crying, though, and trembling at the harsh voice of our tormentor, who continued to bark orders that neither of us obeyed.
We were stunned, terrified victims of something too big to understand. That camera in front of us was going to be the end for both of us.
More monsters would watch us, our dignity crushed underfoot, drained away by that lens.
But then it all went sideways.
Someone burst into that dark place.
Several men battered down the door, and chaos ensued. I instinctively fled the awful scene, and the little girl followed me. Together, we hid behind a beat-up old sofa. I huddled on the floor, knees tight against my chest. Still naked and terrified, I covered my ears with my hands and squeezed my eyes shut.
Dad said crying was for sissies, so I gritted my teeth and rocked back and forth, singing under my breath so I couldn’t hear the noises that surrounded me.
I sang “Imagine” by John Lennon, my mother’s favorite song. It was just a simple, familiar tune… But it managed to drown out the sound of Kim’s yelling.
I wasn’t aware of anything; all I felt was a fusillade of blows reverberating up my arms, my two fists like balls of fire. I felt Xavier’s body under mine, my arm continuously winding up to hit him over and over again in the very same place. I could hear screaming behind my back, saw his dark eyes roll back into his head and his split lips falling open, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I ground my teeth and kept hitting him, again and again. With every blow, my body was electrified with more negative energy—energy that had to be released.
It felt liberating, and I liked it.
“Never do that again, you son of a bitch!” I shouted into his face, grabbing his jacket in my hands, which were still crawling with pins and needles.
“Never again, you hear me?” I exploded furiously before letting him slump back down to the ground, where I continued to beat him. Xavier had unwittingly brought a hidden, unbearable part of my past to the surface.
Because there was more to Kim’s abuse of me.
She hadn’t just been looking for carnal pleasure, the fruit of a diseased mind. She had a purpose.
A goal.
A job.
Kim was part of a larger organization. She was preparing me for more,and if she hadn’t gotten busted that day, I never would have been able to stop it.
I wouldn’t have been able to save myself or the little girl along with me.
